After a small harvest last year with 1st year hives, I was excited to see how well my only overwintered colony (4 losses out of 5 
) would perform with the flow hive. In only 4 weeks they filled the flow super wall to wall in all directions; there were only a couple of unfilled cells in the corners of the outer frames. It took them another 2 weeks to finish capping nearly all the cells.
It was 6pm before I finally got home and started cracking the flow frames. I tapped the middle 3 frames and opened the first 1/4 of each of them.
I opened another 1/4 at 15minute intervals
6:15
6:30
6:45
After fully opening the 3 frames, I went for a quick swim with the kids, and enjoyed a gin & tonic on the porch which the bees decided to join me.
At 8PM I went back out to collect the jars, and close up the hive.
During the harvest I noticed a few drops of honey leak out the end frames, but nothing very measureable. Not a single honeybee paid any attention to the harvest, although I killed 4 wasps that were investigating, and noticed a couple wasps and a bumble get chased away from the front of the hive by the ladies.
Total harvest was just over 10kg for the middle 3 frames; 20 375ml jars plus a little bit. It is amazing how clean and clear flow hive honey harvests, meaning absolutely no straining/filtering required.
Still 4 frames to go, but I need to get the honey gates installed on my collection jars first.
I believe our flow is slowing to a crawl now, so I’ll have to wait until next year to see another flow super filled. Hopefully our winter is a little less punishing next season.
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Congratulations, Simon! Lovely photos too. 
Simon,
Like Dawn … I’m impressed n saying, congrats 
Bro. Where I’m at the foraging around the Burbs n busy built up neighborhoods is tough Beekeeping n questionable harvest but still enjoy the challenge. It’s not like beekeeping of my youth around here anymore. But what the heck … still an interesting n satisfying hobby !
Cheers,
Gerald.
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Congratulations Simon, the light color of the honey looks great as does the pics. That is a real success for you.
Regards
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Hi Simon,
Congratulations! That’s a beautiful harvest and I approve of the “swim and tonic” method of extraction too 
A bunch of questions for you:
I see the medium on top of your Flow deep; did the bees also also fill that box with honey? When did you add it to your stack? Was it to get the bees moving through the Flow frames? Were they drawn or empty frames in that top box?
Thanks! And enjoy 
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Excellent and a lot to enjoy! My first harvest this year too…its an incredible innovation really.
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My fault. I subverted Simon last year with my idea of more rapid capping if you have an empty small super (shallow or medium) above the deep super which is mostly filled, but uncapped. I have used this for over a decade, with great results, but it won’t work for everyone. 
I would guess that there is not much in the top box. That is usually the way it goes for me, but somehow the bees seem to cap the lower boxes faster when I have an empty box on top. Bees tend to be very orderly. However, they can always surprise us! 
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It was indeed Dawn’s fantastic idea to add the medium; certainly amazed at how fast and complete they capped the flow super this year.
I added it right at the beginning 6 or 7 weeks ago with the flow super. It was filled with empty frames for comb honey which is my preferred method of consumption. They have started to draw and fill the comb in it, but only in the last couple weeks presumably because virtually every single cell in the flow frames were full. It will be interesting to see if they abandon it now that there is room in the flow frames again.
Here is one of the delicious frames from one of my neghbouring buckfast hives; they make gorgeous comb honey.
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Thanks to raining almost every evening, its taken me a week to get back to the Flow Super and drain the remaining 4 frames. They yielded over 13kg so a grand total of 23kg for the entire flow harvest, or 50 pounds of beautiful white honey.
Looks like they are starting to refill the flow hive again, and have completely abandoned the shallow super on top in favor of it.
Next order of business is to get the flow super off while it is light, and perform inspection and mite counts.
Cheers, Simon
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We have had a horrible time with mites this year. I lost a hive just a month after treating it. It was so fast! I greatly commend you and endorse your plan to count and treat now. So many people leave it too late in the season.
