@Dawn_SD@Peter48 Thank you for everything ! I may have a solution… I wrote a email to the President of the school yesterday !..
The spoke to a beekeeper that has the time and tomorrow afternoon at 3,30pm I have to be at the school and “he” I don’t know who he is )…" will show me how to do it… and he will wire mine frames for me…
** Sorry this is probably again a silly QUESTION…
I have 8 spare new frames as I have 2 FH brood boxes…( but the school does not know that because I did not tell them …)
In the school they drive me crazy but I have no choice and I have to do as they say… to be able to have the certificate of the bee course and the permission of the health department to registered the hive and install in my garden so … please be patient with me…I don’t know if I am able to explain this in English but I try… I would have another question for you gentle and helpful people !
1)–OK, I will have this 8 frames wired + wax ( as the schools wants) …And I keep the other 8 new ones for me to use plain without the wax
( when this bladdy course in finish ) !!
2)– AND… in the brood box before I will empty the bees… can I alternate the frames putting one with wax and the other one empty ? Or I make a mess ?
I’ve adapted a new method of dealing with the nay sayers. A harvesting methods is differ from maintaining a bee hive and there are far to many ways to harvest honey to have a strong bias. I respect all methods if the bees aren’t harmed. I got the boot from a huge bee forum after posting a 2 minute video of harvesting using my flow hive.
@Martha I want to see your video ! Posted here so we can see it. I wish I had the time to watch all the video posted on FH forum… I enrolled myself to the FH on line beekeeping course and I only had the time to see the 1° introduction… gosh… I have to many things to do all the time…! have a nice day !
Interesting Martha…the way that I run my bees in beehouses was done well before my time (1960s)…in my area…and I was fortunate to have met this beekeeper. Although I was successfully running bees commercially outside on pallets, I never forgot the “idea” and when my daughter wanted to start her own apiary, I insisted that she use this method…it just had too much upside. My commercial beekeeping acquaintances often referred to him as “fringe thinker”…but I thank him for that…he actually knew much more about the internal workings of a beehive.
So I’m glad you landed on this forum…it’s a group of folk that often are “fringe thinkers”!
I am still surprised at how much negativity there is about the Flow Hive system among bee keepers. They hang on desperately to the stories that bees simply won’t store honey in a plastic cell and the like.
Cheers
There are really 2 questions here. One is about installing a package, and the other is about alternating foundation and foundationless frames. That is if I have understood you correctly.
Package installation. Unless the school is going to help you with installing the package of bees, I suggest that you take a look at this nice set of instructions from Mann Lake. Your package may be a little different, but the concepts might help you quite a lot: Shop Mann Lake | Largest Beekeeping Supplier and Manufacturer
As the instructions show in their photos, when you shake bees from the package into the new hive, you should really leave at least 4 or 5 frames out of the hive, so that there is space for the bees to fall into the box and not spill onto the ground. Once the bees are all in the hive, you can very gently put the remaining frames back in.
Yes is is fine to alternate the frames and actually a very good idea. I would suggest though that you consider a slightly different frame pattern to start with, to save yourself a lot of work with cleaning up crazy comb. If we call the foundationless frames “F” and the wired foundation frames “W”, I would put them in the box in this order: W-F-W-W-W-W-F-W. The box will then have mostly wired frames, which will encourage the bees to build straight. I have found that it really helps to have foundation next to the hive wall, other wise the bees can get very creative with wavy wax patterns in the big space at the edge. The wired foundation also means that the center of the brood nest should be built neatly, reducing the chance of you killing baby bees when you lift out a frame to inspect.
When you add a second brood box, they will have drawn out all of the foundation, and you can put some frames from the old box into the new box to give them a straight structure guide for building. The empty gaps in the old box can then be filled with some of your F-type frames.
@Peter48… FH is not known here!
i wrote to Flo asking how come they don’t have a representative man in Italy that he could show this new F Hive to peoples around expo-
Australia is on the other side of the world for us… 23 hr flight from here and i think is normal that people can’t trust all of what they see advertise on internet-
I also asked if anyone of Flo would be here on the 6-7-8 of March as they have the most important beekeeper Expo in PIACENZA " Apimel " but no one from Flo will be here. Is to bad that they did not get information about important bee expo in different country ! There will be lots of people there. I will go at the Expo with the school to see what they have…
Here no one knows FH…and is to bad.
I saw that she is from Palermo… 1’500 km from me… practically the very southern part of Italy… where they have very warm climate practically all year round… In the summer is so very hot there !
hi @Dawn_SD well thank’s very much for the link. and your important help.
I saw that film a few times… I will see at the school how they deliver a package of bees here …
I will have to pick up my package from the breeder because they do not ship anything… So when is about April they will call me to go down.
The place is about 1,45 hr from my house… so I will make my first big experience with bees…
I am writing all your instruction down in my book so I have them on hand when needed… I also took many advise from @Peter48 that he was so patient with all my questions.
I am happy to know that I can use different frames inside the brood book.
My daughter was looking on internet the area where I live to see what is around here for the bees to eat…, is a large green Hill area but is about 3,5-3.7 km away from my house…( poor bees )
As you know I just moved her a few month ago and with all the restructuring going on the garden has not been taken in consideration yet…still is a real mess outside, !! but money is money… and I can’t not do everything at ones…
The people that lived here before where 2 brothers ( very strange ones )…that did not care at all about cutting grass or doing anything…so is wild outside.
I asked a garden center to come over and see how I could fix it up a little.
For the bees flowers I have a area 1 m x 30 m long that i can plant flowers for them…but needs to be cleaned up as it has everything growing inside…a disaster !
but here still winter and cold… so we have time for that.
Thank you again for the precious help.
@SnowflakeHoney That’s right, Faroe left, sadly. She is no longer living in Palermo though, she is back in Australia. We mix in similar circles so I’ll be sure to say hi from you all if I bump into her!
Faroe left Italy and last I heard from her she was on the Northern Rivers area of NSW but since then she hasn’t been on the forum, she was a huge asset to Flow Hive and the forum.
Cheers Alan
I’ve had bees for 47 years and still in the learning curve as well Martha, Just when I think I have my bees worked out they decide to play a different game with me. It certainly keeps bee keeping interesting.
Cheers
I got the boot from a huge bee forum after posting a 2 minute video of harvesting using my flow hive.
