My Hybrid Hive plastic frames and flow frames

Mixture of flow hive and frames and a technoset brood box, would love to have a flow hive lid but doesn’t seem to be sold separately!

3 Likes

Good to see another technoset beekeeper on here. I posted a thread about adapting the 10 frame flow box to the the technoset boxes here
http://forum.honeyflow.com/t/technoset-bee-hive-flow-super/8437

Is there a reason you’re not running all the flow frames in the center? Did you move the other frames up from the brood box or are they new frames? They don’t look like the standard technoset wired frames (no wire and eyelets) are they the frames you insert foundation into?

2 Likes

Very colourful! It would be great if they sold individual components of the hive in Australia, too expensive to get them from Beethinking (supplier/maker in US?)
After reading Sam’s reply re flow frames in super, the frame spacings look a little tight/off? Is that because you’ve combined different frames?

Kirsten,

They are actually made in Greece, and you can buy all the components separately. Search for ‘better bee hives’ in google for an Australian distributor and I believe there is a technoset Australia page on Facebook.

1 Like

Heya yes nice to see someone else with a tecnoset hive I thought I might of been their only customer! I had alot of trouble with getting the bees to accept just flow frames, once I put a few of the blue frames in (yep they are the ones you just insert the foundation into and dont need to wire) they filled them up quickly and then moved onto the flow hives.

1 Like

Yes got mine from better bee hives, your right the spacing is a little off, it was difficult to get it perfect with the mixture of sizes

1 Like

I really like the idea of the mix of frames in the top box, mainly so old frames can be cycled out easily and the bees can be ‘coaxed’ up like you have demonstrated with drawn comb from the bottom box. I bought the full 7 frames, but my intention was to run a mix as you have.

It doesn’t look like you’re running an excluder, is that correct? I am using the excluders with a top entrance (which I have switched all my other hives to) and plan to use that in the hive with the flow. Will be good to compare notes.

1 Like

I find this intriguing, primarily because the frames match the standard 35mm frame width. These are the technoset full depth frames I am using (single piece/wired).

I think the primary reason for the tight spacing is that you are running 5 x flow + 3 x standard which results in 250mm + 105mm = 355mm (10 x normal frames is 350mm)

The way they have it configured on the flow site is 4 x flow + 4 x standard which results in 200mm + 140mm = 340mm which leaves an extra 10mm of space.

-edit-

Fixed my maths!

Never did the maths on it but sounds about right, will have to try and reconfigure, yes at the moment there is no excluder, I thought in the early stages they weren’t coming to the super because of it…removing it did seem to make a difference and so far have seen no evidence of the queen being around

I just realised the other issue when running a box with standard frames mixed in with flow as you have (if you haven’t got the hybrid box with the smaller cut out)… and that’s the fact the end of the hive isn’t sealed by the end of the flow frames! This doesn’t cause you any issue? Do the bees carry on while you’re draining the frame?

1 Like

Yes good spotting, it’s certainly isn’t as clinical as the flow hive videos, had to keep my suit on and smoker handy. Also without tubing and having an open jar I had a couple of bees do suicidal jumps into it. Wish I had a macro lens on the camera as I would of had a nice picture of one bee crawling to the end of the pipe and licking honey from it as it flowed out, would of made a great slow motion video shot

Thanks Sam, but in this case I meant the Flow hive parts, in reference to Mike’s comment about the roof. I was given a 2 wood hives, & actually ended up making my own supers etc. as I have a large collection of old timber. If I was going to use plastic I think these would be the ones I’d go for though. I imagine they provide good insulation. Oh & I really like the adjustable catches, if I can i’m going to get some of those.

Ahhhh… completely agree.

I assume at some stage they are going to have to start selling individual components due to the current Flow hives ageing and the timber (especially pine) components requiring replacement well before the Flow frames!

1 Like

It’s my understanding that the bees start from the centre and work out so wouldn’t it be best to group the FF in the middle of the super? I’ve read a couple of threads where the bees have moved the honey from the outside frames into the middle once the middle frames were harvested.

I’m also interested in the technoset hives. Is there somewhere over here in the west I can purchase without having to pay stoopid postage?

another issue with using mixed frames liek this on a full flow super is that the rear side frame rest is cut down perhaps 1/4 lower than the standard frame rest rebate. So your blue frames are not sitting horizontally. Not sure if that causes any issue but you could put little wood spacers under the frames end to lift them up a bit?

I was speaking to them today, apparently there is a dealer in WA, 0430995365 is the contact number.

1 Like