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it is working, but ever so slowly. There is time for the Flow frames to fill. At this point, if it is half full in October I will not complain. Hopefully, experiences from all over the world should lead to better management of the process. One report said two Flow Hives side by side had very different results. One filled up, the other was empty. We all know that bees are not factory workers and cannot be told what to do. The Flow Hive does not change that.
The end board can be removed in order to see a good portion of the end of each frame
from the outset. At the end of July, I removed the Flow Hive box and cleaned up the comb that was being built above the top regular super. This told me that the supers below were, indeed, full and that the next place to store nectar should be the Flow Hive
box. I noted a tiny bit of nectar in a couple of cells. I was getting ready to leave for a ten-day canoe trip to the Boundary Waters of Minnesota and was feeling a little bit desperate. I took some honey-saturated comb left over from my harvest and smeared it on the cells
Larry’s Flow Hive box is situated over standard Langstroth equipment
on one of the 12 sides of the Flow frames. This was one of the recommendations from the factory. I didn’t have time to smear wax on all 12 sides. Upon my return on 7 August, I examined the Flow frames again. There was nectar in more cells and some capped honey, so
Aspects to be Considered
1 Buying into the hype 2 Assemble, add bees, simmer till full
3 Going with the flow 4 Harvest: is it the real deal? 5 Cleaning up the supers.
Opening the hive to inspect the regular supers below the Flow Hive box
September 2016 Vol 98 No 9
Apimondia Gold Medal for Popular Beekeeping Journals, 2007, 2013 and 2015
www.bee-craft.com
Larry Fisher
Larry Fisher
Simon Croson
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