Manifolding flow frames

Hi @busso. Losses were next to nothing - see my previous post. The fall on the manifold lets my honey (which is quite low viscosity) drain quite freely, & when I decoupled the rig, I just let the pipework drain (there was very little left in it anyway) into a small pot. I processed 3 lang frames at the same time as I robbed the flow frames (my spinner is a 3 frame jobbie) & I would guarantee I lost more honey with uncapping those 3 frames than with processing all 6 flow frames. Dee thinks SHE is OCD. Ha! I scrape out every microgram I can get.
Tony

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Youā€™re not alone, my wife says the exact same thing

Ackshully I cheated a little bit. Bunnings are far too expensive for me. I have found a ā€œFarm Suppliesā€ place that is about 2/3 the cost of the bunware shop. The $A18ish was based on Bunnings prices but it actually cost me less than $A12
Tony

This reminds me of when my family went from hand milking cows to the pneumatic milking machine into individual milk pails, then ultimately to milking parlors with the milk being piped through clear pipes all the way to the milk vat for pasteurizing and holding.

And so beginsā€¦ the industrialization of the honey bee yard. I hope that speed and volume donā€™t override the personal interaction with the hive/colonyā€¦

It also reminds me of how we went from getting maple tree sap in buckets with horse teams in the high woods of Vermont and today see an array of tubing systems winding down the mountain side, feeding into pvc piping systems, bringing maple sap directly to the sugar boilers with the turn of a valve.

I thinkā€¦ this innovation is just the beginningā€¦ I think honey extraction will soon change foreverā€¦

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Nope. I like too much the hands on lang system. I like getting down and sticky uncapping and spinning and filtering raw honey. While I currently have one of each, and may in future expand my kingdom of colonies, I will always keep at least 1 bog standard lang . Iā€™m not in the apiculture game commercially. Itā€™s a hobby. And while I could invest in a knitting machine, a pair of needles always provides more satisfaction.
Tony

Hi All

I was inspired by this design to make my own manifold as I had two other objectives I wanted to meet. Firstly, I want to drain the honey to the centre and not to the side and, secondly, I want to see what is happening inside the pipe work. So here is what I came up with courtesy of 2 x 1 metre lengths of 19mm clear PVC tubing and several right angle bends and T-junctions from the irrigation section at Bunnings:

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Iā€™ll add another section of tube at the bottom to my collection container; I could even include a tap from Bunnings if I wish.

This is what it looks like from the other side:

And mounted on the flow frames:

It seems to be robust although Iā€™m taking on board the comments above about paying attention, honey leaks, etc. I thought it might be too heavy but the fitting of the tubes into the flow frames seems to be snug enough to support it all. If necessary, I cold reduce the size of my timber board by half. BTW, this board is key to holding the tubes in position, you would have to be an octopus I fit them all otherwise.

One potential drawback is that the curvature at the bottom creates small spaces for honey to collect but Iā€™m hoping I can leave that for the bees to clean up after Iā€™m done.

So far this is a theoretical exercise as my bees arenā€™t filling the frames with honey but I now have a manifold to use. Here is another view from the rear:

c ya

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I can see a niche after market product. Great to see diversity in thinking.

I am curious, a few have posted when running the flow hive i.e. Draining a frame that the bees have swarmed out for some apparent reason, one person called as an earthquake someone else may comment about excessive moisture. Iā€™m curious if we should not be only training one frame possibly too at a time for those two reasons?

Curious to get the flow team or cedar to reply

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Thank you. I did enjoy putting it together! To be clear, Iā€™ve taken this off now, waiting for the honey now.

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The first problem I notice with this assembly is that all of your downstream connections should be larger to allow for the consolidated flow of honey. You will also miss out on the individual flavors that would otherwise be unique to each flowframe. Running them all together ruins the individual characteristics of the honey.

Have we become so hurried, that waiting for individual frames to drain is a bad thing? Weā€™re already saving time by not needing to uncap, strain and filter debris from the honey and going directly to the final storage jars, why are we in a rush to industrialize the flowhives?

And yes, opening all six (or seven respectively) frames will produce drippings inside the brood box and any other supers below the flowsuper. Humidity will increase and the bees may have to temporarily (circa 12 hours) move out of the hive body.

If you watch the video that Stu and Cedar share with a frame outside of the box and ā€œbenchedā€ so you can see how it works, you will notice honey dripping down the sides and collecting on the plastic sheet it is resting on as well as passing through the designed drainage tube.

There will also be many cases where just a few of the tubes will be ready for harvest. looking at the photos of the manifold, there is only one brood box beneath the flowsuper and that seems to compel keepers to remove all of the honey stores from the colony. Whatā€™s good about that?

As shown here, with the limited diameters of the components and the discharge ā€œTā€ being smaller than the drainage tubes at the flowframe, this will be the slowest possible method.

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You raise some good and valid points. While I made this manifold earlier in the year I was only able to use it for the first time just recently and found it easy to fit and use. Iā€™ve added a tap too. The honey flows freely but it is wiser to empty frames selectively rather than all at once. This manifold does offer an advantage in that after a frame is closed the frame can remain in place to allow any residual honey to drain. I was quite pleased to see how quickly I could empty the hive and fill my jars using this manifold. Afterwards, it was easy to wash out using a hose.

Robert van Mourik

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Just revisiting your design. If you have used it this season have you any further comments?
Do you sit in a trough, for want of a better word, to stabize it or srap it in any way?
I am coming up for my first harvest and just playing with the the insert and plastic tube I found it very easy to dislodge the insert.

busso

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Have you used it again this season and if so do you have any further comments. The board you use for alignment would stabize the manifold and wondering if you do anything to prevent the board from moving. Something like temporarily fixing it to the hive with spacer in between?

busso

Hi Busso. Yes, I have used it - about 3 weeks ago. My bees fill from the
center frames out & as we had run out of last yearā€™s honey, I pulled all of
the flow frames & found the center 3 were all capped. I set up the full
manifold, but opened only the capped frames. Got 8 kilos in about 25
minutes.

I have found you need to push the flowtubes in quite hard, but once the rig
is in place, it is quite stable. My hives sit up on milk crates, so the
fall to the cube works well. I havenā€™t found any reason to modify my
original design. It still works well.
As I type this, I am sitting @ the table in a lather of sweat. I have just
pulled 6 frames from 1 of my Lang hives & I had forgotten how much hard
work it is. And how heavy 6 FD full frames are!

Tony.

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I found there is sufficient friction with the fittings for the manifold to
be self supporting, provided the hole in the cube cap is tight enough to
support the drain end.

Hi,

Yes, I did but only once. The reason for that is that Iā€™ve learnt to wait until the frames are full and sealed before I harvest the honey. Consequently when I last harvested at the end of November I inspected my frames first and saw that only two were full and the remainder nearly full.

Consequently, I harvested the two frames with the tube provided, a bit of hosing and a tap I bought from Bunnings.

Yes, the board did stabilise the hosing and was quite effective and I didnā€™t need anything else to hold it in place. I did attract some criticism for mixing the honey from the frames by harvesting all at once but that criticism only applies if you open all the frmaes at once. You could still use the manifold and harvest individually if you wish.

Hope his helps!

Robert

Thanks for the update
busso

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Thanks for the update.
busso

Hereā€™s my new arrangement that iā€™m pretty proud of.

It means that:
-i can harvest adjacent frames simultaneously
-harvest them individually to preserve uniqueness of flavour
-the tube perfectly fits the bottleneck so no bees attracted to the honey
-They are easily stored and unbreakable
-Easy pouring for putting in jars
-Free and iā€™ll never run out (2 kids in the house)
-Large enough to walk away without risk of overflowing
-Easily detached without dripping any honey on the ground (i carry them away with the tubds slid into the bottles so i can lid them inside and recover the honey from the tubes easily)

The only downsides i can see at the moment are:
-you might not br able to fit 6 side by side, i havent tried it yet
-you need to do a good job cleaning them, of the 6 i cleaned 4 smelt of cheese
-if the honey crystallises you have to cut open the bottle to get it out. Although warming it in water would be pretty easy.

Are there any improvements i can make or can you see any problems iā€™vr not identified?

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Those look like milk containersā€¦ Maybe we can now say that we are ā€œmilkingā€ the bees, rather than robbing or harvesting! :smile: :joy: :grin:

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