I have 2 hives, both recently built from nucs, Standard 8 frame depth full brood chambers as yet without supers. My Flow Hive set of frames is due for delivery mid December. The bees are piling in the honey (Australia) and I will need to put supers on very soon. One of the colonies is quite docile, but the other is very aggressive. Does anybody have any clue as to which hive should be the recipient of the Flow Hive super? Obviously, the aggressive hive is more logical, as it will be much easier to collect that honey, but is there a possibility the aggressive hive will not be as accepting of the Flow frames? There appears to be not conventional wisdom on this issue, so I am interested in the groups input. Thanks. Dulcetbrewer.
I imagine this is more a question of which hive is a better producer. The heavier honey producing hive in conjunction with the flow frames should save you the most work during the season since it will be the easiest to harvest.
But when you factor in the hassle of dealing with a cranky hive that may out weigh the extra work of extracting the honey, so it may be a bigger payoff to put the flow frames on that hive regardless of production.
Simple mathematics, the hive with the most bees and are bringing in the most honey regardless of their temperament. The weight of your hives will tell you which one has the most honey stores, otherwise perform an inspection to make an assessment. But the queen producing the most bees will most likely be the best choice for a super. Make sure 7 out of 8 frames are fully drawn out and covered with bees before placing a super on top.
If this is a suburban backyard and your bees are stinging people, I would suggest you re-queen with a docile strain ASAP. Once a complaint is lodged it can be very difficult to turn your neighbours around to tolerating your bees again.
Thanks for that guys, but these are brand new hives, with no history. Both appear to have about the same level of activity in the 3 weeks since the nucs were transferred to the full boxes. My question was more related to the ability of the different colonies to accept the Flow frames. My property is large enough for the aggressive hive to be tolerated, and yes, next year I will re-queen it to try & get a less vicious colony. But I suspect that without a clear indication that it would be better to put Flow frames in a less aggressive hive, I will probably opt for the āleast hassleā one of putting them in the aggressive hive.
Unfortunately the more aggressive bees are known to bring in more stores. Then that is a good thing if you donāt want to disturb the aggressive beet as much.
I must say my more protective Queen is the better at bringing in the stores
Thanks Valli. Yes I had a feeling that might be the case, but I guess itās probably going to be a learning curve with the Flow frames.
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I can speak from experience on this one that my quietest bees are the most productive, the aggressive bees spent more time being defensive of the hive and less time being productive and out foraging and in doing so they consumed more honey. I have just completed re-queening these hives (3 of them) to a more docile/productive strain.
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Yes, I agree
Also you do need to look into the brood box and aggressive bees are horrid to work.
The colony needs a new gentle queen.
You have to consider the nasty drones you are flooding the area with and ruining some other beekeepers hard queen rearing work.
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Fortunately my Queen is not Aggressive - but she does bring in more stores
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In my opinion, aggressive bees rob more which makes them APPEAR to be more productive. Iād put the flow frames on the aggressive hive. That way you donāt have to upset them as much when harvesting.
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I had one super aggressive colony that didnāt produce much honey. I put that down to the fact I couldnāt get into the brood to sort things out to get the population up. I sorted that out the other day. As far as the question goes, Iād put it on the hive thatās producing the most honey.