We received our Flow Super Lift yesterday. The weight-bearing screws went in straight away. Then today dawned bright and sunny and we haven’t looked in to either of our two hives for a couple of weeks. So away we go with the Super Lift.
Check the video:-
A couple of points to mention. Make sure that other screws you may have slightly unscrewed to take the brackets aren’t in the way as the lifter brackets take up space up and down the sides of the hive and need to clamp in close. You’ll see in the video how I had to fix that problem on the second (grey) hive.
Another is I have always operated from the rear of the hives and have had to transition to working from the side. New for me and funny how we get set in our ways. One way around this is to have the super tilt forward instead of backwards. Unfortunately, we have the Flow weather guards on the front and they use the same area that the lifter needs, so they’d need to be removed before we could tilt the super forwards.
All in all, these are minor points when the main reason for the Lifter is to minimise the effort needed to lift a full Flow super off the brood box, and it does that very well.
Cheers
It’s recomended that the support pole stands at a 90 degree angle. However thanks for posting the video as it has shown me that the support pole is longer than I anticipated which is good.
Hi Martha, you are right about the 90 degrees. I was also mildly chastised by the Flow people. In my defence I had watched a video by Fred Dunn.
I was also worried about the leg length and happy it was long enough for my tabletop setup.
Cheers
It was a great video! Thanks for taking that in the spirit in which it was given. It’s the little things that can be disasterous. I quit using the frame hive beetle traps because I kept spilling oil in my hive shifting the boxes around to do an inspection. The leg length was what I was worried about too because my hives are on 2 cinder blocks to keep the rain from splashing on ground then up into the hives. So I took one cinder block level off as I saw from your video what to expect visually. Yours is elevated as well though I’ll be running 2 brood boxes on mine. Happy bee keeping.
Make sure those screws you’ve slightly loosened aren’t in the way of the lifter brackets. They take up space and need to clamp in tightly for the best fit.
Tried my Super Lifter for the first time recently. What an outstanding piece of equipment. It halved the time and effort in doing my brood box inspection, which previously involved stripping the flow super to reduce weight in order to lift it off.
No doubt about it Glynn. I recently had a little swarm from one of my hives and caught it. We found a queen in the swarm so were worried one hive might be queenless. So we needed to open them up and look. With the Super Lift it made the job a lot easier.
We found a queen in each of the hives so are happy.
We did a video of the process and it shows how the Super Lift helped.
Received my super lifter this week and tried it on an empty hive in my yard. One of the boxes is the original 2015 Flow Founding Supporter super with the rounded star screws which protrude more than the later square flat head screws which created then same problem you had with the shelf screws. So something to bear in mind if you have an old box or the Classic setup, which is also supplied with have the star screws, you will have to change them out for the flat head ones used on the Flow Hive 2 and 2+ otherwise the lifter won’t securely attach on the first position.
Mine finally arrived and it took me a while to gett going with it. Im a little clumsey with it. However it’s still faster than removing boxes. When all l is said and done the clean up is easy and fast. I love it!
When Cedar or Stuart attach the Super Lifter to a box they make it look easy. It is, but I’m a lot more clumsy and it takes some effort to position it correctly.
I’ll get better with practice.
Hi everyone- I’m new to the Forum so hope it’s ok to jump in on a post - can anyone with a Super Lifter please tell me if you can swing the telescopic leg downwards, prior to attaching the lifter to the hive?
I have only 900mm (3ft) between hive and wall which is enough room for the lifter, but not enough for the arc that the leg would follow when swinging up, out and down
Any suggestions/information would be welcome - thanks!
Hi Tinny and welcome.
I tried it today and yes you can but it is just a little more awkward.
You might notice in the first video I don’t have much room behind the hive as well. But there is just enough to swing it.
One other method you could try is opening it from the front. This means using the lifter in front of the bees’ entrance and having their approach path partly obscured while the hive is open, but it also has the advantage of being able to operate in the brood box from three sides.
It is not a good idea to actually stand in the front while inspecting but with the super over the front the back and both sides are available for use.
I do this regularly these days to make easier access for me and the bees get by OK. I just have to shoo some of them off the stand before closing, using smoker or brush, but we are using them anyway for the closing phase.
Cheers
Hi Clint thank you so much for your reply and information! That’s great news, even if it is more awkward - at least it’ll be easier than lifting the super manually for me
I went down the “bigger is better” path when I first bought my Flow Hive with scant regard (and no knowledge) of how heavy a 10 frame honey super really is haha
I have even less space at the back of the hive, the 900mm is at the front anyway (another rookie error) but the bees are happy and go up and over the house which keeps them away from people
I’m off to order a Super Lifter now! Thank you again, especially for actually trying it so you could give me a definite answer - I really appreciate it
Update forr anyone who might have been following this thread, with the same issue as me with lack of space:
I am delighted to report that my Flow Super Lifter arrived and it works perfectly in the smaller available space at the end of my hive!
The bees were surprisingly tolerant of me fluffing around the front of their hive, drilling and measuring etc - and even though I have a mixture of Flow and Langstroth supers, it was pretty easy to get the screws in the correct places (the videos do say there is some tolerance with the measurement so I’m sure that helped!)
The only thing I do differently when installing the lifter onto the hive, is to fold the leg down prior to attaching the lifter to the first screws on the hive. That means that the 90cm space is ample - I’m so happy with it, it’s lovely being able to check the brood box when the top super is far too heavy for me to lift and I think I’ll be a better beekeeper because of it
