Perth (WA, AU) Flowhives and honey flow

Alfalfa responds in the same way in my area…dewpoint tagged and it starts to secrete nectar.

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Honey tends to be hygroscopic, so it wouldn’t evaporate unless you had low relative humidity and a good airflow over it… :wink:

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Luckily for me my purpose was only to determine whether my sample was water or not.

After the taste test I decided to heat up the nectar and watch the magic…

Look doc, it almost looks like honey! :wink:

My girls didn’t dupe me after all! :heart:

I would prioritise investing in a second super over the scales at this time of the year. In case of a decent flow additional 10 frames are going to be more helpful. :wink:
If you start from the wax foundation, it is going to cost about 50% of the harvest but it is better than none. Extracting honey as soon as it is ready is helpful too (+20-40% to the harvest). Of cause, these numbers are true when there is a good flow.

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Right now the whole thrill for me is observing them bee and the honey is an added bonus.

+20-40% sounds alot better than a loss of -50% initially and more work :thinking:

I’m hoping that by extracting as I go it will negate the need for an extra box?

In regards to the scales I’m looking at a diy solution to help with cost. I think I’ll get off on the data and that has my peaked interest more at this stage compared to maximum honey yield.

D’oh! I needed to add more details to the previous post. Giving wax foundation leads to a loss of ~50% when compared to giving a fully built dry comb. And again, this loss exists only until the build-out of the foundation is completed. So it means you will get 50% less honey for this super if you have to start from the foundation. Not -50% to total harvest.
About more work. Well… Lift super, put it aside. Lift new super, put it on the hive, put removed super on top. If you mean that adding a second super begins from sourcing raw materials first, then yes, defiantly much more work.

If the flow does not exceed 2 kg per day, it will. You still can use a single supper even with a more serious flow. In this case, you simply not getting as much honey as you could.

Look at this from another point of view. Europian honey bee developed an ability to collect more honey than they need to survive. As responsible beekeepers, we may collect this surplus leaving to bees what they need. All steps we are talking about are meant to increase our share. Having a separate super is a convenient method to manage this. Leave it to bees and harvest hell out of the flow super :slight_smile:

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Haha aww it’s ok @ABB I think we’re on the same page here…

I don’t have pre-built comb so according to your figure I would initially lose 50% of my current honey for them to build out the new waxed foundation and gain it back later plus more, that is if I do choose to go down the extra super route.

However if I just stick to what I have, that’s 50% in my pocket I didn’t lose, plus the added extra 20-40% from doing regular ff extractions while the flow is on. If my understanding is correct, it’s a no brainer for me!

More work being: Time loss due to installation, inspections and extraction for a product I’m in no real need of yet.

I agree, that point of view and method is only relevant if you want to increase your share of their honey :slight_smile:

Instead of toying with putting another super on I used my time and money to quickly knock this up today.

It’s not 100% accurate but it’ll give me a baseline figure all at the total cost of $12.90 (consumables and tools not included.) :joy:

Current weight: 57.5kg! :slightly_smiling_face:

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Ok. I give up :rofl:

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Haha you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink mate! :joy:

I do really appreciate you trying to convince me to put on an extra super to rob more honey but quite frankly I don’t want to at this stage.

I am very happy with my current set up and situation.

Cheers :kissing_heart:

You know my thoughts on adding an extra box here, in my area, with Flow frames, a static apiary and an inconsistent flow.:wink:
I try to only harvest 2 frames per hive per day to mitigate flooding issues so it’s rarely an empty Flow super. Often it’ll take me a month to harvest all of one Flow super.
This year I’m streamlining the harvesting process though and doubling my daily harvest, I’ve gone out and bought another bucket and set of hoses, 2 hives at once. :crazy_face:
Finally packaged the last of last season and this springs harvests too in preparation with summer harvest starting tomorrow.:crossed_fingers:

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We’ll it looks like the Marri flow is hitting its stride. Yesterday the weight increase was 1.5kg + on a number of hives. This graph of the last week shows the ramp up

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I love this stuff! Thank you so much for sharing. Watching what bees have to go through with processing honey is so fascinating to me. :wink:

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Haha sure do mate, I’ll probably end up learning the hard way myself but so far so good!

Yeah the Gman! Woo hoo! Crank it up! :honey_pot::partying_face:

Post pics, or it didn’t happen! :sweat_smile:

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@AdamMaskew that graph is pure :sweat_drops:!

Can’t wait to see the peak!

Cheers for sharing :beers:

Oh, it happened Detts,

And the pails refill.

:grin:

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:scream: Skeggaroo! Holy cow, nice harvest!

Gotta love that Goosie goodness! :clap:

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I love how dark the honey is.

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It’s difficult to show the honey clarity but here’s a pic through the opaque plastic pail of the sun.
Unfiltered untreated from bucket to pail.

For those not familiar with our Marri/ red gum/Corymbia calophylla to be specific, here’s an example of the blossom supplying the dark honey.

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It’s been a while since I’ve seen this.
Hot and humid days.

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Haha wow and here I was worried thinking my colony was getting too pre-emptive split sizeish! :joy:

I think you and @JeffH will also be pleased to know I finally switched to a solid insulated top and metal excluder a while ago. I definitely don’t regret it and wish I had done it sooner! Thanks for the advice :+1:

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