I am first time beekeeper, long time researcher of beekeeping and Flow Hive. I just picked up my nuc of Italian bees yesterday and I am moving them into a western cedar 7-frame Flow Hive 2. I am excited and nervous. Mostly the latter. I am doing this as a hobby and as a way to support my expensive honey addictions. There are a lot of beekeepers around here but they have not been very responsive to my questions on Facebook. A.I. of all things told me about this forum so here I am.
At the moment I think I am good. I have all my gear (suit, tools, smoker, etc.) and I am in the process of applying the reading and video watching to my experiences as I go. Wish me luck!
Good luck to you! And welcome to the forum This forum has been essential to my survival and development as a beek. My so-called mentor never materialized, but I got so much insight and encouragement from members here that I cannot imagine beekeeping without it.
Edit: I don’t mean to discourage you from looking for your own local mentor however! There’s no substitute for in-person, hands-on guidance with experience keeping bees in your own region. Just remember that some beeks hold negative opinions of Flow, even when they haven’t ever touched one. You can navigate these waters by focusing on the fact that beekeeping is still beekeeping, and Flow is mainly just a different harvesting mechanism/process.
Looks like you found the right category to post under for this one, but just make sure that in your potential haste once sh#t gets real that you use the Beginner Beekeeping category for your questions. Otherwise it ends up in Uncategorized which is low in the list order and might not get seen very quickly.
I’ll be very eager to hear how your install goes! Go ahead and tag me by putting the @ before Eva and I’ll be sure to see your update.
Congratulations on becoming a beekeeper! I’m from Virginia and was in the exact same boat as you last year. Don’t get discouraged. I finally found a mentor just last week, and she thought the flow hive was pretty cool. Enjoy your new hobby.
Welcome and congratulations on getting your first hive set up.
I’m happy to hear that your found the Flow Forum.This community is full of helpful, experienced beekeepers.
Don’t forget that you can also reach out to us directly at info@honeyflow.com.
Thank you so much! I will keep the email on mind going forward if stuff gets crazy.
So far though, the bees have been moved from the nuc to the Flow Hive 2 brood box. They seem to be very happy so far. Very active and plenty of buzzing going on. Am I crazy to say I think they have a smell? I might be thinking about it too hard.
Tomorrow is my first inspection since I installed them last weeked. Check on the empty frames and see how far they are getting at filling them up. I think I saw a glimpse of the queen when I inspected the frames on their way to being moved to the Flow Hive but she kept running under the other bees. She must be shy if that was her. I will obviously try to find her again tomorrow.
They do! There’s the lovely smell of wax, of course, and you might also catch a whiff of lemongrass - that would be the Nasonov pheromone released by workers to aid orientation.
Queens do tend to scoot away and hide when frames are lifted into the light. Don’t worry about finding her when you inspect - you are really looking for evidence that she’s there and is healthy. A too-long and intrusive inspection can do more harm than good. If you don’t see her right away, just look in the cells for new eggs. They’ll be tiny, like micro-grains of rice at the bottoms of the cells.
I’m excited for you! Let us know how your inspection goes.
This forum has been essential to my survival and development as a beek. My so-called mentor never materialized, but I got so much insight and encouragement from members here that I cannot imagine beekeeping without it.