Standing up for the Flow Hive!

Dawn_SD, I will reply to comments by number:

  1. Yes I am aware of this, I purchased some for making wings for my duplex hive.

  2. I have no reason to think differently but anyone can make this claim though, how do you check it out? The clear-cutters in Canada probably tell you this same thing. My wife came home with a bottle of Organic Honey, what makes honey organic? Bees can travel for miles to collect nectar, my neighbor sprays Round-Up weed killer on his beans, says it won’t hurt bees, probably cause it says so on the bottle. You take a shower in it and don’t wash it off and see how you feel in a couple of days. Probably why we have so much cancer and its not just Round-Up. Doesn’t kill bees cause it’s labeled a weed killer, but it’s in your food? I REPEAT, It’s in your food, all the Genetically Modified Foods flower and bees collect nectar from these. There are apples that the flesh won’t turn brown, what do you think this apple is doing to your insides? There is no need to be embalmed when you die, the foods you’ve eaten takes care of that. Farmer is spraying his field (for some reason waits till weed flowers) bees are collecting nectar and pollen and gets sprayed during or while still wet. Now it is in his wax and honey, and your ingesting this. I’ve tried explaining to my bees this ain’t good for them but they just won’t listen, that flower is just too pretty. It’s like telling your kids not to do something. I wonder if bees are like I was and thought if I was told “no” it must be fun… I think I’ll start telling them to do things that will harm them that way they’ll look for more exciting things to do. If bees are like kids maybe this will work, cause we all know kids don’t want to do anything you tell them to do.

  3. Well aware of this. I paid a custom woodworker to put windows front and left so I could better see that cells are capped. It cost $125. for each super (3) It cost more for 1st one to make all jigs. Even used Western Red Cedar on covers but this probably wasn’t necessary as there is a piece of plastic between it and bees. I have come to the conclusion that they Western Red Cedar works for pest’s the same way Cedar chests worked for your Grandma’s sweaters that and/or the lime base I put my hives on. I feed no sugar, do not use Candy Boards in winter or use any treatments but I wouldn’t dare call it “Organic”.

Considering putting a hive together that uses three 8 frame medium boxes with windows all the way around so I can just remove windows and look in to see how they are doing or to see if they are ready for another box. Due to vision and motor skills I kill a lot of of bees when I go in, the lifting recesses wouldn’t be needed so jig for super widows could be used. I wouldn’t recommend spending too much time watching them though, about 1.5 weeks after I put Flow box on I checked in and saw the back part of a frame was filling so I grabbed a seat and thought I’d watch a while, a story on my phone caught my attention and when I looked back at the Flow the honey was nearly gone. I guess they didn’t like me at the back of the hive any more than they like smoke.

It was all back in a few days so I don’t know what they were doing with it unless they were going to vacate like they do when you smoke them. That is why they seem more docile when you smoke them, they’re taking honey and leaving, they’ll probably be back but it will set you back a few days.

Only two of the medium boxes will be used in summer topped by a Flow super. The 3rd box will be put on to replace the super when I remove it for winter. I have 10 frame boxes with queen excluder that that I do not harvest from that I can take frames that are filled with honey… that is how I get by not feeding sugar or using candy boards.

  1. Wouldn’t use anything else for exactly that reason, Only a fool would use a copy to save a few dollars. There will be improvement though, look at the computer, it’s outdated before you get it home.

The wooden boxes are a different story. The workmanship and quality control hasn’t proved itself so well. On one of my hives I have to run a piece of masking tape along the seem between the super and brood box because of a gap that will let bees out. All other boxes have gap but not as bad. Had to trim all (3 boxes) finger joints to get to fit together, knew I wasn’t the only one since I saw a video of how it was repaired. I got mine during the crowdfunding so it’s understandable but surely surely it is worked out by now. I commented to the company but never heard back, apparently at the time they had bigger fish to fry because they responded all other times.

By the way I have found Western Red Cedar 8 frame boxes cheaper but because they also sold treatments I wouldn’t buy from them. Blessings, Mark

The manufacturer states:
Deep Langstroth hive box made in Portland, Oregon offered FSC® certified, sustainable, kiln-dried, Western Red Cedar

Flow themselves also state:
Flow Super box made from sustainably sourced Western Red Cedar for honey collection.

It is easy to mistake the caution or indifference of commercial beekeepers as skepticism and negativity. I know commercial guys that are keen to develop flow systems. One thing that concerns them greatly is that they see the flow hive attracting people into the market that are ill prepared, and their inexperience will lead to failures and giving up on their hives which will potentially spread diseases. This is where they are negative, because an untended hive is a disease risk. Just because they are not as enthusiastic and exuberant as the newbie flow dudes doesn’t necessarily make them anti flow hive though. It will naturally take time for this technology to be successfully embraced by commercial operators and work still needs to be done on how this will happen. It is an expensive venture to purchase tens or hundreds of flow hives. Also not many people are getting into commercial beekeeping, there are more getting out than in as they are usually older and have already invested in their plant equipment. Personally I hope its as fantastic as I think its going to be. No bees in the extraction room, clearer boards, uncapping, I imagine filtering will be simpler too, less equipment, less space needed, no need for spare supers in the freezer to swap with harvested boxes, and less bee stings

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Yeah and the irony is that it was the commercial guys that spread the diseases and pests around the world in the first place… Still are.

That’s because we all want these foods that the bees facilitate

I think the leakage problems with flow hives would need to be sorted out before any commercial guys would even think about using flow hives on a large scale.

The issue of bees in an extracting room is insignificant compared to honey leaking over the brood & bees. Especially in an area where SHB are present. Plus an extracting room can be fitted with screens.

A local flow hive beekeeper told me after one season that in her opinion, flow hives would not be a commercially viable proposition.

@jasonjetplane
Hi Jason, certainly you make some reasonable points. The causes behind how and why the various opinions are there is a of course quite complex and would vary between individuals. Someone could write a book on it. For me, beekeeping is turning out to be so much more about the science of it all and less about the extraction method. The Flow hive has probably given rise to a lot more knowledge in biological science for those who would never have learnt, and surely also has brought a great deal of pleasure and happiness to thousands of people around the globe.

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I don’t know Jeff- i think the leaking issue has been over-rated. IMHO.

Just yesterday I inspected my long hive for the first time since winter. When I took off my inner covers they were all stuck to the frames below with a thin layer of capped honeycomb. I had to scrape all of that off of the top bars. This inevitably caused some leakage of honey down into the hive. There was nothing to be done- it had to happen (though going forward I am going to use hive mats to stop it). I am not at all worried- the hive was absolutely packed with bees and they will have cleaned all that honey up in no time at all. Honey leaks when supers are removed, when cross combed frames are removed, and at other times. None of which has proved disastrous to hives in the past as far as I know.

I have never seen a hive beetle here- and I understand your concern about leaks and beetles. But- I feel sure in traditional beekeeping leaks happen too- and the bees deal with it.

If it turns out that it really is a big problem with flow hives- then the answer for commercial beeks could be to remove the super for draining. Even though that goes ‘against the flow’ so to speak- I can still see how it could be a workable system with some advantages over traditional methods. There is still the matter of economics- and it remains to be seen if there is any commercial use of flow frames on a large scale.

I respect your opinion- but I have made so many harvests now and I just haven’t seen any notable disturbance to the hive afterwards. I also have made quite a few (most?) harvests with no discernible leaking…

I think I mentioned this once before. If we get a little honey spill while working the bees, we know how much it is, then we can make a judgement as to whether we think the bees can deal with it, or not. It’s the “known unknown” that worries me. We know there could be a leak while harvesting from the back of a flow hive, but we don’t know how bad it is. That photo of @Heron’s really shows how bad a leak could be. It probably depends on what type of honey the bees produce wax from. I’m not far away from Heron, I’m sure that I’ve seen capped honey that looks similar. On the other hand, I’m sure that I’ve seen capped honey where I reckon the caps would hold together pretty well. In that case there would be little to no leakage.

That has never been an issue with traditional harvesting.

There is also the issue of the possibility of crystallized or jellybush honey in flow frames. How would a commercial operator deal with that, if it ever happened?

I’m only a commercial operator from the point of view that I have around 50 stationary hives. I can not see how that flow frames would enhance my operation. Price difference aside.

I agree wholeheartedly with @Michael_Bush in relation to keeping your frames all the same size. Whether it be ideals, deeps, just keep it all the same. That way you can move frames from the brood to the honey super & vice versa. I only told this to a bloke today in relation to box sizes. If you want to use 8 frame supers, use all 8 frame supers. That way all of your lids, bottom boards & QX’s all fit. He’s choosing to go with all deep 10’s.

My point being that flow frames don’t work in the brood.

Maybe other more serious commercial operators might have a different point of view.

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Yes for sure Bill. The ill prepared & inexperienced beekeepers that are doomed to failure, as described by @jasonjetplane happens with traditional hives also. I see that quite regularly. I think it’s more challenging to keep & maintain a hive in good health than to actually harvest the honey. The honey crop is a reward for a job well done.

However, as I’ve observed, sometimes the first crop can be easy for the inexperienced, it’s maintaining the colony for future harvests can be the problem.

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Totally seconded. I can’t say how much I agree with this statement. :blush:

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I third what @Dawn_SD seconded Jeff, and heartily second that part above. Speaking as an inexperienced beekeeper with just two years under my belt, I am at that exact point now. I’ve done enough of the maintenance & made enough mistakes to see why people give up after one or two tries.

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Hi Eva, it’s great that you are not one of those who are giving up after one or two tries.

Learning lessons after mistakes seems to be the “name of the game”.

Everything that can possibly go wrong (except varroa) has happened to me. Sadly lots of innocent bees die in the process.

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When someone says, “if it weren’t for Flow Hives, I could not keep bees;” they should not keep bees until they seek education about the hobby. That statement says they only expect to harvest honey but have no idea about the other 364-1/2 days of beekeeping.

One of my new students, a fine young man.with Asperger’s Syndrome, watched the early Flow video, and of course fell for it hook, line, and sinker. He’ll be going in to winter with a single partially drawn deep, has never opened the hive since April, and plans no mite management because the video said, “no disturbance to the bees”. If anyone knows about Asperger’s, they are usually very passionate about a single subject; his being Flow hive. Once they think they’ve learned or mastered something, it can be difficult to change their beliefs. I’ve been working with his parents (wonderful people) to try and help him to understand that the Flow super must come off for the winter, mites have to be dealt with, and, if the bees don’t make it through winter to just treat it as a learning experience and move forward.
I wish I had this young man’s dedication and focus.

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Hi Ed, you/we just have to back off & let things happen. Let folks learn the hard way.

Lots of people did get into bees because of the interest generated by flow at the start. A lot have fallen by the wayside. Some have stayed, that’s always good.

I think @Dawn_SD got back into bees because of flow.

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Sort of not quite true, but some truth in it. When we moved from the UK to the US, we had 4 hives - WBC hives, which are double walled construction, but British National in frame size. We had to give them away, as we could not bring them to the US. That was 20 years ago, long before Flow hives existed.

When we bought a home in San Diego, the City was extremely unfriendly to bees and any livestock within City limits (including chickens, pigs etc). Not that any homes within 20 miles of us have enough space for large livestock! :blush: We really wanted to start beekeeping again, but we couldn’t do it legally.

Finally in 2012, the City got worried enough about CCD in bees that the regulations were reviewed and overturned. They decided that urban beekeepers could have 2 hives on their property, with certain boundary and “flyover” restrictions. However, nobody told us about that. Why would they? We had no idea that they had changed the rules.

In 2015, I was watching CNBC while I worked on the stock market (my current day job), and I saw a brief article about the Flow hive. I mentioned it to my husband, and he got so excited, that we re-investigated the local regulations on beekeeping. We discovered that we were now allowed to keep bees within the City limits. We would have kept them in traditional hives before that, but the article about Flow drove us to look into everything again. So we didn’t start beekeeping again just because the Flow hive is available, but it certainly prompted us to see whether we could make it work in our home.

We now have 2 Flow hives at home, and one traditional hive at an “out-apiary”.

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The leakage issue has been an ongoing issue for us as mentioned, hence the flow frame extraction set up I have made. We can lose up to 25% of a frames’ honey, it’s devistating to see that honey on the ground around the hive and realising that it has flowed over bees, brood, eggs, etc not to mention the loos of the honey. In the photo I extracted 4 frames with about a litre of leakage overall.
Don’t get me wrong. I think the flow frames have merit it just their design needs a little refinement.
For what it’s worth we became beekeeps because of the Flow Hive, now I have 3 hives 2 of which are Langstroth on properties in the Hinterland and plan on many more, actually people keep asking me to put hiives on their land and maintain them

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Just link them my article: http://beekeepinglikeagirl.com/is-the-flowhive-bad-for-bees/

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Lance,

I started beekeeping in 2013. I was convinced here in southeastern Indiana we need double deep 10 frame brood boxes to make lt through winter.

In late 2015 I got my Flow hives that were only 8’s. In 2016 I experimented with my brood boxes consisting of 2 deeps and 1 medium the other hive 1 deep and 1 medium. 1st year was hive buildup and seal Flow Frames. In 2017 I was able to harvest 30 pounds honey from the smaller of the 2 hives (1 medium and 1 deep), split the 1m/2d into 1m/1d and 1d and just allowed them to build up and seal Flows this year.

Seams the smaller the hive the easier it is to care for. I couldn’t believe how well the smaller hive did when I expected the opposite.

The Flow frames / single deep brood box is nearly full of honey but I will leave that for them to feed on this winter. All my hives may be single brood boxes next year… we’ll see.

Last year (2016) I put the partially sealed Flow supers in the freezer for 48 hours and then in storage for winter and re-installed in March. (2017) This year I plan to leave them on so bees can feed on the honey if need be.

I have found the honeybee to be more susceptible to heat rather than cold. There was a swarm that stayed on my picnic table all night this spring and it got below freezing… they were fine.

I wouldn’t wrap my hives in tarpaper cause that will allow the hive to build up moisture and eventually freeze, it needs ventilation.

Are you sure you’re not giving them too much space? They seem to do better with less, they will swarm more often… you can catch the swarms and start new hives. I’ve always wondered how you could be saving the bee’s by squishing queens, seemed more human greed.

Another plus is you will always have younger, fresher, healthier hives.

Blessings

Sent from my iPhone

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Neither would I.
I would use decent 50mm foil faced house insulation
A well insulated hive, especially on top, will not suffer from condensation. The bees know how to ventilate without interference.

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