Beautiful wood you’ve used…just re read, pallets, I have several I use for making other things- don’t know why didn’t think of it before!
Remember, it’s not about the honey; it’s about the bees. Honey is just a by-product 
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It is not about the honey only. But I daresay Flow Hive is all about the honey. I harvest very low amounts each year and have excellent survival rates.
But there is no point to the Flow Hive if the bees ignore it.
Larry
@Fusion Larry can I just check, you’re saying the there are 2 “supers” below the Flow Hive??
How many Brood boxes and are they 8 or 10 Frame Langstroth??
If you have supers and the Flow Frames on then no wonder you are not getting any Honey.
I’m included in the October issue of Bee Craft - I’ve harvested 15 Lb form my Flow hive and that is with crap British weather and hiving off 4 lots of brood and eggs for splits.
My Flow Hive is the 8 Frame Langstroth’s with double brood - I was not specifically after Honey this year but getting new Queens off my Best layer Emerald.
If I remember correctly, from August and September Bee Craft
You are filling the Supers not the Flow Hive!!!
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Missed ya Valli! 
Hope you’ve been well
I concur w/ Valli. If your going to stack honey supers underneath the Flow super…well…
I may have to pop some popcorn.
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The 2 supers below the Flow Hive are Brood boxes - 10 frame Langstroth…And both the boxes have plenty of brood in them. I certainly couldn’t take any real quantity of honey from my second super. I took a little to give them some space and avoid a swarm hopefully before I added the 3rd super which is my honey super and is my Flow hive.
I’ve rolled wax from some burr comb onto my Flow frames as show below (the top half is coated the bottom not yet) and today I add the new Flow super and see what happens. This winter has been more mild than normal and there is good nectar flow in our area.
I added the Flow Hive to the to super when it appeared to be 80% full. The bees were adding comb on top of the top super, just below the Flow Hive before I added a sugar feeder. then after adding the feeder, they started adding comb to the area above the feeder (comb that is dripping lots of honey when it gets ripped apart). Shouldn’t that indicate the supers below are full?
My thinking was that I wanted them to have plenty of honey for winter.
You can see my setup in the photo before I added the feeder.
In any case they have started filling the Flow Hive. It is just a question now of how far they will get before fall.
It is clear from responses from all over that there are times when the bees simply decide not to use the Flow Hive, at least for a time. This will be better understood perhaps as time goes by. I would like to here the inventors comment on whether this ever happened during the 10 years of development.
I’d say for your location that is a fine setup. I’m considered mid-atlantic as well and use 3 deep brood boxes and still need 3-7 medium boxes for supers during the flow.
I think the key is understanding your local forage, weather and that will determine The Flow. you have to remember not all flowers give nectar and or pollen. Watching the weather has been my key to what is going on in the hives. I may only have been a bee Keeper a short time but I’m a good reader of nature and the climate.
My bees have done very well with the hand they have been dealt this year
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The other thing to watch is what is going on in the hive next door. If the nectar is flowing there, then it seems safe to say it should be flowing here too. I chose to put the Flow Hive on my most active and best established hive and they are stuffing honey anywhere they can to postpone filling Flow Hive. The hives that came out of winter limping are doing fine.
It is clear the Flow Hive is not a panacea. You still need a healthy queen, favorable weather, hive management…. It is simply a new way to harvest that may work well in some instances and not in others for reasons yet to be determined. It does seem to be that with 10 years of experimentation and development there could be more wisdom passed along instead of all this gushing about honey gushing into jars.
From the sales going on I suspect the initial miraculous $12 million push is over. Now growth will depend on performance and word of mouth. And if Flow Hive cares about their sales, they will address the FACT that bees don’t always rush to fill the Flow Hive and that there are things that can be done (hopefully) to encourage them to work in a new setting. These tips weren’t made to me until I started a thread about no production. The tips should come with the original instructions.
I am sorry Bobby, I don’t get it. Pop corn? Is that sarcasm?
I added a Flow Hive to thriving colony. If you add to a deep only, which seems to be recommended way, how do the bees survive the winter after you harvest the Flow Hive?
Again, Flow Hive is not very forthcoming about managing the whole process start to finish.
Indeed there are many scenarios, climate variances, etc. and not one size fits all. But surely there are some do’s and don’t’s, best practices, whatever.
The only thing I remember reading was to make sure the super below is at least 80% full before adding a Flow Hive. The list of things you mention, smearing wax, painting wax, spraying sugar water… none of this was brought to my attention at time of shipment.
I did not “stack” supers underneath the Flow Hive.
I have been “playing nice” on my diary entries for Bee Craft Magazine. But I am also expecting Flow Hive to step up and be more forthcoming about potential challenges. Pollyanna would not have made a very good beekeeper and a Pollyanna approach is not going to sustain a business model into the future.
Nor is sarcasm.
@Fusion Larry is is possible the other hives are robbing the Flow Hive?
I did not spray sugar or wax on my frames - I did watch the frames fill and empty each month with the waxing and waning of the weather, we are in for a bout of good weather here and I put my flows back on just to see.
Bee Keepers really need to read all the circumstances - perhaps your “strong” hive has been robbed of honey?
I have even managed to breed a late Queen - I had some hives stolen (Queens and Bees) from the out apiary and are having to do a late reQueen - I just found a new Queen today in one Nuc I did at home and need to check the Queen cell I put in the out apiary which may have been a day or 2 younger.
Popcorn is meant for the long and interesting read when I get home. No sarcasm. Real popcorn.
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Flow are very informative about their product, it’s up to you to learn how to keep bees. Flow is for extraction, not management…
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There can be no extraction if there is nothing to extract. All of the suggestions given recently are about smearing stuff on the Flow Hive frames to induce the bees to use them. That is not about me learning to keep bees. The Flow Hive is radical enough to affect management. If smearing stuff is necessary then it should be at least mentioned in the instructions.
I am not alone in this. Many people are having this issue. It can be faced or Flow Hive (with your help) can get defensive about it. And fade away.
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Obviously you are not happy with results, so far. Flow Hive hasn’t been defensive.
I don’t actually have a Flow Hive myself, so no self interest, I just think your comments are more about making a point than finding/trying solution. It’s not “smearing stuff”, but painting on beeswax.
Have you watched their video series about setting up & using the Flow Hive? It’s free & directly accessible from their website. Actually, I think they’ve more than gone out of their way to assist people, & been incredibly tolerant.
They have continuously responded to people with queries/issues & actively sought feedback, positive & negative, on the product.
Bees will frequently behave in ways which do not suit you or your time frames. Beekeepers are essentially working with animals which always requires patience.
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No body said Flow Hives were a miracle cure, just a means of extraction. Seeing to the needs of the bees and ensuring plenty of good forage and the availability of good weather are certainly not on the remit. Neither is good bee husbandry; that is down to the bee keeper.
If my first crop of Honey after harvesting eggs, larvae and bees from my hive this year and crud English weather to boot and I can still get 15lbs of Honey, with all the other boxes ticked I reckon anyone with half decent weather and management can get honey from the Flow Hive.
Also having your brood split over 1 deep brood box and 2 supers may not be the ideal way to go. Can I suggest 2 deep Brood boxes next season.
2 breaks through the brood could be causing some confusion in the workers - did you checker board the brood early on or leave them to their own devices?
From April onward, I have been shifting the brood about to maximize the laying area and I don’t think I could have done that so well with a brood box and 2 supers.
So really my girls have filled 15 - 20 Frames from foundationless to full brood this summer and wax takes ounce for ounce 6 - 8 times more honey by weight to make than just producing honey.
If I didn’t build up my number of Hives this year I would easily had 40lbs of Honey in my flow hives.
and because the Flow frames are waxed ready to cap there will be less work for the bees next year
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A[quote=“Fusion, post:36, topic:7914”]
If smearing stuff is necessary then it should be at least mentioned in the instructions.
[/quote]
IF it is necessary I agree however many haven’t and have no problems with their bees accepting the Flow frames.
Most of the beek books I’ve read advise coating plastic foundation with wax for better acceptance.
If ‘smearing stuff’ is going to increase my chances of bees accepting the Flow frames I’m all for it even though it may not be necessary.
Sometimes you need a spoon full of honey to make the medicine go down.
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@skeggley just wanted to reiterate this point, 