Wonderful harvest, Martha. Looks like you have a ripper nectar flow on. Maybe you’ll be harvesting again in a few weeks.
There’ll always be those that can’t get out of their rut. Even in my local club, it’s taken three years of growing membership to make Flow Hivers a dominant number. The old guard are not so outspoken any more. I liken it to flat earthers, some will see the evidence and change their view, the others won’t venture into the unknown in case they fall off the edge. Their loss.
Holy honeyflow @Martha!!! Your video is bangin’ and the naysayers can kiss it. And there goes another Flow super (pretty light blue hive!) on its way to harvest-time
I harvested that one too! So 2 honey supers/hives got drained today. 6 gallons and 48 lbs of honey. WOW! I’m so excited and grateful to the community to aid in my success. It’s a humbling experience when so many want to see one succeed. I love it!
I’ll do it because I only have honey on hand and zero corn syrup! Though I’m not sure when as I extracted today and ate my fill of honey. Yea Baby! Honey Drunk In Tennessee!
Good one, Jeff. Of all your posts I’ve read, I can’t recall any saying the Flowhive is bad for bees and bad for Beekeeping and the only way is your way. I have learned from and applied your advice in my own Beekeeping practices. I started Beekeeping because of the Flowhive and now have traditional supers too. The rut people to whom I refer, vehemently believe that Flowhive will contribute to the ultimate destruction of bees and that Flowhive beekeepers are the devil incarnate. I like to keep my horns sharp in case they come to caste me back from whence I came.
Hey Mike, did you get any snow up on the heights a couple of weeks ago? I remember years ago looking up your way from Richmond and seeing snow on the heights.
Jeff is a pro traditionalist with Langstroth hives and not a lover of Flow Hives but he isn’t one eyed against them, they are just simply not for him and his bee keeping. I have 4 Flow Hives and about 20 Langstroth’s so maybe I have one leg each side of the barbed wire fence but I enjoy chats with Jeff and his opinions, we need more like him…
Cheers, Peter
Hey Peter,
It’s been pretty mild here so far. Only had the fire burning eight times. I’m on Bellbird Hill, not quite as high as the village. It usually gets coldest when it’s snowing at Mt Victoria and the wind blows this way. Planning a move to warmer climes sometime in the next couple of years. Though the longer I leave it the more hives I’ll have to move. Working on building my first Long Lang for spring.
I think having traditional supers is handy for providing clean stickies to cycle out old brood frames. It saves the girls work that otherwise goes into honey production.
Gotta say, this Beekeeping caper is the best addiction I’ve had.
Thanks Mike & @Peter48, I just point out to folks the possible problems one could face by harvesting honey from flow frames while still on the hive. Especially with SHBs in the equation.
The other day someone asked me if I changed my mind about flow frames. I simply showed her the photos of the beetle larvae in the flow frames, which happened 3 days after the frames were harvested on the hive.
A very valid point about replacing old brood frames with cleaner stickies, that is a plus for traditional bee hives.
When I lived down your way hives were double brood boxes so when I moved to the much more stable and warmer sub-tropical climate I had to relearn a lot about bee keeping and love the short mild Winters. Actually my Winter harvests are as good as any time of the year.
Cheers.
I hardly see any hive beetles in my main hive, they are so good and keeping them under control that I rarely pull frames to inspect, same with mites… I plan to split this hive once flow slows, the best genetics I’ve had yet. This was a removal I did several years ago from a open air hive in a tree that was there for at least 3 years.
The ‘trap’ with Flow Hives is that it is a heavy lift with a super not yet ready for extracting so that a brood inspection can be made. At least with a Langstroth super the frames are easily removed taken off to lighten the lift, it is annoying that a Flow frame can’t be taken off and put temporarily into a traditional box. In my opinion there is points for and against Flow Hives but there is no argument that they have increased the number of people keeping bees, and that has to be a good thing.
Cheers
