@Rye how is that little swarm doing?
@eva thanks for asking. Since then my 8 frame swarmed. I as able to catch them and place them with this small swarm in a large 10 frame. I think the introduction went well as this small swarm was given a frame of brood from the 8 frame for about two weeks to work on. We sprinkled them with powdered sugar and all went well. I think I saw one bee fight but no dead bees. We have since checked on this hive and saw the queen and they had at the time built out all but two of the 10 frames. I think when we open it again this weekend we will probably have to add the second brood box. Then we are thinking of buying the Hybrid flow. We like the idea of having comb as we LOVE it.
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another good option is to have a full flow super- and an ideal/shallow/half box on top of that just for comb. With shallow frames using the wood guide sticks to create 100% natural comb is quite easy. You can put that box on early in spring and hopefully get 1 box of comb honey along with your flow honey. I have several hives set up like that now and they are doing well. Next season I will do it with more. You can then leave the shallow box on over winter as honey stores for the bees.
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Hi Jack,
That is my plan for this summer, except we’re not going to put the medium honey super on until after we’ve harvested the Flow. This is based on two years of using the hybrid Flow.
Hi Rye, after using the hybrid for two years, we purchased a full Flow as we were frustrated that the bees seemed to only work the cutcomb frames.
We’ve been harvesting cutcomb for 12 years, and love it. But, for our season/climate we only were able to harvest two Flow frames last year. That’s why we’re trying the full this year, and we plan to add a honey super after we harvest the Flow frames.
Thank you both… I like the idea of the shallow box and frames for the 10 frame then I can harvest my flow hive then back to the 10 frame for the comb. This saves me $300 + to purchase the flow hybrid.
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that sounds like a good plan. I had similar experience to BeePeeker- I had a hybrid and my bees never filled out the flow frames. I have heard to others who had success with the hybrid but in the end I converted my hybrid to a full flow. with that money you save you could buy a honey press at some stage and press the honey of out of your cut comb off-cuts.
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