If you discover drone brood in your Flow frames, the immediate solution is to physically relocate the queen to the lower brood box and install a queen excluder between the box and the Flow super. To ensure the health of the hive, you must also provide an upper entrance or escape route; this allows the drones currently developing in the super to exit the hive after they hatch.
The Core Issue: Finding brood in your super means the queen has crossed into the honey storage area. The critical fix involves not just excluding the queen, but managing the exit strategy for trapped drones to prevent them from dying inside and clogging your equipment.
Securing the Hive Hierarchy
Relocating the Queen
The presence of brood confirms the queen is currently active in your Flow super. You must inspect the frames, find the queen, and gently move her back down to the brood box.
Once she is located below, place a queen excluder between the brood box and the Flow super. This physical barrier prevents her from returning to the honey frames while allowing smaller worker bees to pass through.
Managing Trapped Drones
The Risk of Trapped Drones
Drones (male bees) are larger than worker bees and cannot fit through the slots of a standard queen excluder.
If you simply install an excluder without further action, any drones that hatch in the super will be trapped. They will eventually die inside the super, creating a pile of debris that can clog the queen excluder and impede air and worker flow.
Creating an Escape Route
To prevent this blockage, you must provide an upper entrance in the super.
This opening allows the drones to fly out of the hive as they mature. Once the brood cycle is finished and the drones have evacuated, you can close this entrance.
Post-Brood Maintenance
Self-Cleaning Mechanisms
A common concern is whether the cocoons or "skins" left behind by larvae will damage the Flow frame mechanism.
According to the primary guidelines, it is not necessary to manually clean Flow frames after a single round of brood.
Restoring Honey Production
The worker bees are highly efficient cleaners. Once the drones have emerged and left, the workers will polish the cells and remove debris.
They will then begin filling those same cells with nectar, naturally transitioning the frames back to honey storage.
Understanding the Trade-offs
Equipment Functionality
While the bees will clean the frames, using Flow frames for brood is not their intended purpose. Frequent brood cycles in these frames could eventually impact the clarity of the honey or the operation of the mechanism over long periods, though a single occurrence is generally harmless.
Harvest Timing
You cannot harvest honey from a frame containing brood. You must wait for the entire cycle of drones to emerge and for the bees to clean and refill the cells with honey before you can extract again.
Making the Right Choice for Your Hive
Correcting a brood incursion is a straightforward process of exclusion and ventilation.
- If your primary focus is stopping the infestation: Immediately isolate the queen in the lower box with an excluder to prevent further egg-laying in the super.
- If your primary focus is hive hygiene: Open an upper entrance immediately to ensure hatching drones can leave the hive rather than dying on top of the excluder.
By adjusting your setup to let the drones exit, you allow the bees to naturally reclaim the frames for honey production without manual intervention.
Summary Table:
| Action Step | Purpose | Required Tool/Method |
|---|---|---|
| Relocate Queen | Stop further egg-laying in honey super | Manual inspection and relocation |
| Install Excluder | Keep queen in the brood box | Standard Queen Excluder |
| Open Upper Entrance | Allow trapped drones to exit the hive | Upper notch or shifted lid |
| Wait for Hatching | Natural transition to honey storage | 24-day drone brood cycle |
| Worker Cleaning | Remove cocoons and polish cells | Natural bee behavior |
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