A Welsh Flow Hive Harvest

[Tremyfro]

We harvested the Flow frames this afternoon...I cannot tell you how easy it was! Fantastic and definitely lived up to its name and all the advertising. Having a slow start this year meant the Flow frames didn't go on until we noticed a small flow on our other hives. The bees took to them readily and soon we saw our first nectar glistening in the comb which they had sealed using the wax we had coated them with.
The summer has been a time of promise and dearth....the bees eating their hard earned nectar as soon as they brought it back to the hive. Slowly we saw more being added to the Flow frames...and then some capping.
We decided...come what may...we needed to harvest the frames. If the honey wasn't ripe...well our family would soon scoff it....ha ha.
I had bought some plastic tubing to attach to the pipes which would be put on the frame. Some glass jars at the ready and we made a start. My OH was rather tentative about turning the key to start with but with a little encouragement soon got the knack. We waited...and slowly the honey appeared at the opening and started to run down the pipe into the jar...it was really happening. If I had thought to take a crumpet.....I could have run it under the flow of honey...warm from the comb. However...wasps made that in advisable..ha ha.
We didn't see any...not one bee come to the back of the hive. In a Bee Yard with 7 hives all busy...the hum was loud from them....it was sunny and warm...so loads of bees flying. My OH sat with his hood down as the honey flowed out of the hive.
After all the frames had drained. We removed the pipes.....and took our harvested honey away.
The hardest part was getting out of our bee suits...which we hadn't needed....in our haste to taste the honey...pure....clean...honey....and wow it tasted good!
I had my doubts about the Flow frames...but some money fell my way and I decided to treat myself. I'm glad I did. It is all true folks...they work...just like the advertisement promised.
We didn't get any spillage into the hive at all...we checked. We cracked the frames in sections to prevent overflow in the tubes.
The bees continued...business as usual...no bearding. None at the back of the hive. Only a couple of nosy wasps...but they soon went elsewhere when they found nothing for them.
No big clean up...no sticky door knobs....no washing out the extractor....just honey in the jar.
Hmm...now what were all the questions?
Crowd funding....yes the Flows and hives were sent as they said they would be.
Cruelty to bees....no they didn't notice and if they did...they just got on with it.
It would make beekeepers lazy....no I looked after the bees as usual...but the harvest was easy.
The plastic would..warp/taint/bees wouldn't like them....all untrue.
I know some people thought the Flow team cheated when they showed the frame being drained on a table...and that honey was being put in via a tube or that a lot of honey ran down the comb and onto the table. I couldn't make up my mind about that but if you turn the key in small increments ...overflow doesn't happen.
I'm sure there were other questions and concerns....I will answer what I can...from my own experience of using my Flow frames.
However...let me tell you that having actually harvested honey from the Flow frames...it truly does work.
The only thing that prevents me from buying Flows for all my hives is...cost.
Next year I am going to use them during OSR...then we will know about that too...That's It Folks!

 

[madasafish]

Fascinating.
Thanks.

I shall now look for a cheap used Flowhive - limit £50.

 

[snelgrove]

I am surprised robbing wasn't a problem, I carnt lift a frame from the hive or leave a super uncover for a second here without robbing starting.
What exactlyis the cost for a full flow hive.?

 

[Swarm]

I have this picture of a couple of hundred pounds jarred up around the apiary and the problem of shifting it.

 

[Fritillary]

Many thanks for posting that Tremyfro!
Very interesting!

 

[Tremyfro]

You are welcome....it was an experiment for me too. Luckily, a successful one. I suppose that as you aren't actually opening the hive and disturbing the bees...they don't come looking.
It's the same in my Bee Yard...start moving any frames of honey...and they come flocking...not so with the Flow hive.
If you did jar up a lot of honey...it would be easy to put them in boxes which would stack on your wheelbarrow or whatever.
Madasafish...you have no chance...as I will be head of the queue!
If you put Flow hive in a search it will eventually take you to the website for the Flow....you will be able to see all the options. I guess the cheapest way of doing it is converting a langstroth brood box to hold the frames and use a conventional langstroth brood box for the bees and brood. There are detailed instructions how to do the conversion so if you are handy at DIY....you would only need to buy the frames...which come with the key and extraction tubes. I'm not sure of the price....but you can check on the site. Just depends what you want.
Mind you...having done honey extraction the conventional way first, certainly helped and I expect for first time beekeepers....there would be pitfalls for the unwary.
On the whole.....we were very surprised at the ease of the system. We had none of the problems that beekeepers had warned us of.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Thanks for that. Very pleased for you. Now how are you storing the frames over winter? Is there a way for the bees to clean them up or will you be just storing them wet. How easy is it to take individual frames out if you need to look into the brood box and the flow supers are full but not ready for draining ? I'm thinking of weight here. I can't stand behind my hives stealing honey or not for more than a few minutes before guards from the mad hive chase me off.
Well done

 

[Tremyfro]

Thanks for that. Very pleased for you. Now how are you storing the frames over winter? Is there a way for the bees to clean them up or will you be just storing them wet. How easy is it to take individual frames out if you need to look into the brood box and the flow supers are full but not ready for draining ? I'm thinking of weight here. I can't stand behind my hives stealing honey or not for more than a few minutes before guards from the mad hive chase me off.
Well done

I am going to leave them for a couple of days to clean them up a bit...then I will store them wet.
I usually spray all my comb with Certan...so I'm not sure whether to do that or not...hmmm.
It's perfectly easy to take the Flow frames out of the hive to check them for capping etc..
The Flow super is heavy when full...no doubt about that. So my OH lifts it off for inspections. I've been thinking about that though and it would be possible...if you were lucky enough to have good flows of nectar...since they tend to cap the centre frames first...you could time inspections for when you drain them off...so the box would be a lot lighter for inspections. If you were very nifty with swarm control....you could stop inspections during the summer flow and save having to lift the heavy super.
You won't have to worry about your mad hive if you check the frames you want to harvest are capped beforehand...then harvest the next day....as you won't be opening the hive to harvest. You don't have to harvest all the frames at once...you can just do them as they get capped.
I can tell you that the bees did not come to check it out. Many bees flew past to go in the hive...as normal but absolutely none stopped at the back of the hive. I have some video but I'm not sure how to upload it yet.

 

[Obee1]

Wow tremy it worked just like it should. I'm so pleased for you

Congratulations.

 

[Brigsy]

Great news and nice write up.

 

[For want of a better word]

Oh WOW !¬!!

I will go out immediately and order enough of these wonderful Flow's hives thingies for all my honey producing colonies
Now lets see that would be... well say over 100 colonies with 10 + supers on each...
How much would that be.... perhaps just one for the hive I keep in the graveyard!!

Or leave it to the 2 hive experts to brag about perhaps!!

Nos da

 

[Tremyfro]

Icanhopit....you are a very mean man.....why can't you rejoice with me? You made lots of loud posts about what you thought of the Flow frames.....and you were wrong....definitely wrong. Really ...you should now admit you were prejudiced and wrong....very wrong...because they do work and they work exactly like the Flow team said they would....even here in the UK.
You have influenced a lot of beekeepers and potential beekeepers with your sweeping statements about the Flow frames but you were wrong...it's such a pity that you are still wriggling on the hook.
I don't care whether you buy a Flow frame or not. It isn't going to change how beekeepers harvest many hives as it would be ruinously expensive ATM...but who knows about the future? Not in our lifetimes I suspect.
I feel sad that even when presented with the proof that the frames work...you still can't bear to put aside your nastiness to share my enjoyment and experience.....

 

[Brigsy]

I wasn't sure if there was a subtext that I was misinterpreting or an in joke. It does come off as unnecessarily mean regardless on how one feels about one tiny bit of kit.

I can feel pleased for someone successfully using a method I don't use.

 

[Millet]

Good result Trem and it sounds pretty easy, you should have videoed it to rub the doubting toms noses in it.

 

[Brigsy]

I think I may have seen your video via a social media outlet.

 

[charlievictorbravo]

Well done, you. I saw your post on the flow hive forum and did not recognise the name. How did you find the quality of the honey and was it clean enough without running it through a sieve - i.e. did you get any wax or bee parts in the Flow Frame honey?

As regards the price, the Flow Hive inventors have a real problem now. They started out with quite high prices for the crowd funding, when they were looking for $70,000 for some new plastics machinery to make the frames and they found that lots and lots of people all over the developed world were willing to pay exorbitant prices for the Flow Hive. How can they now lower the price without upsetting all who paid a higher price? It leaves the market open of the Chinese copiers who sell for £300 what Flow Hive sells for £850. Notwithstanding the excellent support they give, £850 is a tad expensive - the Chinese price is more realistic.

Can't wait to see how it copes with OSR honey.

CVB

 

[Erichalfbee]

Wasn't there a second round of crowdfunding as well sometime time recently?
As for lowering the price, why would that upset the original purchasers?
It happens to all inventions....mobile phones, calculators, computers.........

 

[Tremyfro]

I wish they would lower the prices too....if you buy just a set of frames...either 6 or 8... It is more reasonable but if you are good at carpentry...it would be easy to convert a langstroth.
The honey was clear...just as if you had filtered it through a sieve...amazing really. No bee parts or wax. You know out of all this ....the part I like the best is that....No Bees Died whilst harvesting this honey.....whenever I have taken supers of honey in a conventional harvest...inevitably some bees die.
In regard to Icanhopit....he is always having a go at me...my beehaus...my flows...anything. I have always been of the belief that people mean what they say...then have the cheek to say...Oh I didn't mean it that way...
I don't bear a grudge...after all...I had the fun and excitement of seeing the honey flow out of the hive into the jar. I do have a video but we have really slow wifi here so it just won't load. I did photo shot some pictures from the video....and I put them on the BBKA Facebook page.

 

[Tremyfro]

My thoughts about the OSR with the frames. The aim is to keep checking your honey and testing the water content...so you harvest it as soon as it hits 18%. When I did this with wax frames...I found it was ripe when just the top edge was capped...the honey didn't shake out and the water % was acceptable...I guess the same goes for the Flow frames....I wouldn't leave the wax comb on too long either otherwise you end up unable to get it out of the comb.
This year we didn't have OSR but my spring honey has still set like rock...in the bucket....so I don't think it is safe to leave the spring honey no matter whether in wax or the flow.

 

[pargyle]

This year we didn't have OSR but my spring honey has still set like rock...in the bucket....

That's quite normal ... but a warming cabinet will fix it - or for small quantities a few minutes in the microwave on 30% power or even the defrost setting will render it liquid again - although I usually just go as far as nearly liquid as my customers seem to prefer a slightly firmer honey to go on their toast.

I would not risk the flow frames with OSR - it goes from liquid to solid in a matter of hours sometimes, even a day can make the difference between extraction and OMG it's set !!