Building the new hives when they arrive

Here are some more specific detail regarding the size and adaptability of the Flow™ frames, I thought you may find useful.

The Flow™ Frames are designed to fit a standard Langstroth deep box. The Flow™ boxes will have the same measurements to the Langstroth deep (8 or 10 frame boxes).

The height of the Flow™ frame is 240mm; this perfectly fits a Langstroth deep box.

The width of the clear fame ends is set to 50mm. The frames are wider which means they hold more honey and the deeper cells discourage the queen from laying should you choose to experiment with no excluder.

In an 8 frame Langstroth - 3 Flow™ frames and 4 standard frames fit well, or 6 Flow™ frames.
In a 10 frame Langstroth - 4 Flow™ frames and 4 standard frames fit well, or 7 Flow™ frames.

A UK National fits 8 shorter Flow™ frames however the depth of the UK National would need to be modified.

The length of the frame is adjustable. We will be posting them out at the standard Langstroth frame length of 480mm. You can however change their length in increments of 12mm by removing some of the frame parts. This means you can adapt the length of the frames to many different sized hives. Or if you want to get really creative you could make a 2m long frame to go in a wall cavity or make a short frame to insert into a hollow tree hive…

Here is the link for our FAQ’s page on our website for modifying hives - http://www.honeyflow.com/faqs/p/22?tag=25

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Ideas for hive stands.
http://forum.honeyflow.com/t/beehive-stands-are-they-necessary/1484

You may also be interested in the following video “Modifying an Existing Box for the Flow™ Light Three Frame Kit”

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Hello Fellow Beeks,
I have been searching the website for information on what type of wood is used to build the Flow Hive but can’t find any. Some types of wood seem to last better/longer than others. I would like to know what I’m buying.
Thanks,
Milmel

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Hives are currently made from pine. See the following link => Painting/Protecting the bee hives

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It would also be nice to start seeing some of the Plans so we can start building our hive boxes in preparation of the frames arriving. I have a box ready to cut and build specifically for this project but i don’t have the dimensions needed for the cuts.

Some simple PDF plans would really help and give us something to keep ourselves busy without going crazy waiting for the new frames to arrive.

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Thanks Andrea, i had seen this vid, would be good to see it for all the different flow configurations.

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Hi US Aussie, There are some photos and instructions of modifications on the top bar hive too. Top Bar Hive Flow Forum
We are also working on more videos and will post as they come.

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@andrea, again great info but i think most people are interested in knowing what the dimensions are for the most commonly brought perk in the indigogo fundraiser were, That being the 6 and 7 frame flow configurations. PDF’s a video anything would be useful. I would prefer to not have to wait until the frames get here THEN start work on the box. For the US these frames will arrive right at the end of the season so it will be a race to get them set up or hold on to them for additional months as we ride out the winter and wait for the first spring nectar flow to hit.

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@US_Aussie I asked the same question. Jake form the honeyflow team reports they are still finalising the dimensions of the boxes and will update the FAQ once they have them. I would think soon enough considering the store is up and running now.

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@noddyc43…see I have a problem with that response because we have been told everywhere else that the boxes are all standard size. We see all these images with the full flow configuration so why can’t some one simple take a ruler and go to a current box and say: opening at top of box 30mm deep by 200mm opening at bottom 200 mm centered by 70 mm deep etc etc.

At this point lack of very simple information like this is honestly starting to become a little unsettling.

Hi @US_Aussie, What configuration did you get? The most common perk has been the complete flow kit which comes with everything cut out and ready to go. But you are right a lot have got the 6 or 7 frame configurations

For the 10 frame box with the 7 frame kit
Top cut:
357mm wide X 25mm high
Bottom cut:
336mm wide X 150mm high

It looks like the full PDF with pictures and measurements is pretty much done. We want to make sure we are giving out the correct information, if boxes are cut out incorrectly it may be difficult to fix.

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@Jake, thank you very much. I understand there was also some talk at one point regarding the need for a small strip of metal be attached to the bottom of the box for structural integrity and also to prevent Bee’s from possible escape? can you comment on that?

And yes i did order the 7 frame kit for a full flow box. I understand the desire to get published information correct.

Im also considering doing some Hives that have observation ports on the side but could be easily converted to accept the flow configurations so i would be interested to see the PDF’s for all the configurations when they come out.

Thanks for these measurements it will let me get started on my box.

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No problem. The manual has details on the metal strip as well as side viewing windows. Will keep you posted.

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Thanks @Jake for the update and @US_Aussie for your persistence!

Hi all, we just released the ‘Modifying a Langstroth Box for Flow Frames™’ PDF here, I hope that helps:
http://www.honeyflow.com/about-flow/modify-langstroth-box-for-flow/p/142

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Further to what Rodderick said regarding pine, there will also be an option for a “premium” hive that will use reclaimed Australian Cypress timber.

No word on pricing yet for this, though the link to the shop page is: http://www.honeyflow.com/shop/accessories/premium-flow-hive/p/95

You might be worth holding off until you see if this comes out at a reasonable enough price for you?

@ymcg

I notice there is a 2.5º - 4º slope towards the Rear - ie for the honey to Flow. How will that affect rain water getting In?

Can we see a front view of the box please?

Yes its best to have a slope to the back when harvesting honey, different than usual, you can either have a sloped bottom board to stop water pooling, or just ‘chock’ up the front of the hive a few mm when harvesting (my method).

Front view of the box is pretty boring, its just a standard Lang side :wink: without any cuts etc, just the normal handhold.

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