I think she is less anti-Flow now than she used to be. 
Really? What makes you think that?
She hasnât posted another âreviewâ on her blog since her initial dismissals, or written about the Flow for BeeCraft.
I thought I had read something a bit more âtoned downâ last year. I may be mistaken. I will have to search for it when I have some time - it doesnât come up on her index, I agree. She is largely a comb honey fan, so she probably doesnât have much positive interest in the Flow hive, I agree. 
Do you use any Nestle products? Iâm drinking Nescafe coffee right now. Wilma has a tin of Milo in the pantry.
Do you know about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Itâs a soup of broken down plastic twice the size of Texas, & getting bigger. Iâm not a fan of plastic in beehives, especially for natural beekeeping. From my experience, bees donât like it.
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Nope. We try to stay away from all processed foods, preferring homegrown, local, and organic. We definitely boycott the conventional foods trotted out by the agrochemical industries.
Yes I have heard of the GPGP; another unconscionable consequence of our throw-away society.
I also am not a fan of plastic in beehives, and thatâs just one reason we went foundationless from the start. Weâve been harvesting cut comb honey for 12 years. Weâll do crush and strain for mead making and cooking, but otherwise really enjoy the beauty and ease of comb honey.
We were one of the first 300 supporters to purchase a Flow hive on Indigogo 
; we thought it was such a sweet idea-and family-that we wanted to show our support, even though we didnât really âneedâ it. Since the brood is still in natural comb, it isnât really an issue for me. Even though itâs been a slow start for us, I do not regret our decision, and we are always learning something new.
Are all your 50 hives naturally drawn comb? (Besides your Flow hive?)
Hi WebclanâŚI know you have looked in the hives and seen little pollen. I donât know why that is, but if you havenât looked at them early in the morning, when they first go out to forage, perhaps try looking at them then and see if there is any pollen on them at that time.
OK, so this is what I read:
Burlew, by way of example, says she now thinks about the Flow Hive as simply a costly device for collecting honey
This is the article quoting her, but I canât find her original article with her own wording:
https://www.urban-lightscape.com/1418/flow-hive-interested-in-a-flow-hive-perhaps-then-study-these-flow-beehive-articles-and-reviews/
Then of course, Hilary Kearney was a skeptic, but with all credit due to her, she kept an open mind. She wrote a pretty good article last year:
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My point with RB, is that for someone as vocal as she is in the beekeeping community, I find it a bit odd that she rejects, vehemently, a device for extracting honey (that she has no experience using) and is OK with a beefeed that could wreak all kinds of havoc, especially with the health issues in conventionally farmed chickens, their processing, and blood.
Ugh. It reminds me of the pink slime videos
I wonder if Burlew is on Purinaâs payroll?
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We also eat out of our garden, organically. However after taking a quick look into the pantry I see items from Nestle, Sanitarium, Eta, Leggoâs, Arnotts, Woolworths Select, Master Foods, McKenzies, CSR & Ocean Spray.
Iâm sure that we can dig up dirt on all of these big companies. Woolworths gets a lot of bad press. You must have something in your pantry from a large company. If not - well done!!
I use all wax foundation in my 50 odd hives. I only use foundationless frames in my observation hive. Thatâs for showing people.
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an update on my weak colonies: I inspected them yesterday and they have strengthened (mostly)! I inspected 4 hives and saw three queens- I would have seen four but the 4th hive was queenless⌠For the first time in months I saw good solid patches of capped brood in the 3 queen-right hives. The queenless hive is another story- it swarmed very early in spring and I gave it frames of brood three times over the next few months. the bees did manage to make a queen at one point but I only ever saw very patchy brood. Now there is clearly no queen again- no brood to be seen at all.
I just gave them a superb frame of capped brood with eggs at the edges- so I hope they can make a queen. However I have noticed that none of my hives seem to have any drones at all at the moment? I am hoping some other hive nearby does have drones- otherwise even if my bees manage to make a queen she wonât be able to get mated? I recall last year that my hives still had drones going into winter- so I am hoping that they start making a few drones again soon.
I am wondering if maybe I should consider buying a queen for that hive at this stage?
I see no drones at the moment here either - and havenât for a while. If I were in your position where you can actually buy a queen, I think I would. The hive is weak, there are few drones around, the hive has (probably) few nurse bees and then so much time to wait for a new queen cell to be made, the queen to emerge, mate and for the new brood to emerge etcâŚand even then, sometimes they donât succeed at all with itâŚ
Ha ha- I spoke too soon- looked in the 5th hive- saw 3 drones. Thatâs a good productive hive so hopefully one of those drones gets luckyâŚ
I think weâve just gone though a relative dearth- and I also now think (tentatively) it may just be passing. Last week bees are suddenly bringing in regular loads of pale yellow pollen- I wonder what it is theyâre foundâŚ?
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Hi JackâŚIâm also noticing lots more pollen and I think I know what it is - might be relevant to you. Eucalyptus viminalis (called the White Gum in Tassie but called Manna Gum and Ribbon Gum on the mainland) is flowering around the traps at the moment. That is a common tree on the mainland of Australia and possibly a subspecies of it up your way. It has quite small flowers so it doesnât necessarily stand out at you.
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Hi Jack,
We had a very stubborn hive that wouldnât make a queen early summer due to laying workers. After giving them multiple frames of brood over multiple weeks there were still no queen cells, so we ended up using the hive - dumping method I read about on this forum (as some theorise that laying workers have not orientated yet):
We put a new box where the original hive was with 4 frames of brood, 2 frames of honey & 2 drawn frames in. We then drove the hive about 100m away and shook out all frames.
Within a couple of days there were so many bees back at the hive that I added a second box. They made some lovely queen cells and we now have a very productive and calm colony who are currently drawing out & filling a 3rd box for us 
Iâm planning on splitting some hives when the Marri stops flowering, but I havenât had much luck in the past making queens this late, so not too sure of our chancesâŚ
Cheers,
Julia
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thatâs very interesting Julia,
I read in a few places a hive with laying workers was basically doomed- good on you for saving yours! Itâs odd but my queenless hive has been without a queen for over 6 months- and no sign of laying workers. It did have a queen or two during that period but they never did very well or lasted very long.
Hi Julia, a beek I know did the same last year successfully. Way to go in that situation. You just confirmed itâs what I will do if it ever happens here. Thanks.
I have a weak hive (there is a queen but they do not produce much honey and the brood box is full of cross comb built up on an old cutout⌠I suspect wax moth). If I can catch a swarm into a brood box, place the swarm into the position of the weak hive, take the weak hive 10 metres away and shake out all the bees: do you think the workers from the weak hive will join the swarm and new queen?
I know the question is directed at Jack but for what itâs worth, I would suspect the dumped out bees will stay with their weak queen. What about pinching the weak queen then combining the swarm with the now queenless hive using the newspaper method? Basically covering the open brood box of the weak hive with a sheet of newspaper, placing the box with the new swarm colony above it and allowing them to merge as they get used to one anotherâs scent and chew through the newspaper. I have merged colonies this way with success. This method is covered by other posts on the forum as well as beekeeping sites on the internet if you want to read more about it.
Editing, now i re-read your post. You may wish to refresh combs as well since they are cross combed and you suspect other damage. Since the swarm colony may be small as well, perhaps consider combining only the best of the frames from your current colony and separate the two colonies in the one box using a large paper bag around the frame in the middle. I made one once out of newspaper that I put one frame into and placed it between the two small colonies. It worked for me but I donât know all the details of your situation.
exactly 17 days after I added that frame of brood- I checked and found the remains of 3 or 4 torn down queen cells. By my calculation- the queens must have emerged on that very day (yesterday) if the larvae were no older than 3 or 4 days? Hopefully one gets mated.
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