Strategy For Maintaining Only One brood box and Flow Super per Hive

Andrew…

I am starting back into beekeeping after 55 years away. Guess I lunged at the opportunity drawing me from my teen years n strength n what was the normals back in the 1950’s n 1960’s. I ran double deep 10 framers back then.

Hmm. Last fall I headed for a local supplier near me ( About 30 miles round trip n bought a full setup as an example n pattern. During the winter I constructed n assembled for a total of four full set up. With 3 Nuc’s coming three will be used immediately sometime mid April.

What I forgot is I am not a Spring chicken anymore but a very old retiring rooster :blush:. Lunging 80 pound hive bodies might not be as easy or fun at my age but thus it will have to be until I can drawback n slowly move toward 8 frame hive bodies n maybe mediums. Have see after I get a season under my belt.

Forward n onward,
Gerald.

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@Chet_Calhoun I can’t see the problem - other people (without Flow Hives) have to add more supers because they are not able to tap off the honey when the frames are full - potentially you could run one or 2 Flow frames and still tap off as required and still only have the one super - some Beeks are considering 2 Brood boxes but they are the same size as the normal brood boxes so all you really need is 1 Full Flow Hive and an additional Brood Box if you want or just the Frame box or Frames only (depending on what you bought.

So you just need 1 Full beehive consisting of 1 or 2 Brood boxes and the Flow Super (which is another Brood box)

Hi Chet, it IS a balancing act. I only run one brood box with my hives. In using one brood box, I’m constantly weakening out the brood to prevent swarming.

The upside is: I only have one brood box to worry about.
I’m able to use the brood to strengthen weaker colonies.
I’m able to make new colonies to sell.

I see no problem with one brood box in a cold climate. The bees will have no worries negotiating a queen excluder in order to bring food down to the brood during colder months.

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you only get one Back Gerald… look after it :slight_smile:

Hi Dawn… I’m also in San Diego (east-Poway/west-Ramona). We set up a BeeThinking Top-bar hive on our property in 2011 with a captured swarm that is still doing well.

We’re now intrigued with the Flow Hive and have pre-ordered a Flow Hive 2 which will ship in August. We ordered the kit with 1 brood box and 1 Flow super. We won’t be taking much honey, just a little for ourselves… one or two frames a year at most. Do you think we’ll be okay with one brood box? What has been your experience? Thanks!

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Hi @Niomi, we are in Point Loma. The majority of people (including Hilary Kearney) that I have spoken with in the San Diego Beekeeping Society say double deeps or 3 mediums for brood in a Langstroth hive. The reason is that they need at least 40lb of honey stores to get through some of the prolonged nectar dearths that we get in drought years. Having said that, some of our local commercial guys manage with single brood, but are willing to feed very actively when needed.

I prefer not to feed anything artificial unless absolutely necessary, so we have double deeps on our Flow hives. If you are willing to leave the Flow super on over winter, you may be OK. I don’t like to do that for a couple of reasons:

  1. My bees are masters of propolis, and they go crazy with it in the Fall. I don’t want propolis in the Flow mechanism, so I like to take it off by August.
  2. If I need to feed in winter, I don’t want syrup in my harvesting super. I prefer to just take it off.

We love our Flow hive and got around 35lb of honey from our strongest hive last year. Probably won’t be as much this year, given the dry winter. My husband says he doesn’t want to harvest honey any other way in future. :blush: We do also have a traditional Langstroth hive in a Community Garden, so I guess I will be the one extracting from that! :wink:

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Thanks very much, Dawn, for sharing your experience… much appreciated!

I also consulted with Hilary by email about her experience. She said: “A second brood box gives more flexibility for swarm control, but one alone will probably work. Propolis in the Flow super has not been an issue.”

My husband and I are not concerned about natural swarming, as we try to allow the bees to follow their own natural rhythms. We have approached TBH beekeeping with minimal inspections and the hive has thrived very well. So we’re going to take the same approach with our Flow Hive 2. We’ve found bees to be pretty smart and don’t need a lot of interference from us. We appreciate the pollination services the bees provide, and only want to rob them of a small amount of honey for our own use.

So we’ve decided to set up our Flow Hive 2 for 2019 with one brood box and will add the super once the brood has built out and leave the super in place all year. In 2020, if we feel the need, we can add a second brood box at the bottom of the stack as Hilary suggests in her Flow blog article: It’s Flow time! Setting Up and Preparing for Spring.

Allowing bees to swarm is fine as long as you have no neighbors.

Recently an irate neighbor of a flow hiver phoned me to offer me a small swarm that moved into his stag horn. That was the third swarm that moved into his yard. One of them set up residence in his wall cavity. He finished up fumigating them with a roach bomb. He was “NOT HAPPY, JAN”.

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I have to worry about that in Point Loma. If our bees swarmed, our neighbors would throw attorneys and the City at us until we shut down. They are already blaming us for every bee sting in the neighborhood, so we are walking a very fine line here. :thinking:

It is hard to answer you with anything definite as you have not given your location and this forum is world wide so what applies as good practice in the cold of Alaska or Canada would be bad practice in a tropical climate or sub-tropical climate. May I suggest you go back into your profile and fill it out fully, we are only too happy to give advise when you help us to help you.
Regards

Chet dropped off the forum a while ago, as far as activity is concerned. He has family who are keeping bees too, so hopefully all is well. :blush:

Hi Niomi, you should worry about allowing natural swarming of your bees, it won’t take long for neighbors to blame you for everything and anything to do with bees and that is not good for anyone. In bee keeping it is easy to follow best practice and would it not be better to do splits to control swarming and to sell off the extra hives for a profit and have friendly neighbors. Not everyone enjoys bees.
That might sound a bit harsh but it is reality.
Welcome to the forum, you will find lots of friendly helpful people here.
Regards

Fortunately for us, we live in a very rural part of San Diego County on 3+ acres, with NO close neighbors concerned about swarming bees. We have lots of wildlife and open space… Nothing like the high density where Dawn is located in Point Loma.

That sounds good but you still should apply best practice. 3 acres is not a lot of area when you consider a bee can fly up to 5 miles to forage from your hive and they will not stay in your property. Swarm control is a part of best practice and is easy to apply.
What will you do when your bees swarm and are located at a neighbors home under the eves for example? A swarmed hive is a weakened hive - an invitation for robbing from other bees. There is lots to consider if you decide to do nothing, including legal implications…

I hear your concerns… And personally I would think twice before keeping bees in a high density neighborhood, just because of all the safety and liability concerns…

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Since availability of the FH2 Cedar Brood Boxes is limited, we decided to go ahead and place an order for a second brood box now and have it on hand. We’ll fill the first brood box before adding the second box. And then fill the second box before adding the Flow super. That will also give us the option of removing the Flow super over winter if we want. Thanks, Dawn, for all your helpful advise!

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FINAL UPDATE:
We like our BeeThinking top-bar hive. And although we want to try the Flow frames, we weren’t really looking for a vertical hive for a second hive. So we cancelled the entire Flow Hive 2 order, and have decided to build a horizontal Flow hive to accommodate six Flow frames (three at each end of the hive) and 18 brood frames between them. Something like John Wilton’s horizontal Flow hive pictured at: https://forum.honeyflow.com/t/way-to-go-horizontal-flow-hive/12967
HorizontalFlowHive1

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Hi Dawn,
I had a quick question regarding the use of 2 brood boxes here in San Diego; does the queen excluder go in between the brood boxes and the honey super? or does it go between the 2 brood boxes? I guess I am wondering if the second brood box is intended solely for honey stores for the bees or if they should be able to lay brood in there too.
Thanks!

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Always above the brood and below the honey super. :wink:

Excellent! Thank you so much! :grin:

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