Hi, I’m in the Adelaide hills and it gets cold enough here that I need to remove my super for winter for the bees to be able to keep warm. I leave them lots of Honey in the bottom box so I don’t need to feed them. Just wondering if I would be ok to put full flow frames down there over winter. Also is there anything special I would need to do with the top box and flow frames to store them. I just wrap my boxes with plastic film so no wax moths.
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Hi Woodside,
I usually overwinter with 2 deeps - I plan to use my flow hive frames in the 3rd deep as first honey super. When packing down the hive the flow frames would be removed altogether…
If you’re packing down to one deep, I wouldn’t be putting the flow frames down in the brood chamber during winter as the width of the frames are wider…
When storing any frames (and the same would be for flow frames) they should be harvested as soon as possible then frozen for at least 24 hours - then yes, plastic film the box to keep out wax moths 
Hope this helps.
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I forgot to mention that I harvest the honey then get the bees to clean up the stickies in the hive then freeze and wrap
Since the flow frames have no wax would you still worry about wax moth?
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The Flow frames will have some residual wax from the cappings that will attract the moth. Still good practise to bag and freeze the frames for a couple of days then seal and store them for the winter.
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Once you have a hard freeze I wouldn’t worry about wax moths anymore. I would pull off the Flow frames for winter. You don’t want the bees clustered on comb that they can’t (and you don’t want them to) raise brood on. I haven’t had them enough winters to work out a routine yet.
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Hi Woodside, I live in Montacute, feel free to touch base when your flow frames arrive, mine are expected in the next few weeks.
Happy to swap ideas and compare our results over the next couple of months.
Cheers
John