Hello! I am finding that I want to keep our purchase of Flow Hive a secret for now, simply because, as a newbie to bees, I can’t answer the criticisms of the Flow. I never know who I should tell and who I shouldn’t. Forgive me if it was answered somewhere because I can’t find it. Could someone help me please?
Specifically here’s one I can’t answer (which just seems silly and obviously not an issue to me from my understanding of the flow because we let the bees finish before we drain it), is about it disrupting nature and hurting the bees because it doesn’t let the bees “finish” the honey cycle by capping and controlling the humidity of the honey. That it turns the bees into more of a factory setting…
Let me try to copy and paste someone’s Facebook reply to a post in a local gardening group. I’d love to know how to answer this, because I’ve heard it more than once.
Here’s a quote:
The bees need the accumulation of honey and to cap the wax, which seals it from bacteria and invaders. They need their routines, the bees, and this disrupts that entire cycle since the cells never fill.
Here’s the blog that this person referenced in her reply:
Can you rebut those criticisms? Or link me to where you already have, please?
Thanks! I’m honestly trying to learn more and answer this in an educated, knowledgable fashion, but I’m too new this this and certainly too new to the Flow Hive.
Thanks for your assistance!
Why waste your time with this and provide a link that drives traffic to some silly blog? If you absolutely must get your exercise by wrestling with pigs, tell them to watch the videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbMV9qYIXqM or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryWC92NT2Eo
Thanks. I missed that second video, but had seen the first. I only bother to ask because a couple “friends” (not good friends, but acquaintences) have commented on these posts and eventually they will probably see ours. I know there’s at least 2 people that I won’t share this hive with so that I don’t have to listen to them being so closed minded. However, I do want to try to be informed so that if there is someone who just doesn’t know that its fine to use the flow, then I can show them the information rebutting these silly claims. I didn’t get to see your response DextersShed. I’m sure the blogger doesn’t want to have anyone questioning them. 
Thanks for helping guys!
eapriest,
Again as stated earlier. Don’t concern yourself or waste your time. They don’t care about the truth. They’re just mad because they didn’t think of the invention. Use this forum to find like-mided people just like you who has a flow hive or 2 on the way. Link up with them and have fun with the flow hive.
Dave
[quote=“DextersShed, post:6, topic:1206”]
old school bee forums are looking down on the flow hive too
[/quote] So, I’m not alone ))) before this forum start, I had questioned on Russian talking forum what the people thinking about Flow Hive idea, and I was surprised for such massive negative reaction from traditional beekeepers.
I read some stuff on one forum and they are a pack of Luddites. The laugh will be on the other side of the cheek when we are Flowing are they are not.
One comment they made about Chelsea crew and PYO Honey actually makes good marketing sense and will give us an edge in that our honey will taste better.
I only read about 10 pages before I got kicked off until I join - Think I will hold off on that until my honey Flows.
@Alex
Definitely not alone. Some of these criticisms are so silly! I particularly “love” the one where we are robbing the bees from their natural process of finishing the honey. We, at least, are not planning on constantly running the tap. They are still finishing their jobs and capping the honey before we harvest. I guess we know who to hide the Flow from and who we can share it with.
Thanks @BeeDude and everyone for the the responses. I guess we just know who to share this with and who not to. 
We’ll see how things go and show them later, if they care to listen.
I saw a post on my state county’s local beekeeper’s Facebook page pointing to that negative blog post. The person who posted the link to it claimed that “Real” beekeepers wouldn’t use. Below was my response. For what its worth, my reply received four times more “Likes” than the original poster’s status update pointing to the blog post.
“Everyone is entitled to an opinion about who should tend to a hive and why. No one has a monopoly on right and wrong though. Not disrupting or destroying the hive during honey extraction is a good thing by any measure. The means that a person uses to extract honey has nothing to do with whether they have to keep the hive healthy. In fact, the Flow hive bee keeper doesn’t get to use their fancy new crank unless the hive thrives, and it won’t thrive without care and attention. The transparent sides brings the bees closer to observers other than the bee keeper. This may stimulate interest and fascination in those observers, which is precisely what the author of the blog claims to value. If nothing else, the Flow Hive has raised the visibility of the bees and their plight well beyond the existing bee keeping community. Chastising those whose attention has just been captured for the first time by the Flow Hive can only drive away people, who might otherwise have gone on to become avid and responsible bee keepers themselves. Bees need more supporters, and if this hive brings in new ones, then for the sake of the bees, the community should take the long view and support the hive.”
Jordan Duggan
Good question.
I think that while much of the criticism is motivated by jealousy/resistance to new things, some of it is also motivated by actual concern for the health of the bees. They are worried that people might pick up a hive as a fun toy, and then forget to look after the bees properly, which is a valid concern. More than a few of the critics sell hives themselves, so there is a bit of commercial motivation.
We are lucky here in Canberra - some of the family for the developers live here, and we have been able to actually hold a flow frame and see how it works. The cluster of curious beeks around the frame was fun to see.
I think that once people see this in action most of the criticism will fade away. I also think that the best response to this criticism is to love your bees and care for them to the best of your ability, and get lots of advice if you are new. I build Warre hives, and I really like them, but I am still getting a flow hive 
-)
The main response I’ve heard from local beekeepers in my area is that the flow hive looks at bees like a factory and encourages people to think they can manufacture honey without caring for bees. I really don’t know where they got that idea. Also, there is some (more founded) concern about whether the flow hive is insulated enough for areas with cold winters. I’d love to know if anybody has information about that. We live in Washington, USA and usually have mild winters with up to a month of freezing-all-day temperatures, though it’s usually only for a week or two and thaws during the day.
Beekeepers are all highly passionate about their bees and can be defensive. At least they cannot sting When Langstroth invented his revolutionary hive the beekeeping world was in an uproar too.
I approach the Flow Hive as another optional beekeeping tool. There are still heated arguments about the use of the queen excluder. There is no need to argue with them as time will take care of the skeptics.
One thing I have learned in my very short involvement in bees and bee people if you ask 10 bee keepers for an opinion you will get 11 answers (at least)
I have not made a fuss about what I will be getting and continue to learn as much as I can until then. When the flowhive gets here I will invite who is interested to come and have a look and see it in action.
My guess would be that once things are more real many will come around and look at it as another tool.
Nicely put Beedude, no point in arguing with some people, it gets both parties nowhere.
Yeah…way to go Dextershed…I have read all the negativity on the Beekeepers forum about the Flow hive too. It is always the same when anything new is introduced into an established group with their established ways of doing things. Although there are lots of different ways of keeping bees…people don’t like their own ways challenged. Look at the way the Poly hives were sneered at until almost everyone on the continent used them …even now beekeepers raise their eyebrows at them…inferring they are less than desirable…or the Beehaus… A perfectly good beehive…when used properly…really got slated. Possibly because it was mainly new beekeepers who bought it. It is the same with the Flow hive…mainly new beekeepers. Why is this? It is because new beekeepers don’t have preconceived ideas about beehives compared to ‘stick in the mud’ old beekeepers. I agree…when the first film of Flow hives roll out next year and show the benefits…it will stick in the craw of the diehards…we will have the last laugh!
That is exactly the comment I was given last night when I went to my first Bee meeting of the local group. They seemed quite happy to admit they all had different ideas.