Hi all, my name is Will I’m 17 years old and I live in England. I’m thinking about purchasing the flow hive as I am very interested in the thought of being a beekeeper but really know very little about them and so the flow hive seemed perfect. Also I was planning on buying a Flow Hive without the box as I was going to “kill two birds with one stone” by Building the Hive as part of my A-Level Design and Technology Assessment and by being able to own bees. Before I Purchase one I have a few questions which I was wondering if someone could answer.
What are the dimensions of the flow Hive?
I can see they are available for pre order but when will they actually be available?
If someone could be kind enough to answer either of these for be I would be extremely grateful
Absolutely agree with Dexter.
Flow frames are simply a honey extraction system. You still have to learn to look after your bees or you will be irresponsible and throw your money away.
I agree with you guys but if Will is making a beehive for his DT project then we need to put him in the right direction so at least he can build the thing.
While you’re building the Hive you can learn about bee keeping and need to understand what all the bits of the hive are for and how they come together to make a bee keeper and keep happy bees
I think it’s great he’s starting so young. Definitely do what others are suggesting and do a ton of reading and research so you know what you are getting into. By the time you get a flow system in place you should have a lot of great information under your belt. You’ve got 8 months to go.
You and Dexter are correct, and I thought the same thing while reading the initial post. But with some consideration I figured that any young man smart enough to see the potential of the Flow Hive, and find us to ask questions of, about just building the boxes, no doubt plans on educating himself about the care and feeding of the bees also.
Will, good luck on your project.
I am sure that everyone here will be happy to help you in your endeavor!
The first thing to learn is the life cycle of the honey bee. I mentor three beginners and I can usually trace misunderstanding and inability of reading the hive to a complete lack of these important basics. Another thing you HAVE to be able to do is see eggs.
Good luck Will…
As mentioned before on the forum, swarming is natural reproductive behaviour but if a beekeeper wants a honey crop he has to control this and harness the bees energies towards staying together as a strong colony.
A beekeeper has to understand that a bee is an egg for three days, a larva for 5 and a pupa for 8,13 or 16 days so what you see on a frame is an indication of queen-rightness
If you see eggs likely you have a queen
Has your hive swarmed? Sealed queen cells and no eggs,but open brood…Queen swarmed up to a week ago.
How long does a bee live and how long does it remain in the hive as a houseworker and a forager?….Young bees are the ones that have developed hypo pharyngeal glands producing the food to raise brood. Old bees can revert to nursing duties but are not very effective, that’s why emergency queens produced by old bees are scrub queens.
This is the sort of stuff you can work out for yourself and apply to what you see in the hive.
It’s no use saying, “I don’t think the hive has swarmed…it’s full of bees”. You should be able to work out whether it has or not.
The other single important thing is that you cannot prove you have a queen if your bees don’t raise queen cells from a test frame.
No, absolutely not my friend. Like you, I only reply to what I see written in the post. This is a forum to help the thousands of Flow Newbees. We need to give them reasonably accurate information. You wouldn’t want anyone giving you a bum steer, would you? You sounded a bit harsh on that young bloke, I thought Valli had a more gentle & helpful approach. Only a small % of the new Flow’ers will stick it out long term, we both know that. You sound like a relatively new beekeeper, you’ve probably seen a few start & give it away in your time as a beekeeper, I’ve seen heaps. There would be an unbelievable amount of beekeeping equipment sitting around in sheds etc. from failed attempts at beekeeping. Even more so since the arrival of SHB. How much Flow equipment will end up the same way?
Hi Faroe, the modification instructions include internal dimensions but not the external size (length and width) or material thickness. The posts below show various dimensions for width (16.5 and 16.25 inch). I wanted to make a SHB trap and slotted bottom board in advance of the FlowHive delivery so am interested to know the specifics for the FlowHive info of material thickness (ive seen 22mm and 3/4 inch mentioned in different references), and also box width and box depth (external dimensions). thanks
I thought I would also include one of our FAQs about SHB - http://www.honeyflow.com/faqs/small-hive-beetle-shb/p/68 Small hive beetle SHB and this system - Can they enter and is there a need for maintenance?
In: Frequently Asked Questions Viewed: 4,145 times
We have a lot of small hive beetle in our area. We have designed the frames with beetles in mind.
Beetles cannot get into the honey trough or movement mechanism. Unlike other plastic frames we have made sure there isn’t any beetle homes.
We have lost one Flow™ Hive to the hive beetles. The Flow™ Frames weren’t damaged but they did need a clean using a hot water hose, hot enough to melt beeswax.
Thanks Faroe, that is perfect. The router and power saw have been put to good use and the slatted board is all cut and ready to stain/treat and assemble. Thanks again.
I was like Will n started beekeeping almost blind. We needed a project in our schools Agriculture program. I was rIsing chickens already so wanted a unique different project. Leafing thru our schools government Ag projects I spotted Beekeeping. At the time we didn’t have a local club so cast off on this venture with only reading a couple more small books our school library had (which wasn’t much). At least we have the Internet n gobs of info n bee clubs now. As a youth I raised up to 8 hives hit n miss. It was a great 7 or 8 years of learning then off to college then the army (Vietnam 1966-67). While I was gone my dad had some troubles n lost them all.
Now 55 years later n wiser I am again starting up several hives n learning again ! A lot of stuff is returning to my 70 year old brain from the cobwebs of time. Give it a whirl Will. And do some studying n find a mentor as well. It’s much more fun with help … Enjoy.
