A really important inspection today that led to a big hive management decision! We did a full inspection of both boxes and discovered something key, the bottom box has become sugar water bound. The bees have been storing so much of the sugar syrup we've been feeding them that the brood frames are being backfilled with syrup stores, leaving less room for the queen to lay and explaining why the second medium box was barely being touched.
The second medium box inspection confirmed our suspicions, only frames 2 to 6 were being worked on after nearly a month. Just a tiny amount of drawn comb near the center and a few cells of stored nectar. The bees were not motivated to expand upward because they had plenty of stored food below from all the feeding.
The good news, found the queen on Frame 7 of the bottom box! Her white marking from two weeks ago has faded a bit but she was still identifiable on the top left of the frame. She is healthy and actively moving. Notably she explored the second medium box last week but chose not to lay there, a sign the colony was already well stocked with stores and not needing the extra space.
The big day! Removed the second medium box, there were a few cells of nectar inside which should be fine in storage. Installed the queen excluder directly on top of the bottom brood box for the first time. The queen excluder allows worker bees to pass through into the Flow super but keeps the queen below in the brood box, ensuring the honey frames stay free of brood.
Before placing the Flow super we melted beeswax and painted it directly onto the Flow frames — a classic beekeeping trick to encourage the bees to accept the plastic frames faster. Bees are naturally suspicious of the unfamiliar plastic cells and prefer natural wax. Coating the frames with real beeswax gives them a familiar scent and surface to work with.
The Flow Hive window gives us a beautiful view of the bees working inside the super without disturbing them, one of the best features of the Flow Hive design. Check the photo below to see the bees already at work inside the Flow frames!
