Will the honey still flow as smooth in colder climates?

Hi Skeggley,

All the hives in UK and Spain all have screened bottom boards. I have also reduced the size inside the brood box to fit national frames using blocks of wood last year but sadly didnā€™t work either.

My dad said he done another split a week ago in Spain with this hive trying one more time as we have to stop eventually due to the amount of times we have tried and never had any success.

My dad has another wooden hive and a Poly hive in Spain. Both doing very very well. The brood box for the Flow hive is done the same as the others, same set up etc.

Well I suppose an option is to put the Flow super onto another brood box?

Hi Greig, itā€™s unusual for someone to say that a colony died because of the hive. Normally when a colony dies out, we know the reason. Some examples would be poison, a failed queen, SHB infestation, verroa, too cold, disease or absconding. Did any of these things happen?

A colony dying out is a slow process. As beekeepers we need to monitor the progress of splits to make sure we have a successfully mated queen for starters, then do brood inspections to make sure the brood is healthy & the colony has the ability to build nicely.

If a colony/split starts waning, we as beekeepers can intervene & take steps to correct any problems we find.

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Hi Greig,
None of us are saying your not experienced as a bee keeper. The forum is trying to suggest to you that those of us who have had good results with a Flow Hive is that there has been some well documented issues for the bees to make the transition to a Flow Hive but you are the only one I have read about with constant losses of colonies.
I have now 4 Flow Hives in my apiary and have all given me positive results. I experimented with my first 2 Flow Hives in that I painted on melted bee wax over the Flow Super frames on one box and the other went on untreated. The waxed super was being worked on very quickly, within days, while the untreated super was ignored for over a month till the bees had to use them to store honey. I havenā€™t experienced a set back with any of those hives.
I hope with us trying to figure out why you are having this problem with suggestions of a possible cause is not taken as questioning your experience and knowledge, we are not like that. Your experience is not the normal results and we are trying to figure out the cause.
Regards

Hi Peter, Iā€™m kind of blaming the problems @Greig_McArthur is having on inexperience. Correct me if Iā€™m wrong, but it appears the colonies donā€™t even get to the stage of the flow super. They die at the brood box stage.

This is where we & others can help Greig if he lets us know whatā€™s happening with the splits before they die out. It might just be a co-incidence that none of the splits in the flow super were successful with making a new queen.

The poly hives I have are all national so wouldnā€™t be able to put the flow hive super on as its langstroth.

Over 20 successful splits in the past 4 years but itā€™s only the flow hive brood Iā€™ve only had a problem with. Baring in mind in the UK i have Wooden & Poly Hives. Now in Spain where the flow hive is now we use wooden and poly again, never had an issue with any split apart from the flow hive.

I know it sounds strange, trust me, Iā€™ve been pulling my hair out over it and also my dad whoā€™s been beekeeping for a few years now also.

Only idea I can come up with is the tung oil we used for the hive. Outside only as usual but weā€™ve only gave it one coat when we bough the hive surely this shouldnā€™t be the problem? It was 100& natural etc.

Iā€™m keen to help if you can give us weekly or fortnightly updates on whatā€™s happening with the latest split in that box. If you look at my profile, youā€™ll see that I have only one gifted flow hive with the flow frames not in use. Iā€™m not defending flow persae, Iā€™m able to work with you to find a solution.

Will do Jeff, I speak to my dad daily.

With splits, what I usually do is use 4-5 frames of eggs and brood. After 3 and a half weeks I inspect and maybe add either one or 2 extra frames.

I check again roughly 6/7 weeks after the split for eggs. If no eggs I remove unused or frames without eggs and add more with eggs if Queen never hatched or laid etc. This has always worked well for me.

Do you have any other suggestions to see what could help this hive?

Hey Greig, So bare with me while I think this thru, You are sort of hitting the proverbial brick wall when you are building up the hive at the brood box only stage. The Flow brood box is exactly the same as a Langstroth brood box. I am starting to think the tung oil might be the issue. I assume that is the only brood box having been tung oiled?? Correct me if I am wrong but I am thinking I have it right.
Till now I was thinking the problem only happened when a Flow Super was added.
The hoop pine and cedar have been used for hive making for a very long time so lets cross that off the suspect list,
I have never heard of the frames having an issue with anyone either personally or on the forum except for people who have bought the Chinese crap foundation that has paraffin wax mixed in with bees wax which is an issue easily spotted by its very lighter color and a lick of your tongue will give you a bad taste, like kerosene.
If your foundation is ok then all we are left with is the tung oil, is that logical.?
I can sense this will get a reply from those that have used tung oil with no issues, but please give me some slack on the noose as I am trying to figure out Greigā€™s problem.
So what you have is a hive that kills the bees. What about spending some time and a bit of cash to see if we can change the hive to being usable. Give it a light sanding and paint everywhere you treated with tung oil with a primer paint, another light sanding and hit it again with primer. Leave it 2 weeks then paint it with a reputable white exterior paint with 2 coats and leave it for 2 weeks. Paint the top and bottom edges as well as this is where any rain water accumulates and sits, it is where the timber degrades first.
Put the hive to use and we might have a fix for the issue, A few hours labor and a few bucks of paint and I suspect the problem will be gone, and Iā€™m looking forward to a positive update from you.
While Jeff prefers the convention Langstroth hives and is set up for them he has a great knowledge in bee keeping and is no goose about bee keeping with many years at it.
The way you do your splits is good, I am thinking tung oil fumes.:thinking:
Regards

Yes Peter that is corrected. The hive was oiled around 4 years ago so thought it would of washed away but to me that can be the only problem as I have tried everything I can think of to be honest.

My dad has done the split almost 2 weeks ago, but sadly he doesnā€™t have a spare box/hive to put these into while he tries for this split to work :crossed_fingers:

I did say about painting the hive before he went ahead tooā€¦

If this split doesnā€™t work then that would be the only option left for me. I did buy tung oil that someone listed on this forum from Amazon.

Do you think the oil would have seeped through too much by this stage? Baring in mind it only had one coat 4 years ago.

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OK mate stay with my thinking, nearly 50 years ago a commercial bee keeper and queen breeder when i was starting off we made a deal, my labor for some nucs and his knowledge. I had a few hives and the basic understanding and was taken back when we had finished assembling a couple of hundred boxes and he mixed the paint in a bath tub outside and began immersing the boxes completely in the paint. I told him that I thought that would kill the bees having the inside painted. His answer was simple, ā€œat smoko take a walk into the apiary and open any hive and they are all painted on the inside.ā€ He completely painted then for one reason, that was cheaper than replacing hive boxes that had rotted.
What I am thinking is lets go the hole way and completely paint the boxes, base board and lid. Everything that is timber, It could be that the fumes are working right through the timber. Why do people only paint the outside you ask? They want the hive to look good and have been told not to paint the inside as they have heard it will kill the bees ā€” which it wonā€™t if the paint has completely dried. I paint my box edges, always have done, to eliminate water rotting the boxes from the water soaking into the edges.
Cheers mate

Thanks for that Peter.

Think inside and out then next time if the split doesnā€™t work will be the answer. Iā€™ve never painted inside a hive before but anything is honestly worth a try.

Would be great for my parents to have the flow working as in their climate they have bees all years round out for nectar and pollen unlike myself in the UK.

Thanks again for your advice and will update when any progress happens.

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Take a look at the last post on this thread. :wink:

Hi Greig, no I donā€™t have any other suggestions other than monitor the progress of the colony after the colony becomes ā€˜queen riteā€™.

Your method of making splits sounds similar to mine. Adding extra frames of brood as you do is always a good strategy for boosting a colonies numbers. Especially frames full of brood.

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Thanks Dawn, thats helpful.
On further research, Iā€™m looking at using the flow hive during the june/ july window when the flow is good and then switching to a langstroth super for the autumn and spring. With Irish forage of high fructose in ivy and dandelion, I donā€™t think the flow mechanism will work with the more granulated honey. More faff but may give me best of both worlds

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Have you got an update yet Greig

My dad said there was a queen cell that was empty so thatā€™s good. He put two extra frames of eggs in last week so 2 weeks from now we will see if sheā€™s laying.

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That is sounding great mate, very promising. Greigā€¦

Very hopeful this time Peter, only time will tell. Heā€™s got approx 27 degrees in Spain at the moment so doing better there than it is in Scotland at the moment. Not managed to get into my bees this year yet due to temperatures.

fingers crossed for you Greig. Amazing that bees survive the climate in Scotland, I visited my ancestral home years ago and near died it was so cold.

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