How Many Total Hives vs Flow Hives

As a way to guide in moving forward as a new beekeeper this might prove helpful to me. I originally planned on two flow hives and thought I may try to add a 3rd. What do you have and do you have a mix of flow and other?

1 Flow, 1 typical 10-frame hive. Both started at the same time.

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Chet,

I have 2 conventional 10 frame pine hives n 1 conventional 10 frame WRC hive. I plan on ordering one wider version 7 frame Flow-Super to add to my WRC 10 frame Langstroth Summer 2017. Our bees will usually take one full year before adding honey supers here in the Pacific NW some 20 plus ms SE of Seattle in the foothill country. So no real panic … Still have to get them thru one of our very damp n cool winters. Gerald

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5 flow hives. 195 Langstroth eight frame medium hives. 2 top bar hives. 2 or 3 horizontal hives… Now if I just had bees in all of those…

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Two 10-Frame traditional Langs, managed with a friend. All of the honey goes to my friend. Two 8-frame Langs, and 2 6-Frame Flow supers, so they could both be Flow hives. However, one is in a Community garden, and I am not sure that I want to risk a $500 super out there. I will probably use it with traditional medium supers (foundationless) and harvest comb honey from it. Comb honey fetches a premium here - around 50-100% extra compared with extracted honey. That will help to pay for the hobby. :smile:

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2 Flow Hives (8’s) and extra brood box each, 1 Flow body no Frames, 2 wooden 10 Frame Langs, 1 Poly 10 Frame Lang, 1 Poly Lang Nuc, 1 Poly National Nuc, 8 cardboard Nucs (can be either Langstroth or National) - Possibly another Flow Hive 8 Coming

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1 complete Flow hive only. I will likely add another hive to the backyard if I can win over the wife, there is room for a second 8 frame hive on the stand.

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Check out Craigslist there are people selling established colonies and nucs in my area all the time that run for $200-300 each. You could turn it into a side source of income to support your hobby. That is initially my plan so far.

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can’t believe a Cowgirl would ever say never

surely you can handle that as sweet as honey is

Sign of an excellent Cowgirl is to know how to say (or get others to help with knowing) when enough is enough!

1 full Flow hive and one 10 frame lang hive. I have bees in the flow and I’m waiting for a nuc for the Lang.

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Where are you getting your nuc, Randy?

One flow one polystyrene. I am in alaska and planning to overwinter.

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Hi Michael, curiosity is getting the better of me. How many hives do you have with bees in them?

Well I used to have bees in all of them, but I spent 3 years out of the country and several years now trying to get moved to the new house, speaking every weekend and working full time… so I haven’t had time to be, as Nicol Jacobi calls it, a “good bee father”. Probably only a third of them at this point.

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I bought one 7 flow frame that is in a converted lang box. That is going in my backyard garden area next to the shed. My wife will tend to this one. I’m currently building a buffer fence so the bees will have to climb high to get out. I just got the post set yesterday but now it’s snowing. I still might be able to work on fence today as it isn’t that cold. In my four bee yards I have 13, 4 and 9 ten frame lang boxes with each hive having an extra brood deep, then deeps for supers and a slew of medium and small boxes to use as supers as well. Then one 10 frame lang isolated in a last bee-yard. All my bee-yards are on neighboring ranches. When I do the circuit it’s a total of 60 miles. If I get the chance to place bees on a particular ranch in Nebraska, I will place 20 lang hives there as well but my driving time will increase to 125 miles round trip for that one alone which is why I will near double my hive population to make it worth my while. As long as things keep going well I will be increasing hives until I get around 100 or so.

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Picking it up at city farmers on the 21st of May. Bought it through Happy Bee before Erin moved back to Rochester. Picked up an 8 frame brood box with queen from Max’s Honey House. Organic bees. He works Vista’s farmers market. About to do second inspection Thursday. Will try to take pics🙂

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