I placed an order for a full flow package during the campaign on March 11 and was pleasantly surprised when I received an email update stating that I would get a December 2015 delivery. I was pleased to so see my order listed as “queued” at the beginning of December. But it is now the 16th and it is still listed as “queued”. I have contacted the kind folks at flow hive and was given a lot of excuses about time estimates, shipping issues, and the size of the job to fill orders etc, etc. I understand that this is a huge task and this campaign was an overwhelming success but something is seriously wrong with the communication of the status of orders in my opinion. No other online company I have ever ordered from has ever listed something as preparing for shipment (or queued) and then not shipped within a few days. A more accurate system should be put in place to give the real status of a shipment. Not a series of teaser emails and a system promising shipment but showing no progress for weeks on end.
I’m sorry if this is confusing for you. This is our way of marking orders that we have sent to be processed by the factories.
Once your order has been processed and shipped you will receive an email with all your tracking info.
You can then contact DHL directly in regards to your order and ETA.
So what was the point of sending out emails telling people they could expect a December 2015 delivery of their purchase? This is probably the fourth or fifth explanation or excuse I have been given at this point. If that is something you use internally to tell you that an order has been sent to be produced by your factories what good is it for the customer?
Good gracious people come on. This is something that’s never been produced before, it’s a crowd funding project. When the timeframe was given, they were guessing at best. They’ve also sent out messages saying there are about 2 to 3 weeks delayed in the shipping. This has been the most communicating team of crowdfunding I’ve ever been a part of. I am absolutely amazed at their level of communication and how closely they have come to their delivery dates. I’ve actually got a crowdfunding project that is over a year behind in development and production.
We all need to relax and go back and look at what the crowdfunding is about. My hats off to what they’ve done thus far it’s utterly amazing.
Marty, I agree they have done a remarkable job getting up to speed. My heartburn with this has more to do with them revising down their delivery time and sending out a “good news” email about the shortened delivery time. When I questioned them via chat I was given many different reasons other than the one Faroe just gave me. That in itself is a problem for me when dealing with any company. The whole “queued” thing implies to me that your order is preparing to ship which is basically one of the things I was told earlier via chat as well. It seems to me that they should be using that internally rather than listing it as a status on the customers order.
I placed my support on indiegogo April 14th 2015, my flow hive was set to be delivered Mid-Dec. The order website after up had it to be delivered Dec 15th. We all go notices that it maybe delayed by a few weeks. Well on Dec 17th mine went in to Queue. I was surprised that it was so close to the est. set 8 months earlier. WOW good JOB. 19th I got an email that it would be shipping soon. Today I got a tracking number. it is do to arrive on the 23rd. WOW!! I will keep all posted and will do an unboxing video when it arives.
I placed mine on the 12 April my status hasn’t changed? hope you enjoy your hive it looks amazing.
Marty, I just got an email last night mine is scheduled to be delivered today! I placed my order on March 11th 2015 so these must be going out in blocks of orders. My account information page still says “queued”. I spoke with a young lady via chat who said that the frames will be sent late December or January.
Yes likely big blocks and for different parts of the world. I deal with delivery chain management at times and for someone to put in place all of this in a short period of time they’ve been doing this is amazing. We take it for granted that FedEx and UPS does it so seamlessly, but there’s a lot of infrastructure that has to go in place. I’m wondering who they teamed up with to get this so correctly/so well done. Mine looks like it’s coming from somewhere in Illinois, I had heard or thought I read that they were being manufactured out West i.e. the boxes and the physical flow 5 somewhere else. They must be assembled together at yet another facility. At least for the US distribution. I thought I read also, so I won’t be disappointed if the flow frames don’t arrive in this shipment. I thought I read that they were delayed about a month due to some tooling and something breaking on the assembly line.
Mine is coming out of Illinois as well. Originally I heard the cedar parts were being done in Oregon so I don’t know if Illinois is an assembly point or what. My email is not showing any other open orders so I really can’t say what exactly is coming. A young lady that was on the chat line last night indicated that this was the hive only so who knows what is going to actually show up. I won’t be disappointed if the frames show up later either.
They are being manufactured and packaged in Oregon, but then fulfilled by distribution facilities throughout the world, including Illinois.
I’m sure I remember, but not sure how to find it so looking to short-circuit it by asking
To get the exact same box that’s being manufactured who do we order additional boxes from? Your company?
I am wanting another deep for brood as well as the frames as a backup.
I’m in the December delivery group too. Did you not get the “December Shipping Update” email saying that they had a mechanical failure with one of their machines that set back delivery time? Have y’all not seen feedback on the forum about quality issues they received and that they were trying to address and fix them? Do y’all not understand the difference between having ordered from an online company and giving money to a crowd funding campaign? It’s not a purchase, it’s a gamble. You took a gamble with your money. Try Googling “crowd funding failure rate” and factor those statistics into your expectations. It is not uncommon at all for delivery of crowd funding perks to be delayed months, if you even get them at all. The fact that the team is still responsive and working on all this is a really good sign that they will come through, just not on the ideal timeline. And for most of us in the US, what is the difference if you get it now or a couple months later? It’s winter! You aren’t going to be putting the flow frames on your hive any time soon even if you had them unless you live in Florida or Hawaii.
Hi Marty,
My Flow hive hasn’t arrived yet, but I have to say that the boxes from beethinking.com look extremely similar to the Flow equipment, and they are also western red cedar - manufactured in Oregon. I have a full hive from them. They even have foundation-less frames. Sometimes the cuts are a little rough - you may want to sand them a bit, but overall the quality is nice if not human furniture standard. They even supply Tung oil at a decent price.
http://www.beethinking.com/collections/parts-accessories
Personally, I am mixing pine and cedar, but that is because I haven’t found anyone who makes a cedar slatted rack, and I definitely want one of those for my flow hive!
Dawn
I add seen these in my peregrinations through MannLake but never really considered them. As there is so much mention of them on this forum I had a quick poll amongst friends in the UK who run Langs. Not a single person uses them. I gather they help bees chill out when it’s hot…that probably explains why nobody uses them here.
A lot of people have their hives on stands and quite a few over winter with nadired shallows so the “keeping the brood nest away from cold and damp floors” isn’t a consideration either.
Our WBCs in Oxford didn’t have (or need) them either. However, in southern California, the summers can be very warm and humid (not Florida hot and humid, but still more than the UK - we had lots of 34C days this summer), and the winters are not freezing or rainy, but they can be chilly some nights, and they can also be humid. We also have Santa Ana winds which can reach 60mph and I like any brood to be out of the drafts from the entrance. So in summary, for our geographical area, I think the slatted racks perform a useful function. Plus Michael Bush likes them, so they MUST be good… 
Just found an old post in this forum from a Flow Hive employee, confirming that beethinking.com is their US partner. So if you order your extras from them, you should have a pretty good match!
Dawn
I have slatted racks as to keep the Wooden Hives a couple of inches higher mainly because the Langs are “Cool” way - I have the racks to help disperse any cold breeze that may come through the front opening even though it has a mouse guard entrance.
My idea being the buffer between the entrance and the brood frames (similar to the idea of nadir-ing).
Which is also the principle used for radiators under windows - providing an area where the convection of small air current will keep the hive warmer.
I have a new lazer thermometer and tested it on my hive entrances today - both poly and wooden and the entry is coming up at 14°C
I like to keep my hives warm way primarily because I prefer to inspect from the back without having to twist myself around to lift the frames. Warm/cold are a bit of a misnomer in these days of mesh floors. It certainly made a difference when we all used solid floors but now you have to consider how much air comes up through the floor compared to that through the entrance.
Anyway…sorry off topic
@Dee trouble is with Lang’s the are cool way because the boxes are not square, so this is my method for keeping the hives warmer.
There is a brilliant article in BeeCraft this month (January’s edition) about why bees were changed into thinner boxes by Derek Mitchell, MSc “Winter Stresses on Honey Bees”