I extracted mine last summer and not one single bee came around the back of the hive. I think that as the colony is not disturbed by opening the hive....they just carry on with their own business....especially if a nectar flow is happening.
No ....the video is not in the uk....but at least one person I know managed two extractions last summer in the UK....so it is possible. Not with the miserable summer most of us had though.
I think the extraction process is a little different, Finman, from the way that your 100 kg would be harvested. I might be wrong but I would guess that you wait until all is capped before removing all the supers at once...take them back home...prepare them for going into the extractor...putting them back into the supers and returning them to the hive...or into storage. With the Flow frames...you harvest when they are ready....individually if you want to. You don't take them off the hive...you don't clear the bees....you don't prepare them by uncapping....you don't have to take them out and put back into the supers...nor return them to the hives. All you do is walk away with your full container of honey. If you were lucky to have a really strong flow of nectar...and it was coming in so fast it wasn't being capped...once the Flow frames were full but not yet capped...then you would have to add more supers....Flows or not. In other words you would need to do what a beekeeper does. Just because a Flow was used...you wouldn't let the colony become honey bound. Of course, as you don't remove the frames for harvesting....the honey stays warm throughout the extraction process....so although some honeys flow faster than others...depending on the water content ....they do still flow....unless you leave the super on the hive for too long and it is crystallising....as can happen when you want to harvest all the honey in one extraction. This shouldn't need to happen with a Flow frame as they can be harvested as soon as capping happens or earlier if the moisture content is low enough.
As I have said before...I think the Flow frames are ideally suited to Hobby Beekeepers...who are not under pressure at harvest time.....but mainly because it is such fun to watch the process....for someone who enjoys their beekeeping just because they can.
I remain unconvinced that they are going to be any sort of long term benefit to British beekeeping.
