Hi from West Hobart

Introductions
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Hi, I bought our flow hive last year and we have successfully managed it over last winter and now summer. We live in suburban West Hobart, and later this year will move to an apartment in the CBD where we plan to house our hive on the community roof top garden.

We love our flow hive, and we have really enjoyed harvesting the honey from it. I am a member of the local beekeepers group and there are a few flow hive keepers there … but generally the flow hive is not highly regarded here because of the queen excluder, which local apiarists believe is hard on the bees. Not that we’ve noticed - our bees took to the flow hive super immediately!

My configuration is two brood boxes and the flow super on top. I joined this group because I am not exactly sure what to do over winter. So far, after reading a few of the experiences and ideas on this forum, my plan is to take the super off, drain it completely of remaining honey, and store it over winter. Then go thoroughly through the brood boxes to see how full they are, and what honey stores are in there. I don’t think I will need to pack it down further, and there is probably enough warm autumn weather to allow the hive to gather honey and nectar to fill any remaining gaps - but we will see on inspection.

Anyway, really pleased to be a member of this forum. Here is a short video of our honey harvest. https://youtu.be/JipCWpDviss

PS: all feedback welcome and would love to hear from any other Tasmanian flow hive bee keepers especially

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Hello Robert, your honey was really slow draining, I guess because of your cool ambient temperature. But a really nice light color.
Just a tip, Don’t open the whole frame all at once as that can cause flooding of honey out of the chamber down onto the brood. When the drain tube is full of honey as it is in your video then the chamber is also full. If you watch the clips made by Flow Hive you will see that the drain tube is never full. I open 1/5th of the frame at a time and don’t open the next 1/5th till the flow has almost stopped. Flooding can be a real issue with the Flow Frames.
As for the plastic QX I would advise replacing it with a metal one as soon as possible as it will break. When I bought my Flow Hives I was stunned to find the plastic QX’s which went immediately into my recycle bin. I have been keeping bees to long to use a plastic QX.
Cheers
Cheers

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Hi Peter, thanks for the response … certainly will keep your tip in mind next time I harvest a frame. I saw the flow frame video’s suggesting that some overflow honey might collect in the bottom draw - which never happened - so I don’t think there was much of a problem - but your suggestion certainly makes sense.

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