Using flow frames without an excluder?

Yes IMHO you should do exactly this. Enjoy the honey in your super and let the bees have only the Flow Super to work on. Unless they are ready to swarm right now the empty Flow Super will give them plenty to do without a swarm.
The trick here is patience. They will hang about in the flow frames, pack themselves in like sardines but seemingly be doing nothing but …hang about. Then, at some magical moment, away they will go and start putting the honey in
I went through part of last season without a drop of honey. Then, this nectar flow they got stuck in and filled the Flow super in about 2 weeks and completely capped all 6 frames in 4 weeks.

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