OK the Flow is on in the UK a second spell of nice weather and a few of us have our Flow Frames on - 80% or more capped and Photographic evidence.
If you are in the UK we need to see your frames!!!
Lets prove the Flow hive can work in cooler countries
I can go check my hives tomorrow at earliest as I’m working away from home again -
We need this bout of good weather, last year was so bad, so soon we will have flow hive full in the UK
Valli,
Question for you and others about harvesting from the flow frames. Watching the initial videos from Cedar and then reading online here the amount of frames we harvest at one time can differs, I get that. Well at least I think I do. Is there benefit/rationale for only harvesting one frame at a time meaning, harvest one frame this week another frame the following, or should we harvest as many as possible at one time i.e. wait until they’re already?
@Martydallas Firstly as you know Marty there has not been a Flow Frame Full here in the UK. Also a lot of detractors say it is too cold here.
We have finally got some decent weather here second spell of nice weather this year so hopefully we are going to have a better summer - Last year was the worse summer for 40 years.
Extracting 1 frame this time of year still leaves the bees with plenty if we have a bad later summer.
Last year many had to feed their bees in August-September
I understand what you’re saying, Texas had a really bad summer last year as well hearing from all the beekeepers.
What I’m asking though, is it okay to harvest one frame and wait a week or 2 and harvest the next. My concern/thoughts are that by harvesting one frame and then waiting a week or so, the bees will not fill up the remaining frames or fill them up slowly while uncapping and refilling the frame you just harvested. I guess I’m asking is there a balance issue or has any thought been given to this yet. My assumption is Cedar and or the flow team having tested and used the system for 10+ years, do they have experience and/or suggestions.
Hi Marty, to answer your question. The way I see it, you can harvest the frames that are ready & leave the other frames until they’re ready. That’s exactly what I do the traditional way, only take the frames that are ready. Sometimes it could be only one frame, other times it could 3, 4, or even the whole lot.
If your going to consume the honey yourself fairly quickly, it wouldn’t matter if you took it before it was fully capped. Just don’t store it for a long time.
I hope this helps, cheers
What Marty is wanting to know is if you harvest one or two frames, will the bees stop filling the other frames and move the honey to the ones you harvested, or finish the ones out they are working on before coming back to the ones you harvested.
It’s Wilma here. Jeff has told me to tell you. No they won’t stop filling the other frames. They will work on them all together. If you have a good population of bees in the Flow Super, the bees will work on all the frames concurrently. Generally in our case the frames that are left behind to be completed, are ready next time Jeff robs, and the ones that he robbed the previous time may not be ready, depending on the Honey flow and how long he waits between Robbings.
As a bee keeper we are also Bee farmers, so we have to keep an eye on the Weather Forecast and Climatic Conditions, to assess how much honey to leave for the bees themselve, which is a different issue again.
Hi Guys,
Jamie has harvested a full flow hive see his video he posted on youtube