Any other New Jersey Flow owners?

Hello,

My wife and I live in Monmouth County New Jersey. We are first time bee keepers who are super excited. We would love to meet fellow flow hiver’s in the area. We’re members of the CJBA and will be attending the meeting this Friday February 5th. We are reluctant to talk about the flow hive at the meeting because of all the negative comments we have overheard while there.

I had the same experience at my first local beekeeping meeting, but things have changed. One of the long-established and respected members has got her hands on a Flow hive and is leading our next meeting with a talk and demonstration!
http://forum.honeyflow.com/t/san-diego-california-maybe-trailblazing-for-flow-hives-feb-meeting/4802?u=dawn_sd

Hopefully your club will come around to the idea, but meanwhile I think you are wise not to alienate yourself as a new beekeeper. They will still have useful things to share with you, even if they don’t share our Flow hive enthusiasm.

Dawn

Thanks for the encouragement Dawn! I am anxious to see if the attitudes have changed any since we last attended a meeting.

I am also a new beekeeper in southeastern PA. Although not in NJ not too far away. At the Montgomery County Beekeepers Association there is one other flo hive owner. The old timers say that this is not for new beekeepers. When I asked why they could not give me a good answer. One said that to work it needs a very established hive and ai would get no honey the first year. When I asked why this was different he just hemmed and hawed. Anyone with experience agree that this is not for a beginner?

This hive is as much for a beginner as any other traditional hive. You just follow normal beekeeping practices. The Flow super changes the way you extract honey, that is the only difference.

I think that they fear that Flow hives are bringing in a lot of people who don’t know how to look after bees. Well, that might be true, but we all have to start somewhere, and if you can afford it, why not start with a Flow hive? Just get a good mentor if you can, keep going to your local club with an open mind (they might learn from you eventually!), read a lot and join the community here. We will help anyone who wants to get started - there is a lot of beekeeping experience here, not much Flow hive experience yet, but that will change over the next year!

Dawn

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You are a Langstroth hive beekeeper. You might harvest 2-3 times per year so the “Flow” part is only 3/365ths of it.
The point most experienced beekeepers try to get across is this: Beekeeping is no different whether you harvest with a Flow hive, extractor, make comb honey, or all the above because that is just a fraction of the hobby. Weekly to every 10 days inspections still need to be done especially in New Jersey. Method of harvest has no bearing on keeping bees successfully.

Come out to the winter meeting on February 13th at the Nottingham Firehouse and have a good time!

Hi Red,
Well put ! Beekeeping practices to keep a healthy colony are absolutely no different no matter what the retrieval method.

Good call n note,
Gerald

Such a shame some folk are like this.
There will be failures and people who give up whatever type of hive they start with. Equally there will be people who go on to be lifelong excellent beekeepers.
Just crack on and learn to keep bees :slight_smile:

@anthokelbee - Hi, I have 2 flow hives (got the hive bodies just waiting for flow frames) I belong to the sussex county beekeeper assoc. I am new and have not made it known yet of my flowhives. I have a meeting tonight I am sure it will come up in conversations. I do know one person who seems to have an opinion without even looking at the site. His first reaction was there is no such thing as maintenance free beekeeping. I wish he would spend 10 minutes on the site. He would know that, thats not the goal of the flow.
-Rob

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Hi, I’m in Northern NJ, Jefferson Township/Oak Ridge to be exact and this will be my first year with bees. I have a flow hive that will be put together shortly and a regular hive. I mentioned the flow hive to a mentor in my group Sussex County Beekeepers Assoc. and got nothing but good vibes. I told them that I’m gonna be the Guinea pig for the group. I’ll be comparing the hives as I go along. My bees are coming the third week of April (2 sets of Nucs) and I’m so looking forward to it.

I posted a question on here (my 1st one) to ask what everyone is using as foundation in the frames and I got a couple good responses, just what I was looking for, but then it went off on a tangent. The discussing went on to Swarming and why they swarm, referencing cell size.

Anyway, looking forward to hearing more from NJ Flow Hive keepers.

Hey Rob, hi, I belong to the same group. I was at the meeting at the fairgrounds. I have my Full Flow Hive. I was lucky enough to be an original contributor to the campaign. Got a really cool hat, lol. Did you go to the beginners course at the firehouse? I was the lady with the short blond hair and tie-dyed sweatshirts sitting in the front. I wonder if we met. I told one of the mentors and another person about the hive and they sounded very positive about it. Funny, I thought I was gonna be the Guinea pig of the group. What down do you live in? I’m in Jefferson Township, right off Rt 23.

We are such a fun-loving bunch, we just can’t help ourselves! :blush:

Foundation or not is entirely a matter of personal choice. For ease of handling for a total newbie, I would suggest prewired wax foundation, with wax-coated plastic foundation as a second choice. For optimal bee health, I would suggest foundationless frames, but you are going to need to learn how to handle the frames gently, because new comb can be quite fragile.

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VickiB - Yes I did go to the beginner bee keeping course. I just might of been the other you talked to. i I live in Byram Twp, Sussex County. I have not gotten my flow frames yet. BUT I have my WRC hives. I got two and ordered 2 nucs. BUT just recently i bought a beekeepers whole setup. He has been keeping bees for 30 years. He grew up in Rome Italy and due to his work needed to see his stuff. SO I got all his honey processing equipment and his 3 hives. Also got another empty hive which was killed off by a bear. So I now have 3 hives and am getting 2 nucs in April. So I will be starting with 5 hives!!

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That’s awesome. Did you get the nucs from the class group buy? The ones from Grant that are coming third week of April?

You lucked out getting all that equipment.

@VickiB - Yes, getting them from Grant. 2 of my hives are buzzing but one is a bit sluggish. hope it gets more active soon.
Just got my shipment of foundations, and frames I ordered from Mann Lake yesterday. Planning on building the frames and last Brood box this weekend.
yeah on the equipment I did luck out 3 live hives, 1 empty hive (no frames) 4 foam top-feeded, 3/6/9 Honey extractor, 4 spacers, 1 Medium suit, 1 small suit, 1 child suit, heat decapper,9 full medium honey supers, smoker.
i had not check Craigslist in months for anything beekeeping and for some reason on Tuesday of last week, I looked. Found this deal in Denville, NJ ( 10 minute from my work! ) so went to check it out and bought it!! Very Happy!

Wow. I’m gonna buy my stuff when I go this weekend on the bus trip to Mann Lake (10 pack of frame foundations, unless you have some you wanna sell me, a bee suit, a bee shaker and one or two other things) I was told yesterday that they will be offering the cllub trip a discount. Are you going?

@VickiB - Not planning to go. My son comes home for spring break Friday and has no idea I bought all this stuff. Going to surprise him and spend the weekend prepping frames etc… I have what I need for now. I am just waiting for my order of Oxalic Acid from Bushy Mountain Bees for my spring treatment.

NJ Flow Owner here …I was also one of the founding contributors and got that cool hat …lol…First time bee keeper trying to learn all I can …One Brood box or 2 this is the first of many questions I am surely going to have …Northern NJ …

Passaic County, one new flowhive, NUC installed 3 days ago! Am told will have to add another hive body within two weeks (not the flow super) and probably not to expect honey this year. We shall see! Am online ordering another hive body!

Definitely 2, maybe even 3, as the Flow hive only has 8 frames. @Anon isn’t far from you, and for his 8 frame Langstroth hives, he uses 3 boxes for the best results in overwintering.