I have posted this link on another thread already but here it is again.
There were a few issues with my first honey flow but the equipment worked perfectly. I am really pleased with my 7 jars of honey. It’s beautiful and clear and flowed straight from the frame into the jars. They were very popular with the customers at our garage sale this weekend.
While doing the extraction I discovered the timber rails of my stand had moved. I had installed them level at the top of an embankment but over the past six months, they had moved. It’s all on the video including a shot of the winch I used to re-level the stand.
Great video, @sciencemaster! It’s wonderful to see another successful harvest, but also very helpful to see you identify, & resolve some of the issues that can arise in a straightforward manner. I especially liked your use of the Flow cap to determine the proper pitch for your hive
Two questions I have - did you end up cleaning off the core flute or leave it out for the bees to do it? I am a new beekeeper & haven’t had a harvest yet, but assumed one could do the latter, since you’re in a decent nectar flow & risk of robbing should be low…
Also - did your kit come with two frame cranks? I’ve only got one & it looks like using two, assuming the frames aren’t different where the cranks go in, would be a lot easier.
Thanks for your kind comments Eva. It would be great if you could give me a “like” on my YouTube channel. I’ve only just started really using it although I set it up a year ago.
I cleaned the coreflute the next day and there were already bees getting at the honey. I cover the coreflute with diatomite and I’m sure it wouldn’t do bees any good. The bottom boards hose off really easily and I run water through the coreflute channels as well. Only takes a few minutes. I sprinkle diatomite back on while the board is still wet. One handful is enough for an 8 frame sized bottom board. Then the board goes straight back in below the hive.
I bought a set of three flow frames as an initial contributor to the record breaking crowdfunding campaign. Later on there was a really good special on FlowFrame kits and I bought my second one then. That’s why I have two cranks. Using two, halves the force needed by each crank and balances out the stresses as well.
I harvested another Flow Frame yesterday. This time I had the support rails as perfectly level as I could make them. Again, I opened the frame one third at a time. There was a very small amount of honey on the core flute under the screen, probably about a teaspoonful.
The bees didn’t beard this time. I see bearding after tapping the Flow as evidence that bees have been gorging on honey to clean it up. This would drive up their metabolism and increase body heat. Bearding would be a way to keep the temperature inside the hive stable.
I harvested 8 jars of honey from this frame, a little more than from the previous frame.
The last frame will be harvested in another week. This time I will drain the unit in 5 steps and see what difference that does to the leakage issue. I don’t see spilling a teaspoonful of honey as much of a problem but spilling none would be better.
Last Saturday, I extracted the last Flow Frame. This time there was zero leakage, even though the frame was chockers with honey. The day before, I chocked up the front of the hive to get the slope to the maximum 4 degrees recommended by flow. I needed to remove one of the outside Flow modules so I could inspect the central module for brood. No brood but the Frame I harvested the week before was full of uncapped honey.
I’m going to give my Flow frames a 4 week break and then harvest all three frames at the one time.
Here’s the link to the video I took of this last effort.
The flow frames are accessed from the back of the hive so the slope is in the correct direction. I’ve now taken 4 harvests from the frames and it is really convenient. The last harvest was a few days ago and I washed the collecting channel with warm water. I’m not at all sure this was necessary but the process only took 5 minutes.
