Canadian Flow keepers

Hi Phil sorry I haven’t been on this for months so my reply is clearly overdue. I am looking forward to it to. Have you spoken to others from the south ok?

Great to hear from you. I saw in some of the other conversations that there are a few in the South Okanagan, but i havent talked to anyone else yet. i would like to connect to someone with active hives and go and watch and learn more before the hive arrives next winter. if you have any ssuugestions i am certainly open.
Phil

I haven’t had much time to check this forum for a while now… But I got my 3 Flow frames and I installed them on a 3 year old hive, just in time for the main nectar flow. A week after I put them on I took pictures that you can see on my album on Facebook (link below) I will keep observing how the bees fill them up and post more pictures to that album. I’ll let you know how things are progressing.

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I added more pictures after the second week of the frames in the hive. The bees have drawn out the side frames (regular frames placed 2 on each side of the Flow frames) and started to fill the Flow frames. Hopefully in another week I can extract.

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Excellent! It is great to see our first customers getting closer to harvesting the honey.

I am from Campbell River BC the Wet coast of Canada and can hardly wait. I have a friend who is a bee keeper but I was wondering about protecting my nice new cedar hive. And am wondering what to paint it with when I get it. They recommended Tung Oil. Any advice.

@brit. Did you find a group in the Lower Mainland?

Hi Gabriel, my husband and live in Roseneath. I am so excited to find your post and also someone from Warkworth! We are expecting to receive our flow hive any day. Did you have success with girls? Where did you get your bees. We are going to be first timers!

Hi Bee Warkworth, we are in Roseneath. Expecting to receive our flow hive any day now. Can’t wait for spring. From your post you must be receiving yours any time too!

Northern Ontario here, Cochrane - about 1 hr east of Timmins.

Newbee as well, will be setting up 2 flow hives in spring and am making my own western red cedar supers for addons.

Going to be fun :smiley:

Hey everyone!
I’m just south of Calgary too in DeWinton. I’m also a newbie to beekeeping but my husband and I are looking forward to adding to the acreage. I just love that I can grow my own vegetables, pick my own berries, eat fresh eggs and now…one day have fresh honey!!!

I’m so excited, but also freaked out that I’m going to somehow do something wrong for the bees!!!

Rachel

New Dundee, Ontario! Just got my Flow Hive the other day and looking to start learning in earnest. Anyone else in the Kitchener-Waterloo area?

HI everyone. We’re in the Shuswap / Kamloops area of BC. We’d like to start out with bees this spring and are wondering about how the shipping worked out for you folks. We’re interested in the full size flow hive.

Hi there my fellow Canadians!
I’m Leanne from Port Perry, Ontario. I have my Flowhive frames ready to go for this spring. I received them late in the summer last year while pregnant so rather than get bees then I decided to wait and get them this spring. I didn’t want to get the bees and then not long after, have to winterize the hive and risk losing some bees over winter without really getting the chance to work with the hive and harvest honey. I have assembled and painted my hive. Need to and some screws. Needless to say I’m excited to get started this spring. I took a Beekeeping 101 course just before the frames arrived. I still haven’t found the best place for my first hive. I think I may fall in love with Beekeeping so I’ll need to consider a location with a bit a room for more then one hive. Here is a picture of my hive on my front porch. Any of you on instagram? Would love to connect there as well and see what you are up to with your flowframes!
You can find me @leanne_fahy.

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I’m in Calgary too - just got my Flow Hive. Totally excited to get started. Would be nice to get to know other people with the same type of hive. Which courses are you signing up for?

Also, before I do a ton more reading - when should we get bees for our climate (so they don’t die off). I saw a post on my Facebook that Peavey Mart in Red Deer is already pre-selling them and they will probably be sold out of inventory this week…

Bees are often pre-ordered. I think you would be fine starting a hive when your day time temps are regularly above 13C - 15C or so - probably April to May depending on your altitude. I would ask local beekeepers, suppliers or local bee clubs what they think. I wouldn’t mention the Flow hive to start with, just say you want to get a new hive started, and most people will willingly help you.

The Flow hive is just a new way to extract honey, all other aspects of beekeeping are the same as they are for your neighbouring beekeepers.

All the best, eh?

Dawn

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Our climate here in the Shuswap is fairly close to yours. Our bees are coming in May from a local beekeeper - as a nucleus. He says that the queen needs to mate and be laying before the nuc is ready to go out. Last year the weather delayed the process until early June! He strongly recommends buying nucs over packages because the packaged bees are not very healthy when they arrive here if shipped from overseas.

Hello from Victoria. We ordered our FlowHive last March and it arrived shortly after Xmas. I used my time last year to join the Capital Beekeeping group here in Victoria, as am new to beekeeping.
Assembling the flow hive went well. Given that it is an 8 frame box, it seemed prudent to acquire another brood box. Difficult to find! So we built one from pine, and with tung oil added on the outside it’s a good match. Fortunately my spouse is handy with a table saw and made the box joints to match.
I also took the Beginning Beekeeping course offered as a free webinar through the BC Ministry of Agriculture. 4 weeks of 3 hr. Saturday mornings on your computer. Excellent and recommended.
My nuc arrives on March 15.

I used Tung oil on the outside only and it turned out beautiful. I recommend you apply it outside (ventilation), & lots of time before the bees arrive. See my post below regarding making a second 8-frame brood box made of pine.
2 coats of Tung oil, & I added a 3rd coat to the roof, mainly because I had the extra oil to use up.

Probably too late for you now, but www.beethinking.com has exactly matching boxes:
http://www.beethinking.com/collections/parts-accessories/products/langstroth-deep-cedar-hive-box?variant=454238661

They ship internationally too. :wink:

Dawn