Hi everyone! Newbie here but I am pretty excited about the Flow Hive!
Recently a colony of bees moved into our hot tub. We just had a local beekeeper safely remove the colony and will take care of them now. In the process of this we learned a lot about the bees and also about Flow Hive. We would love to set up a Flow Hive when it’s available and have the bees back, just not in the hot tub this time, ha ha.
In the process of removing the bees from the hot tub we noticed that there was quite a lot of them. Maybe even more than what could fit into a Flow Hive but that’s from an untrained point of view, maybe they would all fit.
I guess my question is what happens if you outgrow one Flow Hive? Do you put a second one next to the original one? Or do you stack everything and have two brood boxes and two supers?
You hit it on the head Rich,
The bees know when its time and will swarm. If your bees are growing rapidly you can put on a second brood and add extra supers. Some hives can be 4 or even 5 boxes high. If you want to create a second colony if they are doing really well, the hive can be split. There would be a whole new thread needed for splitting.
Very cool. I guess the hardest part will be resisting the temptation to harvest too much with these cool flow frames, ha ha. Just let them settle in and see how they behave so they’re nice and healthy. I’ll have to connect with local guys and see what they say as well.
I missed the indiegogo campaign so I am waiting for them to start to accept orders on their site. I’ll purchase one of the complete kits to start with and grow if needed. That will give me 6 frames in the super. They say the brood Box comes with frames but they don’t say how many.
Just keep in mind, that if you have ordered the “Complete Full Flow Hive” this will be an 8-frame Langstroth. If you are looking to use a 10-frame brood box then you should consider the “Full Flow 7 frame - with Flow Box (for 10 Langstroth frame hive)” or one of the other options such as just the Flow frames.
Orders are not open whilst the Indiegogo campaign customers are being serviced, I understand that new orders will be taken in the not to distant future.
I was looking at the 10 frame deep boxes so I could switch to the 7 frame Flow super down the road. Seems like the route I’d like to go.
Say I got a traditional setup now then swapped things for the Flow super when it’s available. What would be the best way to transition the hive?
Since the Flow super box has the openings you can’t really swap one frame at a time. I was kinda thinking that I could put the Flow super in the middle and then take one frame at a time out of the traditional super until it’s empty and the bees have stored honey in the Flow frames. Thoughts?
My 5 hives are all 8 frame medium supers. I ordered the 8 frame light (3 frames) and I will place it in the middle of the super. I bought 2 deeps to accommodate the Flow Light just during the honey flow season. My winters will be colder than yours so I will have to pull the Flow Light and store it. It should be an easy transition for you since the honey supers are on top. If you already have a super with regular frames you would add a second super on top with the 7 Flow Frame in the center.
My bees quickly multiply. I split my large 5 super hive into 3 this spring. All of them grew fast and have about filled up 3 medium supers with brood & a bit of honey. I will add on the first full honey supers next weekend. In addition to the 3 splits, a swarm moved into an empty hive that I had ready for a nuc I ordered. They took it over! So I scrambled to put together another hive just in time to pick up the nuc. Always keep extra equipment on hand. I never expected to grow from 1 hive to 5 in one season. By this fall each hive should have 3 brood boxes and 2 honey supers to go into winter. Note* I use 8 frame mediums which is why I need 3 brood boxes. A 10 frame hive can get by with 2 brood boxes.