Well I was trying to quietly nudge that one through the slips Peter. 
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Bet you will get some mutant big buggers on the āBIGā fence at the border.
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Donāt give thešany ideas, please Wilfred!
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They can keep their pests and diseases on the other side of the Nullabor Greg.
RAW NERVE ALERTā¦
Western Australia voted a resounding NO to joining the Federation. The British capitulated to the cries of the greedy EAST and for 118 years the East has been stealing first our gold and ever since our money. If it wasnāt for our wealth the Federation would have gone bust in a decadeā¦ Many sandgropers would vote in an instant to raise the rabbit-proof fence an extra couple of metres to keep the East well and truly separate from the West. 
Too late for the cane toads they crossed over the top alreadyā¦ luckily they are struggling to get south through the dry tropical deserts.
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Jokes aside there can be only one solutionā¦
Build a wall.
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@SouthEastScarp It is only fare that we share both the good and the bad that we have over here with you. I love your Trump āthinkingā as well as 19th century logic. Every state that has something that is worth stealing has suffered at the hands of the federal government. It is called theft by stealth.
We would be only too happy to send you Kiwiās and cane toads to add to your wildlife. 
Cheers guys
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We already have the KIWIs Peterā¦ They have been our labour source for decades. Like salmon may of them return to their birthplace to spornā¦
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Sooooā¦ forgot to put the corflute slider back in the bottom of the hive last week. (It had been taken in for washing, distractions, nine year oldā¦)
And with just the screen bottom, no slider, suddenly much less bearding.
And bees on the dang screen. From the outside. Leave it as is? Smoke the bees away? Suggestions?
Hive debris is dropping to the ground under the hive.
That is why i like slatted racks like this one:
They give āhang outā and cooling space to the bees, without opening the bottom screen to pests.
I donāt remember, do you have a Flow hive 1 or 2? The Classic (Flow hive 1) had faulty mesh which could allow bees through it. It is a way for robbers to get in, so on my Flow hive classic, I always leave the slider in the upper slot.
Either way, I would put the slider back in very, very slowlyā¦ You will hear a lot of buzzing protest, but it is better in than out in the long term. 
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I, err, ahem, donāt actually have a flow hive. I started poking around here because I was flow hive curious. (Still am, but decided Iād go standard hive at least at the start, see how it went).
Standard screened bottom board thing.
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We still love you. Well, I do anyhow. Smart to go with a standard hive first, then you have an idea of how it used to be. If it is a standard SBB, it will be #8 mesh, and unlikely to let bees through. However, small SHB could still get in that way, so I would be inclined to put the slider back in. Just do it slowly, as I mentioned above.
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I have to admit, Iām a little jealous of the simplicity (?) of getting honey out of the flow hives. But it seemed like it would just be one more dang thing to figure out during year one.
And we robbed two frames today, and it wasnāt bad at all. We just got done hosing off our (cheap, Chinese) two frame extractor, and we got about 9 cups (over 2 liters) of honey out of two frames. Extracting wasnāt bad at all.
(I expect rendering the beeswax Iāve been saving up in my freezer to be more of a PITA)
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And honestlyā¦ one of my concerns is thisā¦ these boxes are HEAVY. Iām a little concerned about pulling the whole flow frame apparatus off to do inspectionsā¦
I canāt lift it when full, either. About 25lb is my limit, and an 8 frame (6 Flow frame) super can easily weigh 45lb. So what I do is place an empty deep box next to the hive I am inspecting. The box is on top of an inner cover (stops ants and robbers from underneath). Then I lift the frames out of the hive one at a time and put them in order into the empty box.
When the hive box is empty, I put it on top of the ones I just inspected, and put inspected frames from the next layer down into it. I continue that way until everything has been seen, then I reverse the order to put the hive back together. It might take me 5 minutes longer than lifting boxes, but my back thanks me for it. 
Works for me. Think about whether it is worth a try!
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I am (rapidly) figuring out I need more boxes. Maybe many more. Weāre thinking two hives next year (maybe with a flow super on one of them), so we will need the stuff. Plus extra for, well, whatever.
I live in the suburbs, I suspect maximum carrying capacity of my yard is maybe 3ā¦
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Ideally I love to have twice as much as I think I need. However, due to practicality and spousal considerations, I normally settle for 50% more. We needed all of it this year, and I am currently negotiating to buy moreā¦
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@Dawn_SD It is amazing how much spare gear we can justify having, iām thinking frames wired with foundation, spare boxes, base boards and lids mainly. My apiary is constantly increasing with the number of hives I have. It was only 6 months ago I had something or other stored in every spare space in my home but now everything is in use and today bought more ā but hey, it is just an interest and a hobby.
That said we should have enough equipment to cover adding a super or doing a split as a minimum.
Cheers, Peter
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@Dawn_SD I very much in favor of the first hive being a Langstroth rather than a Flow Hive. My thinking is that way you get a better overall grounding for bee keeping. I now have four Flow Hives in my apiary, as an experiment and to get first hand knowledge about them, and they are a learning curve as to get the best from them.
That said I still enjoy decapping and extracting frames in my kitchen, I just wish I had a bigger kitchen.
Cheers, Peter
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Hi Julie, when you say āwe robbed two frames today, and it wasnāt bad at allā. Thatās good to hear, seeing as itās your first time. The next time will get even better & so on.
We have flow frames, but we found harvesting the honey from them to be more challenging (flooding issues), consequently they are sitting on top of a cupboard.
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Jeff, I watched a million YouTube videos and just went for it with a heat gun and dirt cheap hand crank extractor. I donāt have flow frames. Two regular foundation frames took about ten minutes to extract, left the extractor draining for 30 minutes, maybe five minutes of cleanup. At my scale, I can live with that.
I like the idea of the flow frames. And I may give them a try yet. But it just seemed like a bridge too far while I tried to figure out everything else with the bees.
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