Kenh
"The tubes in the homepage photo look to be rigid plastic which connect to the supplied straight tubes".
I totally agree.
The set-up looks far superior to attempting to use flexible tube. I’ve put the same question to the Flow Hive Team if these elbows are available, but alas the response is no and they don’t know where the original set up came from. Surely someone at Flow Hive must know where these elbows came from ?? I assume they must exist as they are clearly shown on the home page unless the picture was photo shopped which I doubt.
I’ve trawled the internet to find a suitable fitting with no success.
As individuals it would be impractical to set up and produce a handful of elbows, yet the Flow Team have the resources and marketing to produce by quantity and sell to us.
Maybe we need to canvas the Flow Team for a response.
I happened to have an 18" stainless steel flexible connector with a 3/4" PEX connector on one end that I bought for something else and wasn’t using. When looking for something to fit on the end of the straight tube I spotted it and thought hmmm, maybe this will work. It’s stainless and food grade obviously as designed for potable water. The straight tube fit into one end just pushing it in, kind of a pressure fit, but if I continue to use it I might glue or tape it. On the other end I cut a short piece of 3/4" copper plumbing tube, also designed for potable water. This worked beautifully although it has some weight to it so you can easily pull it out of the frame if you’re not paying attention. Very easy to clean, durable and looks awesome
Any suggestions on where to get those tubes that curve down? The tube for extracting the honey, that came with the flow frames, are straight, but I would like the ones that curve down. I believe I saw them being used in one of the flow frame videos.,
The item description was 1 In ID x 1-1/4 In OD Kuri-Tec® KLEARON™ 73 Series K010 Clear Non-Toxic Food & Beverage PVC Tubing for Beer, Wine, Water, Air (1/8 In Wall), SKU# 3049360
The price was excellent and shipping cost was reasonable. It was cheaper and nicer quality than Home Depot.
The flow frames comes supplied with a straight plastic tube for extraction, and the instructions to attach this and protect the flow from insects by covering the flow and bottle opening with glad wrap or plastic. I could just imagine this to be quite messy!! I would have thought the tube should be elbow shaped or if straight have a hose attached to either way shroud the flowing honey and allow easier protection from insects etc. has anybody improvised along those lines?
That is an old chestnut, to use an ancient English phrase. If you don’t like my link, try the search tool at the upper right of this window, but here are some ideas:
Click on the photo to see how the tube goes into the jar. This worked well for extracting 6 frames of honey.
I have not needed to filter any of my Flow honey, and I have not even needed to strain it. There was a very occasional tiny (less than 1mm by 3mm) piece of wax, but that was easily removed with a clean spoon and placed onto a piece of toast.
Pieces of clear tubing are all that’s needed. A bucket with a honey tap and holes in the lid is also ideal. This bee proof set up can be ignored and even left out overnight with the honey slowly draining:
Hi there, 20mm pvc elbow and conduit is a perfect fit available at most hardware stores. Slide a clear plastic food container lid with a 22mm hole in it over the conduit. Just cut the conduit to different lengths for different jar sizes.
Make sure you thoroughly clean before and after use.
Hiya Rodedon, I purchased a length from the B store and when I smelt the inside of the pipe it was a horrible chemical smell, yuck. I have heard soft PVC tube can leach chemicals. Having said that I finished up buying another length from Clarks which was labeled food safe and although it still had a smell to it it wasn’t nearly as bad. The honey extracted through it didn’t taste too bad either. ;).
HI Korber. As the others have mentioned, you can get food grade PVC pipe from Bunnings.
One thing I found was that its not all that flexible and when attached to the flow extractor tube it tended to push either the tube on the flow frame or tip the honey bucket on a strange angle which when it gets heavy enough moves the tube on the flow frame again. I got around this by making a right angle out of two bits of 42mm x 19mm pine about 300mm long with a hole at each end just wide enough for the pipe to pass through. The right angle held the pipe ends nice and straight and let the honey flow .
When I first harvested I used some of those garden polypipe right angle fittings and I found the honey was getting stuck on the bend and then it was a pain to wash it clean.
Make sure you have a cover over your harvesting bucket or you have bees in it before you can blink
For US peeps: Lowes has a tubing: “EASTMAN 1-1/4-in x 1-ft Pvc Clear Vinyl Tubing” according to the specs should fit snugly over the end of the Flow Hive tube provided. This was the best pricing I could find that didn’t require you to buy 100 feet of tubing!!
Thanks for the information , re PVC pipe.
Should be noted that the NSW Department of Primary Industry (DPI), Honey harvesting and extraction publication, lists unacceptable food contact materials as:
Arsenic cadmium lead and mercury,
Enamelware and porcelain,
Copper, bronze and brass,
Leather and fabric,
Cast iron, and
Galvanised metal.
Much of this comes back to the fact that honey is an acidic food (ph range 3.4 - 6.1).
If you don’t like my link, try the search tool at the upper right of this window, but here are some ideas:
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