Hey any stories of harvesting in the UK, would love to hear your experience.
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Harvested 8.4 kgs on Saturday making a total harvest of 16.1 kgs from my FlowHive.
Honey taste fruity an amazing flavor yummmy, my whole family loved the honey, I really notice the difference between the honey from one frame to another.
I have now removed the FlowHive Supper allowing the bees to start storing honey for themselves now.
Would love to hear any UK stories of their harvest and the type of honey produced.
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Have you got any photos/videos
I did not get the opportunity to take pics and video, however the FlowHive team was here taking a video & pics.
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Awesome to hear 
Sounds like you might be on our meet the beekeeper series for Europe?
Waiting to see the video canāt wait
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Hello Everyone what you doing in your Apiary?
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Hi
Does anyone else have a flow hive setup in U.K.if so whereabouts are you situated, as it would be good to compare any problems, or good practices.
regards
Ian from Norfolk.
Hi Ian,
I am in Essex, Have been beekeeping since June 2016.
First harvest this year with 16.1 kgs would have had more if I did not split the hive.
My Hives are now on double brood will try and go for triple brood next year, as I have read the hive has a better chance to survive over winter.
We have few FlowHive beekeepers in our club, I am the only one who harvested this year. Others had weaker colonies, however we should have better results next year as we are sharing the experience of what worked and did not work.
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Hi Paras
Thanks for getting in touch.
I have only started this year, and after getting off to a good start my bees were expanding very fast, put my flow supers on and shortly afterwards noticed a lot of dead bees outside, some with dwv, had a chat with my mentor and he told me to treat them with apiguard, which i did after taking the supers off, put me back about six weeks. They have recovered well and I put another brood box on which they have filled with honey for the winter( weighs around 50lbs) in two weeks| They are still bringing in plenty of pollen, hard to know where they are getting it from.
If they winter well, Iām hoping i can do a split in the spring when they get going again, as I have another flow hive in waiting, was hoping to have that going as well this year, but never mind thats beekeeping for you.
Keep in touch with any news, likewise.
Regards
Ian.
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Hi Ian,
My hive also did have DWV, I noticed this in March I treated straight away Oxalic Acid Vaporizer. Then I split the Hive as I did not want to have only one hive. Also had to perform an Artificial swarm on my original hive. My split hive did not survive.
However now I have two strong hives with double brood.
My mentor said you can have either more bees or honey but you canāt have both.
Before adding other colonies I will see how much honey my two colonies bring in. If they bring in a good yield I will add 2 more Flow Hives.
Where do you have you Flow Hive
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Hi Paras
sorry about slow reply, have been away in france, I have my hives in norfolk, they are now in winter mood, although when its warm and sunny you would think its summer the way they come and go.
hope yours are ok.
Regards
Ian
Hi Ian,
Yes when the weather does warm up to 2 digit I do notice my bees go out. I hope they are able to replenish their stores on those days when they go out.
I am good thank you and my colonies are doing well.
Paras
This time of year they will be flying to defecate and to collect water
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I guess they still have to do their ābusinessā ;0
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Hi Jugular
I have two flowhives and live in Norfolk
Regards
Ian.
Hello UK FlowHivers,
Update for the new year, I hefted my 2 Flowhive yesterday and seems like they still have enough stores. It was lovely seeing the girls fly around yesterday. There was some pollen bring brought in by them bees.
At present I am just observing the hives from outside and noticing their activity. If the weight is okay I will leave them till 1st April.
Would love to hear what you doing in your Apiary
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Hello again,
One of my hives today was light, seems they going through there reserves. So quickly got the Eke out which I made from decking board. Got an square plastic container put fondant in and placed a brown baking paper on top with a small hole for bees to get in.
Placed the fondant on top of the crown board, as soon as I removed the small piece of wood I use to block the hole the bees want to see who is messing their warm cosy day in the hive.
I was really quick managed to do this within 15-20 seconds. Now that colony would be find for a while.
Keep hefting your hives to ensure your bees have enough stores, the last thing you want is to loose your bees due to them starving.
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OK, so this is California, but I agree that you need to watch the weight of the hive. We are astonished to see this weight graph in January. We havenāt had much rain and there isnāt much flowering.
This hive has 4 full frames of brood already. The hive next to it has a very small amount of brood, and much less honey stored. But also important to observe during our inspection (it was 23C last Sunday - good inspection weather), was that the pollen stores were remarkably low. So I am going to have to provide some protein feed, because very little pollen is coming into the hives.
Bees are taking water from our poultry feeder too. This is the first time I have seen them using it:
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Hi Dawn,
You actually checking the weight, that is impressive. I am just using my judgement on the weight by hefting.