well the time is near to have a crack at draining a couple of frames of our FlowHive…
I couldn’t be happier with the buildup… by the time the flowhive got here in January my bees were about finished building up in the brood box and at that stage they hadn’t started on the Super in any way…
but once I transferred my bees into the flowhive (with super on top) away they went…
my other have has been a bit of a disappointment this season… after blasting off with huge numbers at the start of spring, they have swarmed twice and are just keeping numbers and honey in the hive at a sustainable level with not much excess for us to take… although we did get one frame before xmas… I think it was
so now the time is near to drain 2 or 3 frames out of the flowhive
I’ve got my bucket ready with attachments…
note in this next pic of how there are tabs on the tubes… these are to block the “redrain” holes that go back into the hive while draining… once you take the tubes back out anything left will drain back to the hive for the bees to reuse…
the harvest went kinda well… as long as all my bees are still there tomorrow after they all flew to the outside of the hive on draining!!
the process itself was fairly easy compared to spinning it out etc etc…
wax came down into the mix which was strained out afterwards … took around 20 minutes I think but I was pushing to get it done with honey still left in the bottom of the hive… but that’s ok… I’m not a greedy man
this is what happened after the first two frames got drained…
Great photos. Be interesting to hear what happened to the bees. I thought it looked like bearding, but my husband said he thought that they were running from the “wax quake” when the frames were cracked open. Either way, we both thought that they would go back inside before too long.
How long did it take to drain? How much honey did you get from each frame? Thank you for sharing the photos!
Mirabai here, the Flow Hive filmmaker and Cedar’s sister. I am putting together a little video featuring some of our customers harvesting. I would love to be able to use your videos & photos. Would that be ok? If yes can you email/drop box them to me please. film@honeyflow.com
I’m trying to collect something from everyone who has harvested so far. Its truly amazing seeing people harvesting their own flow hives.
