Brilliant! Food quality plastic containers sitting right under our noses. Wished I had thought of that!
I use milk cartons for all sorts. They are brilliant. A word of warning though. They are not made for repeated use of something heavy. They get tiny splits you canāt see and honey leaks silently
Iāll have to keep an eye out for that. Nothingās ever perfect!
Nice comment. Iāll pay that.
Iāll probably be cast off for breaking the beekeeper code of secrets, but a great quality bottle is the āLiptonās ice teaā bottle. I think they are made extra thick to handle being heated up. Iāve got several I use for feeding and they are rock solid and handle hot water really well, they also come in decent sizes.
Not sure if they are the same world wide, but the thick bottles in Australia look like this and are about a litre:
Unfortunately itās probably not quite big enough to handle a full Flow frame!
Bottles that carry fizzy stuff are quite robust too. I use them to make elderflower champagne.
I am definitely visiting you when we visit the UK. I love the taste of Elderflower. There is a fairly new (and hard to find) liqueur, called Saint Germain, which is Elderflower based - makes fabulous cocktails!
Brilliant Dunc! Solves many issues all at once, and is free
Simple & cost efficient. I like it. The bottles are 3 or 4 litre? Have one Flowhive now into honey production so can test your system out soon. Bill in Barnes
Looks good Dunc I shared it with the Flow team, they were pretty impressed.
The only things I was wondering about wasā¦ maybe the pressure would build up in the bottle if air canāt escape, and maybe cause a build up of honey in the bottom of the Flow Frames? Did you have this issue?
Did you have to pull the top of the bottles out of the tubes sometimes to let a bit of air escape?
They are 3L milk bottles from the supermarket.
I didnt have any discernable issues with air pressure build up. The seal at the neck is not perfect.
Iām discharging the frames pretty fast, i lift the front of the hive 50mm and after clearing the first few cells of the frame i open the whole frame up and havent seen any leakage (compared to appreciable leakage last year).
I like the idea of using standard āoff the shelfā parts, but ran into a problem.
I purchased some of the 20mm fittings you mentioned and wonder how you made the connection from the Flowhive outlet tube to the first 20mm elbow tight. The clear outlet tubes just wobble round inside the elbow.I definitely got the 20mm fittings mentioned and shown elsewhere in other posts. I donāt want to glue them in but would rather a firm push in fitting to allow for disassembly for cleaning. Has anyone else had this problem, or found a solution?
Thanks
Hi David, I would wrap masking tape around the tube to get a firm fit.
Thanks @JeffH hadnāt thought of that - and it would be easily removeable / replaceable as needed. Good one. Will give it a go
Youāre welcome David, also the used masking tape is excellent for getting a smoker started.
we managed to find clear food grade tubing that has an inner diameter around 25mm- it fits perfectly onto the flow tubes and there are no leaks. Use one tube per frame and make holes in your bucket lid: simple and works like a charm:
Thanks @semaphore for that information, we wanted an option which allowed a
tighter bend than the clear tube provides, as we want to harvest into
individual (around 3kg) containers to keep frame separated. it can be
interesting to see the variations, even over a just few weeks between
ārobbingsā. When we do rob multiple frames into a single bucket we will
use your approach. Thanks again
I think it would work even with separate containers sitting side by side. the hoses are flexible enough that you have some latitude with how you place them. Also- if I was you- if possible I would only harvest 1 or 2 frames at a time to minimize the amount of disturbance to the bees from any honey leaks. I only ever harvest two at a time now.
I agree Jack, @semaphore , we usually only harvest 1 or 2 at any time, but
last year when we had a really good flow going we did 4 at once on 1 or 2
occasions, it got a bit messy as we were harvesting into 1kg jars and the
flow rate between frames can vary quite a lot, so suddenly there are 2 to
be swapped over at the same time. Lots of finger licking was the reward
Iāve now purchased a few 3 kg tubs and wanted a simpler solution. I do like
the look of the tight bend and then a small length of the clear hose down
to each individual tub. Setup, turn the key and get the honey flowing and
go away and have a cuppa and remember 'how good life isā
Cheers
David