okay so it's been a while since we've
talked about the honey bees and the
flow supers out in my apiary so let's do
an update since we've come out of winter
and we went through a full winter with
Flow supers on the bee hives and in some
cases I took the flow supers off and
we're going to see the comparison
there's another issue that's come out
that we're going to talk about in the
last half of this presentation so first
we have the Flow super that was taken off
of a beehive after the colony had used
most of its resources and I'm going to
show you what the stored flow frames
looked like now whenever you're taking a
part a beehive always make sure to have
a bucket or something nearby where you
can take wax and propolis scrapings
and put those in there there's always
somebody that wants beeswax or propolis
now you can see they have emptied this
out and what's left is solidified honey
so this is considered crystallized or
solidified honey so you're just looking
at sugar crystals really and the bees do
come back and consume these, this
whole side was full of solidified honey
and the bees took it out and of course
I removed the super about midwinter
because they had plenty of resources in
the lower medium super for that colony
so I just wanted to show physically what
these flow frames go through and this is
a nice close look at the cells they're
nice and clean and there's nothing on
this Flo frame at all except the
leftovers from the honey that they once
stored now this is not one of the flow
hive supers that we drew honey off of in
the past I left it all on for the bees
and you can see that the propolis has
really made it challenging to pull these
frames out and there you have it even
more solidified honey
and when capping it and everything in
this frame is partially liquid but
definitely not usable and you could not
operate the flow frame with this residue
in this condition
so there are a couple of options when it
comes to cleaning this out and it's a
question that I often get, what would you
do if the honey became candied inside
these flow frames because of course it's
a mechanism that has to function in
order to drain honey and you'll notice
too that the stainless-steel cords that
hold the flow hive components together
has been propolized primarily on top not
so much on the underside and here is
some where the center section if you can
see the difference is still liquid honey
and could be uncapped and extracted if
you wanted to you can take a flow super
although these flow frames are designed
to drain the honey through the mechanism
but if you needed to and you had some
that was solidified and some that's
still liquid as this frame is you could
un cap it put it in a spinner and spin
it out traditionally of course that
defeats the whole purpose of the flow
hive mechanism and now this is as you
know a robust colony of bees and I'm
going to take this frame and I'm going
to put the flow super on it and allow
these bees to clean it out another
clean-out option would be just to take
the flow frames out and spray them out
with a power washer and I have one of
those but here I'd rather see how well
the bees clean it out themselves all of
the frames that you're looking at here
are a form of food grade plastic there is one
wooden frame there but the black and the
white are both Piergo designs and later
on we'll be talking in another video
about the new triple wax-coated frames
that are made by a company called Acorn
and you can see that the population of
this colony is really high and this is
early in the spring one of the few warm
days that we've had we've had really
erratic weather conditions where we get
very cold and then warm and then cold
again and that took a huge toll on bee
populations in apiaries across the
state of Pennsylvania some longtime
beekeepers have reported losses of 50%
or even higher in some cases so now
we're going to put this is my
original flow super that I did my
original review on and it was exposed to
the cold all year long it was just
removed from the colony
always make sure that all the components
still work when you're putting it back
on a colony and that there won't be any
binding or problems and there isn't this
came through just fine all the plastic
components are fine they're unaffected
by cold and the box is a little
weathered and that's expected I made my
own inner covers for these things so
that it would be thick enough that when
you put a telescoping cover over the top
it will not interact with the mechanisms
that you need to remove in order to
operate the flow frames and then just a
standard telescoping top with a zinc
coated tin cover just making sure that I
can still access everything since we're
kicking off the new season here and
what you're looking at is one of our
early warm days in fact probably one of
the first times I can actually get out
in the apiary and check things out so
the bees are immediately right up in
the frames and it shows this is of
course the end frame which faces the
east in my apiary and there's a little
logo embossed in that removable panel
and it felt like you might need a
chicken fix here for those who are
looking for my chicken videos we'll just
show this rooster that happened to be
walking by now this brings us to today
and the reason I wanted to get this
video out right away to those who are
waiting for flow hive updates in the
past I've had a lot of questions about
why I don't use queen excluders in my
apiary and if you don't use queen
excluder would the bees go up into the
flo super and in the flow frames and
would the Queen actually lay her eggs in
those mechanisms
and that would be a bad thing if you've
heard me talk before I've always said
that I don't use queen excluders in the
apiary and that's because it slows down
honey production so much as some of the
workers can't get through those queen
excluders well when it comes to the flow
hive and that mechanism you're about to
see why putting a queen excluder in your
flow hive system between the brood boxes
and your actual flow supers is very
important we did actually get brood in
the flow frames and I'm going to show
you that in a moment we have terrific
weather right now we've come out of a
lot of rain and just look at all the
colors of pollen that's coming in on the
hind legs with these workers you'll also
notice that we have an abundance of
drones and that means with this immediate
buildup of numbers in this colony that
we could be favoring swarm conditions
here so for me that means it's time to
start thinking about splitting the
colony down and making some new colonies
for observation
and you'll notice too this is an upper
entrance the upper entrance is much
bigger than the lower landing board
entrance and all of my bee hives have an
upper and a lower landing board entrance
now we're looking at the frames of the
one that I showed at the beginning of
this video and they are cleaned out
nicely now if you look, I get questions
sometimes when people see you down in
the corners of this viewing frame that
it looks like the mechanism was
partially activated or some of the cells
look a little skewed that's really a
visual distortion and if you can look
across the surface of these things they
are properly aligned, what happens is the
surface is irregular so they're not drawn
out even as it would be if this were
straight wax and they're just cleaning
it out so all of the honey that you saw
and the candied honey and the solidified
sugar crystals that were in the cells
before are now completely gone and this
colony is really ramping up for our
Spring nectar flow
you notice there's even a little
humidity building up on the inside of
this clear plastic panel and this is again
just another view same colony and this
is the one remember that the colony was
not left on through winter so the
numbers are very strong
now we're going to get into the colony
that was benefiting from the flow frames
throughout winter so they came up into
this flow super and used up all the
honey resources that were in it and this
is a closeup to show you the cells are
absolutely clean as a whistle and
there's something going on here that you
wouldn't notice just looking at the end
frames and that is that we've actually
had the Queen come up into this flow
super which is near the top of this hive
and she actually started laying in the
cells that's a question I get frequently
what would you do if the Queen started
laying in the cells well we made lots of
excuses about that number one, the queen
would be primarily active in the lower
boxes we have two deeps on this colony
so it was highly unlikely that she would
come up into the flow supers and use
these deep plastic cells which again are
very deep and kind of unusual for a
queen to be attracted to for laying but
what we're looking at right here is the
eastern panel that is exposed now
because we took the cover off and inside
these flow supers the plastic cells are
clean as a whistle except for those that
have now developing brood in them and
when we're looking at this light yellow
somewhat convex surface on these cells
this is different from honey stored caps
because those you would see would be
slick somewhat shiny and somewhat
concave when it comes to brood cells
they're always slightly convex and of
course the material is more fibrous so
that the developing brood can breathe
through them and if you look top center
here you'll see what I call Michelin men
and those are developing baby bees the
little grubs that are in the cells so
the Queen has been all the way up into
the flo supers and she's been laying in
the mechanism all the cells are
synthetic they're nothing but plastic
and the only thing that the bees are
providing
is the egg they sealed the frame, of course
the Queen provides the egg and then the
workers are putting royal jelly into the
cells and some of them are really shiny
you can see that they have those
resources provided and they're capping
them off and these are workers so the
Queen has taken over the flow super in
this case and the plastic mechanized
flow frames and is using them to lay
eggs and raise brood so now what does
that mean for me well I'm not into
beekeeping for the honey but if you are
doing this for honey of course it
completely arrests the function of your
flow frame so you will not be able to
use his flow frame for honey extraction
while it's being used for brood the
other thing that I was always commenting
about is if they were going to go and
lay in these frames I would allow it
simply so we could observe it and see
what happens
and of course here we are over a year from my
first purchase and installation of flow
frames and they're using them now keep
in mind the reason that they're using
these for brood is because there is no
queen excluder so what I'm telling you
is to make sure that you do use the
provided queen excluder above the brood
boxes on your flow hives and below the
flow supers that holds these mechanized
flow frames otherwise you'll have what I
have in this case which right now is
just a very expensive brood box and you
can see the bees attending to those
grubs in there so now this is the
difference what we're looking at is just
in case it has anything to do with the
way they're organized on the colonies number
four is the one that has brood in the
flow frames and those flow frames are
the third box from the bottom on the
right so the activity at the landing
board is normal keep in mind we have
temperatures in the high 20s low 30s Fahrenheit
still at night so my entry reducers are
still on look at the activity on the
upper
entrance and then there's the top box
now this is the one that does not have
brood in it
and now we go to number four here and
this is one, look, we have a deep the box
with number four is the second deep so
the third box up is the flow hive or the
flow super and that's the one with flow frames
in it and that's also the one that has
now lots of brood being developed in
those mechanized frames and then above
that is a shallow super that also has
honey in it already so lesson learned if
you do not put the Queen excluder
underneath your flow super it is
possible that you could have the Queen
up in your flow frames laying her eggs
in those plastic cells for me it's just
a learning experience for you it could
be catastrophic if you're counting on
getting honey from those flow frames and
that is their purpose so I'm glad to
share that with you and I'm also glad
that now you have an opportunity to see
that a queen can and will lay her eggs
inside the plastic flow frames if there
is no queen excluder beneath it
thank you for watching and I hope you
learned something through my
demonstration here if you have a flow
hive and a flow super make sure you put
a queen excluder beneath it thanks for
watching and I hope you'll follow us as
we do other honeybee videos