I forgot to mention: I will never stray from the 8 Frame Western Red Cedar. I want to try a few years with 8 frame medium boxes though.
Cost, cost, cost, flow hive finally convinced me to get into bees, Iâm looking at expanding and sidelining but I can not make the figures stack up for flow hives.
I purchased 5 x 8 frame double deeps and a 3 frame extractor for less than I paid for my flow hive.
I can not see the flow hive being accepted by commercial operations unless the cost drops significantly
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Job well done Bobby! I have a club in Victoria, Australia where these old timers are so cocky about their way of Beekeeping, trying to win over their confidence with the Flow is no easy challenge, and sadly, is dividing the club. Now on the committee board myself, my fighting (but respectful) words are about to be tested, to help sail through this rough patch of ignorance on the behalf of many out there who fail to recognize the smart way over the hard way, excellent job!
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Why would you try to win the old timers over? The only thing that has changed is the harvesting of the honey. What do you call the âhard wayâ. I can extract 20 kilos from an 8 frame super in 90 minutes without even raising a sweat. I donât classify that as âthe hard wayâ. The advantage of the âhard wayâ is you get to inspect the frames before harvest. I wouldnât harvest flow frames before inspecting the frames first.
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Wow Becky, I hope the words that you used at your club are more respectful than what you have posted on here. Calling people who are using tried and tested beekeeping methods ignorant is sure to win you lots of friends.
This shouldnât be seen as an us vs them scenario. I have a flow hive, I also have a number of standard 8 frame Langstroth hives. I have friends who have warre hives and top-bar hives.
These are all proven successful ways of keeping bees. People will have their preferred methods and may not be interested in looking at the pros and cons of other systems. I may not agree with their reasoning behind these decisions, but that is their business.
But to call these beekeepers ignorant is just rude. It is on par with beekeepers who dismiss the flow hive system as a legitimate beekeeping method.
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Sean, I believe you may have gotten into the wrong thing if you did this for investment. Bees are something you canât depend on, no matter where you put them it is not a controlled climate⌠No matter where you live.
Did I mention that they let you know if your doing something they donât like⌠They donât tell you with words from their mouths, they speak to you with the other end and they know itâs gonna cost them there lives by making this statement⌠They donât want to tell you, but they will⌠and they bring backup just in case you donât understand the first time.
Bees donât seem to understand that it takes the human mind a while to process their statements so within milliseconds his buddy is backing up his statement and his buddy has more buddies. In 1989 while in the US Air Force I received a TBI that doesnât help this process.
What it has helped with are very slow motor skills that while my buddyâs running away swatting is getting stung as Iâm slowly walking away in the other direction. They seem to zero in on the commotion, another thing they seem to zero in on is the target his buddy left behind. If you get stung donât start swatting, cover the area and try not to let the scent out to give the other bees a soft spot to target on. I guarantee them little boogers are faster than you. Have you ever noticed how when you get a bee-sting in the glove others donât pay attention but when you get one in soft skin⌠the bee butt scent mixes with broken skin scent and it is like the bee yelling out to the others âHEY OVER HEREâ.
I guess if youâre a beekeeper and donât want to get stung keep that guy near that canât help but start swatting at a bee.
By the way⌠Honey bees donât want to sting you, it costs them there life. Itâs them critters like yellow jackets that seem to sting for the fun of it. They donât have barbs on their stingers so they can just keep on stingingâŚ
The best protection Iâve found is my belief in Jesus the Christ! When Iâm walking in the Bee Yard Iâm speaking a prayer to Jesus and speak out to the bees âBees I am not here to harm you, I am only trying to help!â When I have to actually go into a box and they announce an attack by buzzing loudly I call for the protection âBy the Blood of Jesusâ bees âI mean you no harmâ and the buzzing subsides. Every now and then there is one of those none believing devil bees comes out and gets you, but I believe that is because of one of them human âunbeliefâ thoughts that creep into your head.
My saving grace is that I live in the country and donât have close neighbors to the Bee Yard. Iâm sure that if anyone heard me talking and sometimes yelling at my bees they would think Iâm a little touched. I am touched touched, by God when he found me dead and bleeding along a road in Florida back in May 6th 1989.
Unbelievers will say this is crazy, this will never work, Iâll show you⌠Theyâll walk into their bee yard, pull a lid off a beehive, mumble some words about Jesus and get stung and and say âsee I told you this was bullshit.â Iâm telling you âit is not the wordsâ it is âYour Heart.â This will not even work for people you think have a lot of faith because theyâll let a little unbelief in. Itâs hard not to let Unbelief creep in when there are bees flying all around your head. Donât ask me to show you because your unbelief will get me stung. When youâre by yourself and If you have faith and great belief in his word try it, if you let any unbelief creep in bets off. That is why even Jesus would make everyone leave the room except for a few great believers who had great belief in his word.
Belief in Jesus and his word is not a spectator sport, itâs between you and your heart. I donât think Church is a must but it helps you recharge with other believers, me and my wife attend two sometimes three churches a week with multiple Bible
studies, you should go anytime your heart needs refilled.
I am not an overly religious person, I am an ex-biker and druggy, I lived life feeling that âIf You Wanna Go to Heaven You Gotta Raise a Little Hellâ. I donât ride anymore because sometimes it ainât safe for me to walk donât do any drugs because Iâd give anything for my eyes and head to be normal again. I do enjoy being around ârealâ Bikers though because you ainât going to find anyone with more heart.
Anytime I am in public Iâm wearing a dew rag that states âJESUSâ is my boss, and you might wonder if I am at all religious, it is not you that will judge me, it is Jesus and he can take a mirror and find himself in my heart anytime. Blessings Mark
PS I was just going to throw a few lines to Sean but this came out. Good luck Sean, Youâll grow to love beekeeping. By the way, I have a brother named Sean but he spells it Shawn⌠you spelt your name wrong lol
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You may have miss understood the point I was trying to make Mark.
People seem to be struggling to understand why the flow hive isnât being embraced by long time and commercial beekeepers.
IMHO a lot of it is due to cost, despite the claims of revolutionising beekeeping the flow hive in fact only gives another option with one small part of beekeeping (honey harvesting). In some cases it may even make other beekeeping tasks more difficult.
For plenty of old time hobby beekeepers their extraction ritual is something they enjoy something they look forward to and donât want to give up. A flow hive offers them nothing and may detract from their beekeeping experience and they are being asked to pay a premium on top.
A commercial guy might have $10k or more tied up in extraction equipment sure he could use that to buy what? 20 flow supers even if he was only running a few hundred hives switching to flow would be $100k proposition and for what gain.
If your were to ask beekeepers in these situations what they think of the flow hive you would most likely get a reply along the lines of âits a gimmick and a waste of moneyâ and in their situation it is.
If they were given a free hive Iâm sure most would try it, no doubt use it successfully but at the current cost I doubt it would change their opinion.
That doesnât make the flow hive a gimmick or a waste of money just means it isnât for everyone.
Just like we have options in hive styles, warne, long, lang etc and proponents of each we now have another option when it comes to supers and extraction. People who embrace it and sing its praises, others who oppose it and everything in between.
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@Mark_VanCleave Your digital diarrhoea offendeth mine ocular organs. Please reserve your fanatic rants for the pulpit. This forum is regulated by relevance and reason and is not a platform for poppycock.
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I donât think I misunderstood, I just got carried away with my typing sharing whatâs in my head. I do understand that these are very expensive and I hope they will drop the prices once they recoup some investment as I am living on Military retirement. I donât understand why boxes are so expensive, the frames themselves yes, but they did not invent the main hive.Blessings, Mark
Vestigialamentum- if that is your real name? I am not judging you, why are you judging me? I donât see where you replied to anyone elseâs manor for caring for their bees. If you dance on your hive chanting uma gumbla guumbla we have a right to know, please pass on if it works. The next guy can customize it to fit his needs. For me I need Jesus, I am not alone⌠he works quite well for me. Blessings, Mark
Several reasons:
- They are Western Red Cedar - expensive wood
- The wood is specially sourced to be environmentally friendly and sustainably produced
- The Flow super has complex cuts to create access doors and a side viewing window with a cover. That uses a lot more wood.
- A lot of thought and man-hours went into the design of the Flow super, to ensure that it works optimally with the frames. Some of that needs to be recovered by charging more for the boxes.
I am sure that there are more reasons, perhaps @Faroe has some insight. However, when you look at other suppliers of Western Red Cedar hives, Flow is not any higher in price. In fact, for an additional deep brood box, Flow charges $50. Another supplier that I have used wants $80 to $109 for the same size box in cedar. So I think Flow prices the equipment fairly. 
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Several reasons:
- They are Western Red Cedar - expensive wood
- The wood is specially sourced to be environmentally friendly and sustainably produced
- The Flow super has complex cuts to create access doors and a side viewing window with a cover. That uses a lot more wood.
- A lot of thought and man-hours went into the design of the Flow super, to ensure that it works optimally with the frames. Some of that needs to be recovered by charging more for the boxes.
I am sure that there are more reasons, perhaps @Faroe has some insight. However, when you look at other suppliers of Western Red Cedar hives, Flow is not any higher in price. In fact, for an additional deep brood box, Flow charges $50. Another supplier that I have used wants $80 to $109 for the same size box in cedar. So I think Flow prices the equipment fairly. 
Dawn_SD, I will reply to comments by number:
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Yes I am aware of this, I purchased some for making wings for my duplex hive.
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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 wonât hurt bees, probably cause it says so on the bottle. You take a shower in it and donât 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. Doesnât kill bees cause itâs labeled a weed killer, but itâs in your food? I REPEAT, Itâs in your food, all the Genetically Modified Foods flower and bees collect nectar from these. There are apples that the flesh wonât 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 youâve 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. Iâve tried explaining to my bees this ainât good for them but they just wonât listen, that flower is just too pretty. Itâs like telling your kids not to do something. I wonder if bees are like I was and thought if I was told ânoâ it must be fun⌠I think Iâll start telling them to do things that will harm them that way theyâll look for more exciting things to do. If bees are like kids maybe this will work, cause we all know kids donât want to do anything you tell them to do.
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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 wasnât 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 pestâs the same way Cedar chests worked for your Grandmaâs 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 wouldnât dare call it âOrganicâ.
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 wouldnât be needed so jig for super widows could be used. I wouldnât 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 Iâd 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 didnât like me at the back of the hive any more than they like smoke.
It was all back in a few days so I donât 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, theyâre taking honey and leaving, theyâll 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.
- Wouldnât 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, itâs outdated before you get it home.
The wooden boxes are a different story. The workmanship and quality control hasnât 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 wasnât the only one since I saw a video of how it was repaired. I got mine during the crowdfunding so itâs 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 wouldnât buy from them. Blessings, Mark
The manufacturer states:
Deep Langstroth hive box made in Portland, Oregon offered FSCÂŽ 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 doesnât 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.
Thatâs 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 donât 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 âagainst the flowâ 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 havenât seen any notable disturbance to the hive afterwards. I also have made quite a few (most?) harvests with no discernible leakingâŚ