In short, if you find drone brood in your Flow Frames, you must install a queen excluder. This is the definitive first step. You need to place it between your brood box and the Flow Super, ensuring the queen is confined to the brood box below it.
Finding brood in your honey frames is a sign that the queen has moved into the wrong part of the hive. The solution involves correcting her location with a queen excluder and then managing the consequences, which primarily means providing an escape route for the drones that will hatch.
Why Drone Brood Appears in Flow Frames
Understanding why this occurs is key to preventing it in the future. The presence of brood in your honey super is not an anomaly but a predictable outcome of the hive's natural behavior without specific management.
The Queen's Expansion
A healthy, productive queen is constantly searching for empty cells to lay eggs in. If she runs out of space in the brood box or if there is no barrier, she will naturally move upward into the honey super to continue laying.
Cell Size Encourages Drone Laying
The cells in Flow Frames are larger than standard worker brood cells. The queen lays unfertilized eggs in these larger cells, which develop into male bees, or drones. This is why you will almost always find drone brood, not worker brood, in Flow Frames.
The Corrective Action Plan
Follow these steps precisely to resolve the issue and prevent secondary problems like a clogged hive.
Step 1: Locate the Queen
Before installing any equipment, you must find your queen. Carefully inspect your frames, both in the brood box and the Flow Super. She must be moved to the brood box, below where the excluder will be placed.
Step 2: Install the Queen Excluder
Place the queen excluder directly on top of the brood box. Then, place your Flow Super on top of the excluder. This device creates a barrier with gaps large enough for worker bees to pass through but too small for the larger queen.
Step 3: Provide an Escape Route for Drones
This step is critical. The drones that hatch from the brood in your Flow Frames will be trapped above the queen excluder, as they are too large to pass through it. You must provide an upper entrance in the Flow Super so they can exit the hive. Without this, they will die and clog the excluder, impeding worker bee movement.
Common Pitfalls and What to Expect
Managing this situation involves understanding the immediate consequences and avoiding common mistakes.
What About the Messy Frames?
After the drones have hatched, they will leave behind cocoons and other remnants in the plastic cells of the Flow Frames. Do not attempt to clean them out yourself. The worker bees are exceptionally good at house cleaning and will remove the debris over time, preparing the cells for honey storage.
Pitfall: Trapping the Queen in the Super
The single biggest mistake is installing the queen excluder without confirming the queen's location. If you accidentally trap her above the excluder in the Flow Super, you will have cut her off from the brood box, effectively stopping all worker brood production. Always double-check that she is in the brood box below the excluder.
Pitfall: A Clogged Excluder
Forgetting to create an upper entrance for the drones to escape is a frequent error. This leads to a layer of dead drones on top of the queen excluder, blocking worker bees from accessing the Flow Super and storing honey.
Making the Right Choice for Your Goal
Your response depends on whether you are reacting to a problem or setting up your hive for prevention.
- If your primary focus is fixing an existing brood issue: Immediately locate the queen, move her to the brood box, and install a queen excluder with an upper entrance for the hatched drones.
- If your primary focus is preventing this issue in a new hive: Always install a queen excluder between the brood box and your Flow Super from the very beginning.
Ultimately, correcting this issue is a straightforward process of hive management that allows the bees to handle the cleanup.
Summary Table:
| Step | Action | Key Reason |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Locate and Move the Queen | Ensures she is confined to the brood box below the excluder. |
| 2 | Install Queen Excluder | Prevents the queen from laying eggs in the honey super. |
| 3 | Create an Upper Entrance | Allows trapped drones to escape, preventing a clogged hive. |
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