How do I answer this criticism/concern about the Flow Hive

At this point, the only way to answer the criticism/concern about the Flow Hive is through actions. Keep bees, get a Flow Hive, and prove it works in your apiary. There’s no need to though in my minds eye. Beekeeping is about you and the bees, keep them, learn from them, not the boo-hoo-ers.

In the opening Flow video that portrayed pulling honey the conventional way, those guys had either been drinking for several hours leading up to the video, or were strung out on cocaine. Nobody keeps bees that way and if they do, should be ashamed of themselves.

This is Gerald n I live east of Renton. Only see one note from you so will respond to it. I am neither pro or negative but watchful of a new idea n method.

Only the price is keeping me from investing as I am for the moment settled into the older method. I raised bees 55 years ago as a youth in Jr n Sr High school. Now I am getting on board once again with three Nuc’s ordered n three 10 frame langstroths built n ready for this Spring 2016. I need this first season to build up my two lower deeps with brood n wintering honey supplies for the bees needs. I have until Spring 2017 n later to really choose my method of honey retrieval, so no panic either way. Since Flow-hive is working the bugs out in the market place there is no hurry on my part … I know there is a lot of negative but guess much of that will get ironed out. I’ve chose my path thus far n can swing Flow-Super 7 frame or regular medium 10 frame langstroths next Spring 2017. I have included pix of my empty waiting hive(s).

Forward n onward with an open mind.
Gearld

Hi Melinda,

This thread and the two comments above should address some of your concerns. However, if you can tell us what specific concerns or negative aspects are bothering you, perhaps we can provide some input. Let me go through the 3 “reasons” from the article above.

  1. Plastic is bad”. Hmm, well, some people will say this, and you will never persuade them otherwise. However, many commercial beekeepers have been using plastic foundation for years, and if the bees didn’t like it, they wouldn’t use it because it would hurt their business! @Michael_Bush is a very well-known and highly respected natural beekeeper who has used plastic in the past and may even do so occasionally, if I read his posts right. He may prefer other methods, but bees work on plastic too. About the alleged “off-gassing” - unless they have tested the Flow plastic, I wouldn’t believe that. The Flow team have very carefully picked a food-safe, high quality plastic which is BPA-free. The communication disruption comment has not been an issue in the test hives - insufficient evidence on that being a concern. So overall, let’s see some evidence before they trash the plastic!
  2. No communion with bees” Totally wrong, incorrect and inaccurate. Flow hive beekeepers will have to do as many full-hive inspections as any other beekeeper. You still have to check for diseases, swarming, queen productivity, brood box stores and health etc, just as you would with any other hive. I will be checking my lower brood boxes at least monthly, and even weekly during certain parts of the season, just as I would with a traditional hive. The Flow technology will not affect my interaction with bees at all - it is purely and simply a different method for extracting honey.
  3. Expensive gimmick” This one is clever and tricky. At first glance, the Flow hive is expensive. $700 for a full hive is a lot of money. You can buy a similar western red cedar hive (from www.beethinking.com) for less than $250, without the Flow frames. So now you have to ask yourself, do you want liquid honey, or comb honey? If you want only comb honey, you don’t want a flow hive, as all of the honey will be liquid from the Flow frames. If you want liquid honey, then you have to ask yourself how you are going to get it out of traditional frames. There are many methods for this, all of them involving additional equipment, lifting and a lot of mess. Let me go through two of them. First the “crush and strain” method:
    i. Get the bees out of your full honey super. You can brush them off individual frames (hard and unkind), then try to keep them off while you brush the other 7 frames - not easy. You can put a bee escape below the super, and let them move down either with chemicals or over a day or two (but you have to lift a 50-70lb super of honey to do this, then lift it again to take it for extraction). There are other methods, but none are easier than the bee escape, in my humble opinion.
    ii. Carry your heavy (50-70lb) super of honey away from the hive to your honey extraction location. You don’t want to extract anywhere near the hives, as this can set off a robbing frenzy and eventually kill your colony.
    iii. Buy 2 buckets, bags, strainers and honey taps for the crush and strain method (around $100).
    iv. Cut the comb out of the frames (you did use non-wired foundation or foundation less, didn’t you?) and put into the top bucket. Mash the frames throughly and sit straining for 24 hours or so in a warm place.
    v. Open the honey tap and take a look at a sample - if it is full of bits of wax, buy a fine strainer and another bucket ($50 more) and re-strain it.
    vi. Return the crushed wax to the inside of the hive for the bees to clean up (messy, but who wants to waste good honey?) then finally remove, and use the wax for your own purposes.

So that is crush and strain. Only $150 more, but you destroy the honeycomb, and it is not very efficient at extraction. Probably good enough for many people, but time-consuming and messy.

Now onto centrifugal extraction.
i and ii. Follow steps i and ii above. Watch your back with the heavy lifting.
iii. Buy an uncapping knife ($100 if you want electric) a centrifugal extractor ($300 from eBay if chinese electric is OK with you) and a set of buckets with strainers (another $80 or so).
iv. Uncap the frames, catching the capping and honey. Spin frames then capping in the centrifuge until honey is extracted.
v. Return “stickies” (mostly empty frames with leftover honey drips) to the hive for the bees to clean up and reuse.

The advantage is that the bees can reuse the honeycomb, because you didn’t destroy it. The disadvantage is that it cost you another $480 on top of your $250 hive. If you only have one hive, that is more expensive than the Flow hive!

So with the Flow system, you don’t have to get the bees out of the Flow super (but I probably will, I am a creature of habit), you don’t have to carry the super away from the hive, you don’t destroy any comb (but you don’t get any wax either), you probably won’t need any strainers (there are so few wax particles, they probably won’t be noticeable), and you can carry the honey away in 6lb jars one at a time if you want - you don’t have to carry a 50-70lb super for extraction.

Overall, I find that article misleading, although I am sure that the author is well-intentioned. Time will tell, but actually Stu and Cedar have developed a revolutionary new way for harvesting liquid honey. The rest of the beekeeping is totally traditional, and requires discipline, empathy for the bees and conscientiousness.

Please let us know if you have other concerns. We all love bees, and we are not about doing them a disservice.

Dawn

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The biggest compliment is when someone has to “put down” someone else’s way to lift up their own way. This is a two way street; I see people defending the Flow Hive harvest by putting down other methods and I see the reverse. It truly is sad but for some people it’s all they know.

I have yet to see a “detractor” who has actually even SEEN a flow frame in real life, let alone used one. They jump to a lot of erroneous conclusions mostly because they have never read the FAQ section to find out that most if not all of their complaints have been answered.

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Hi Michael,
I am a newbie in New Zealand and am waiting on my complete Flow Hive to turn up. I had been thinking about beekeeping for a little while and then when I saw the campaign for the Flow Hive I decided to give it a go. I then set about learning about beekeeping and on the advice on these forums, and from further research, I decided to buy your book set on Natural Beekeeping. I am a “systems thinker” and find your approach makes sense to me. I would like to start beekeeping based on your principles…why would I opt for a system that is more expensive, more toxic and more work when I have a lovely new pristine hive to start with. I just don’t know where to go to for help and mentoring with this. I have been to a few of my local beekeeping club meetings and they do not seem to talk about natural beekeeping. I feel reluctant to ask for help from these people to work with a different system, that some seem to view with a lot of hostility (I gather this from reading forums) and in a new type of hive. I suspect that I will be treated like a complete idiot and a part of me is very unsure about even bringing myself to their attention. I found someone in NZ who had a website about natural beekeeping and emailed him asking about whether there are natural beekeeping organisations in NZ and he emailed back that the Flow Hive was as unnatural as you could get. Do you know of anyone in NZ that I might get support from, or have any other suggestions? I hadn’t realised that there would be so much religious debate (i.e. people feel so strongly that the other approaches are not ok) about beekeeping!

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Well, I’m not trying to talk you into or out of using it. But if I had one (and I do thanks to it being given to me) I would use it, if nothing else to try it out. I’m not fond of plastic, but I use it every day in all aspects of my life whether I do or don’t like it. Plastic is much less toxic than it was back in the 1960s and 1970s. The flow hive is much simpler to harvest than any other method out there. Beekeeping is full of very strong opinions. It helps to not be too thin skinned. :slight_smile: A lot of beekeepers will hate you for being a natural beekeeper. The natural beekeepers will hate you for NOT being a natural beekeeper. Probably the simplest is to not tell anyone anything until you have heard their opinions and then avoid the contradictory until you have a few years of experience and can speak from your own experience.

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AnneNZ,

Hi Anne … I am a returning to the hobby 70 year old getting back into beekeeping. Yah … There’s a lot of debate about the Flow-Hive. Who cares. It was the same with the intro of the PC Computer, Cellphones, GPS devices n more. I guess at my age I have tough skin :smile:. Beekeeper debate Werres, Top bar, etc… They debate foundation or no foundation. Plastic or no plastic :smiley: don’t let them ruffle your feathers. Just learn !
I hadn’t heard of the Flow until I had built my 3 full deep frame Langstroths hives or I might have a set or two here. Actually your basic hive is the same except only has 8 frames. It’s still a langstroths hive that you’ll add a Flow-hive Honey super too.

Up here in Washington State USA I will operate with one deep brood box n a deep honey super for wintering bees over. It will probably be Summer 2017 before I see any personal honey because the bees have to build their comb wax inter structure first. I still have a choice to buy several 7 frame Flow Supers or go conventional 10 frame mediums n then have to use an expensive extractor. Choices, choices, choices. Don’t worry … At first don’t mention the top Flow Super if you don’t

want too. From the rest of the hive down its all the same stuff. Just do a good job down in those boxes n add your Flow like others would add their extra honey supers. Same same ! Just enjoy n learn ! Some people tease me cuz I still shave with a straight razor. :sunglasses:
Just enjoy the hobby n don’t sweat the other. Just maybe you’ll find a great mentor who doesn’t give a whooooot !

Good luck n happy beekeeping,
Gerald

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Hi Dawn, It isn’t every time but I regularly see a bee doing its waggle dance on one of the frames near the entrance. I think I taught three senior Biology classes during my entire career but I really enjoyed the elegance of both the waggle dance itself and its gradual recognition by us after a couple of thousand years of observation. Perhaps we humans are not as smart as we sometimes think.

People are good at jumping to conclusions too. Some of the detractors seem to assume that this whole thing was some carefully planned corporate thing with no thought for the bees. First, it takes a real understanding of bees to design anything for beekeeping that actually works. Second, they haven’t bothered to figure out who and what Stu and Cedar are. They are about as natural as a beekeeper comes.

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Michael … Your completely correct ! People seem to think Cedar n Stu are like they are. This new world is so into themselves n impatient ! They put their foot/feet in their mouth before they think … Or maybe they just aren’t thinking. Rome wasn’t built in a day either ! Have a great rest of our weekend… I am trying to just ignore their careless selfish thinking n comments.

Stormy in the PNW,
Gerald

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Also note that several of the groups strongly criticising the Flow Hive are direct competitors. They sell hives for about the same price, aimed squarely at the recreational bee-keeping market. I know this because I make and sell Warre Hives. I found it very sloppy journalism that this was not made clear in articles. Not a problem raising concerns about a product, but you need to let people know of any conflicts of interest that you have.

I find their behaviour a real shame, as a lot of people make beautiful hives that are fun to own, they don’t need to go ragging on others. It also makes natural bee-keepers look like a bunch of negative a-holes, which drives newcomers away.

A also did a bit of swarm rescue - if bees are averse to man-made materials, they have a funny way of showing it. The swarm that I collected off a trampoline certainly hadn’t received the memo :slightly_smiling:

PS - I had to have a but of a chuckle the other day, a seller of hives was being quite critical of Flow Hives due to the plastic issue. He then had to field a lot of negative questions/concerns from potential customers about his polystyrene hives - was quite funny to see!

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@Cormac_Farrell

It seems unfair that some people will consider Flow Frames Competition when in actual fact they can be fitted into other Hives as frames, so the number of bee keepers will go up overall and these people may actually gain customers.

Sour Grapes, Tall Poppy Syndrome and Jealousy will be their own demise

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I have been following this thread since its inception and every time it pops up on the ‘latest’ list and I see it I think, in response to the original questions “How do I answer this Criticism/concern about the Flow Hive” DON’T. You don’t have to defend, explain, or justify anything about the Flow. All you have to do is use it.

Anyone with an ounce of google fu can look at the information available and figure out what the deal really is.

The last big buggy maker in the country was bitchin and moanin about those damned new fangled automobiles… And how foolish all the folks who were buying that crazy Ford’s invention were. And how it would never work…

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The British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture is impressed with this product. Don’t waste time countering the nay-sayers you mentioned.

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Like Michael Bush, I was consulted about the Flow hive some months prior to its launch, which some people may consider odd, considering my advocacy of ‘natural beekeeping’, but which I took to be a sign of the integrity and open-mindedness of the inventors. I gave my honest feedback, which expressed admiration for the idea and the execution, together with some concerns over extraction of fast-crystallizing honey, such as from OSR (Brassica napa) and ivy (Hedera helix) and thixotropic honey from heather (Calluna vulgaris).

Post launch, I was repeatedly asked for my opinion of the Flow on social media and I responded with pretty much the same feedback as I had given the makers, with the caveat that until I had tried it for myself, my opinion was worth no more than anyone else’s. I was duly attacked by the Taliban faction of the ‘natural beekeeping’ movement, who told me that it was disgraceful to be defending this “honey factory” and that it was the work of the Devil himself (more or less).

Now I have taken delivery of a very handsome Flow hive, I look forward to trying it out and forming an opinion based on actual experience rather than speculation. It’s a shame that these vociferous critics cannot bring themselves to do the same.

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@BarefootBeekeeper G’day Phil - I saw your hive had arrived. Now we shall all find out soon enpugh.

Welcome to the forum.

BTW Having been on your Northern Bee Gathering last year - I’m sure the Flow Hive will fit in nicely with your way of Bee Keeping.

I would still like to do a Top Bar Hive some day

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Hi there! It will certainly be interesting to see how this thing performs.

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When is your latest book out?

I presume without plastic foundation?