Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: D Coates on February 18, 2015, 10:07:22 am
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http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2015/02/17/tap-honey-like-beer-with-revolutionary-hive-filter-invention/?intcmp=obmod_ffo&intcmp=obnetwork I had my sister-in-law send me this. No idea of how it works, or if it actually works.
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The product is real. I was sent one box worth of the frames to test and
have seen it in operation and in person. I thought it was impossible
when I first saw a video. I actually wondered if it was a spoof or if
it was real. But after seeing how it works and watching them do one
frame in the open live on skype while I could see the entire frame and
talk to them and after they sent me a box worth of them to test, I can
assure you it works. My test of it so far is too small and over too
short of a time to be sure what I think of it in practice, but I can't
imagine that I'm going to find too many disadvantages. I'm not sure how
I will manage my hives using them as it changes several things I have
always done. First, I run all eight frame mediums and these are deeps,
so I'll have to buy some deeps (which I already did). Second, it makes
a hive much more static in size when you can empty the combs without
even opening the hive really. No need to stack the supers up so high
when you can just drain them periodically without having to clean up the
extractor and all the equipment and the kitchen every time. Just
draining it into a bucket eliminates all of that mess. The queen won't
lay in them because they are too deep so you don't need an excluder
(which I don't use, but some people do). You don't have to run the bees
out to harvest so you eliminate all of that part of harvesting as well.
In recent years I've had all the same size boxes and I try to leave them
honey for winter. This may change my view of some of how I determine
what to leave them since these are deeper combs and can't be used for
brood I don't think I want them to cluster in them over winter. So I'll
have to work out the details of how I will use them as far as when to
put them on, take them off, drain them, how many mediums to have on
below them etc. In other words, I'm pretty sure I'll be using them, it
will just be too useful not to, but exactly how that impacts my total
system I'm not really sure, until I've tried to work those details out.
When I first saw it I thought of this story from "Mastering the Art of
Beekeeping" by Ormond and Harry Aebi:
" 'I want to buy one of your beehives' he said. 'I want you to bring it
to me tomorrow at eleven in the morning and I want you to set it up on
top of a ten foot pole that I'll have set up by that time. And I want
you to come over every Thursday afternoon and drain out the honey so
that I can have fresh honey every week.'... 'I can't place a beehive up
on a pole like that,' I said. 'And even if I could, I couldn't work it
to take off the honey.' 'Why not? I shall expect you to install a spigot
at the bottom of the hive. All you'll have to do is open it and drain
off the quantity of honey I require.' 'Beehives don't work that way,' I
told him. 'I can't possibly do as you ask.'..."
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I just noticed you're quoted on there. ?Mind Blowing...It's not very often something is so revolutionary as to blow my mind...Saving 20% of harvest labor is not trivial, 40% is amazing, 60% is revolutionary. But 95%, that?s Mind Boggling!?
I've signed up on their mailing list and they give a whole lot more details once you've done that. Any idea of what an outfitted super will cost?
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I don't know what the cost will be. They will announce some of this on the 23rd when they post it on KickStarter. They are just complicated enough that I'm sure they won't be cheap. :) But they are amazing. You can drain all the honey out of the super without even opening the hive. So you don't have to:
Suit up.
Light the smoker.
Open the hive.
Shake the bees off blow the bees off, or chase the bees off of the combs.
Lift the supers off.
Load the supers up.
Haul the supers to the house.
Uncap the frames.
Extract the frames.
Put the frames back.
Haul the supers back to the yards.
Put the supers back on the hives for cleanup...
Mind blowing...
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Oh I see the value completely. Considering a normal super will cost +/-$30 with frames, if these are going for $100 to $200 they'll get some serious orders, especially from high end hobbyists who don't have extracting equipment. I'll still get some to try but fewer the higher the price goes. If they save me time, work well, and hold up reasonably well this will get some traction for me. I've got $4-5K invested in extracting equipment that's above my volume all to save time.
As you've used them, how do you clean out the drainage tubes from under the harvested super frames? Any residual honey in the tubes will eventually crystalize and invariably attract pests. Are you overwintering in them or are they stored? How do they store? Can you take them apart (to possibly repair)?
Sorry about the questions. This has me quite intrigued.
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>As you've used them, how do you clean out the drainage tubes from under the harvested super frames?
To drain them you pop a cap on each frame and attach a tube. I made up a manifold with some clear plastic tubing and a piece of PVC pipe and some "GOOP" to seal things. So if you do that, you pop off the cap on each frame and slip one tube into each frame and the other end coming off of the manifold into the five gallon bucket (through a hole in the lid just big enough for the tube. When you're done, you do the next hive. When they are all done, you can do as you like. I'll probably just wash it in hot water.
>Are you overwintering in them or are they stored?
It's probably best to pull them off so the bees don't cluster in them all winter and then keep the queen from laying because they are too deep and the wrong size cells to lay in.
>How do they store?
I've only had one box of them and only for a few months. I'm not sure what I will do on a bigger scale. Right now I have them in a box on top of the cover with a cover on top of that. You have a point about crystallization, though, the bees can't really get to the place at the bottom where it drains to so that might crystallize. But then I crystallize all my honey so those probably won't matter to me.
>Can you take them apart (to possibly repair)?
I have not examined them from that point of view. I can't say at this time. I may have to get bring one in the house and look closer. I was in a hurry to get it on the hive when it came and was more interested in how it worked that if I could disassemble it.
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My wife found the video for this and sent it to me. Fascinating! Now with the word from Mr. Bush that it is in fact a very real and functional product....WOW! Can't wait for more info!! Looking forward to more on your experiences with it.
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Wow, I sure hope they are not too expensive. I need one for every hive I have. One big problem, if I can afford it, I will have a ton of supers left over. Will have to start building new tops and bottoms.
Like I said, I sure hope they are affordable. You could handle a whole lot more hives with these things.
One problem, this would make stealing hives much more likely.
Jim
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Cost is of course going to be a mitigating factor in all of this. Since a HSC fully drawn plastic comb goes for $6.25 a piece and it has no moving parts, I'm guessing it will be an order of magnitude more expensive that that...
I think all the arguments for an extractor apply, of course. Take into account the savings in labor. Take into account the total cost (which unfortunately grows with each hive as opposed to an extractor that is a one time cost regardless of the number of hives). And figure out when it pays for itself. Another factor I don't know yet is how well they will last. But I think, anything I can foresee at the moment, that you could powerwash it if it got messed up in the usual ways e.g wax moths, crystallized honey, pollen etc.
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...HSC fully drawn plastic comb...
I'd never heard of that but a quick Google search and there it is. http://www.resistantbees.com/plastik_e.html
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Here is some HSC for sale:
http://www.simpsonsbeesupply.com/
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Mike,
Do you know if they are selling a complete super or just the frames or both?
Jim
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One question that I still have, are you extracting the honey before the bees cap it or do you wait until they cap it and then they have to uncap it and refill?
If, as it seems like you have to do, and take it before it is capped, do you have to dry the honey?
Jim
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After cap...
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One question that I still have, are you extracting the honey before the bees cap it or do you wait until they cap it and then they have to uncap it and refill?
If, as it seems like you have to do, and take it before it is capped, do you have to dry the honey?
Jim
Jim, Im sure Michael will chime in, I have been following on another thread, I think he said when you do whatever you have to do to drain it, it breaks the caps, then the bees clean it up and start over. G
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The cells are capped, according to what I've read somewhere, and when you turn something, the honey drains out, you close it back up, the bees sense that there are caps over empty cells, they uncap and repair, fill with honey and recap.
So to anthropomorphize them, they say, "gee whiz! What happened to all our honey? Oh, well, back to square one, girls." :grin:
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The cells are capped, according to what I've read somewhere, and when you turn something, the honey drains out, you close it back up, the bees sense that there are caps over empty cells, they uncap and repair, fill with honey and recap.
So to anthropomorphize them, they say, "gee whiz! What happened to all our honey? Oh, well, back to square one, girls." :grin:
Yep, I think that is more accurate. G
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>Do you know if they are selling a complete super or just the frames or both?
I don't know. They sent me just the frames. My guess is that is what they will be selling.
>One question that I still have, are you extracting the honey before the bees cap it or do you wait until they cap it and then they have to uncap it and refill?
The idea they were showing me, and which I duplicated, was a box where you have a window on the side so you can see when the outside frame is capped. Since bees tend to cap the outside last, it's a fairly good indicator that the rest is capped. After it's empty in a day or so they figure that out and uncap and refill it.
>If, as it seems like you have to do, and take it before it is capped, do you have to dry the honey?
So far my experience with the product is pretty limited. I got one box full mid summer. But I think the outside frame being capped is a good indicator. Considering the current cost of a refractometer, it might be worth getting one to be sure.
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where were the bees in the video? those pancakes would have had bees as well as honey on them under normal circumstances. when I'm extracting they stalk the extracting area within seconds when I start uncapping frames.
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Man, you mean you extract where the bees can get to your area?
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Don't get me wrong, now. i respect you, but why do you extract where the bees can smell the honey? I have some old comb in my garage and if I leave the garage door open, there's a bee checking things out in just no time. I don't want her going home and bringing back a bunch of her sisters to take that comb away from me. So I finally just put that comb in the freezer and left it there.
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Thanks Mike, Dallas and G. I like the idea that bees cap it before you pull it. I am surprised that the bees will uncap it after it is empty because I often find cells that are capped even though they are empty.
Jim
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where were the bees in the video? those pancakes would have had bees as well as honey on them under normal circumstances. when I'm extracting they stalk the extracting area within seconds when I start uncapping frames.
River,
If you extract during ta good flow, the bees hardly notice all that honey. I once moved a feral hive in a truck tool box into my apiary and then a month later took it completely apart. I had to pull the top off and had lots of open honey everywhere. Even though I had at least 12 other hives within inches and feet of that box, there was no robbing. If there had not been a heavy flow on it would have been a real disaster. Just pulling supers with Bee Quick during a dearth causes serious robbing by the time I get to the second super.
You might try doing your extracting at night. They will not bother you at night if you do it far enough away that they do not see your lights.
Jim
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I just check my email and received the following information from Flow Hive.
Thanks so much for your interest in the Flow hive. We (Cedar, Stu and our whole beekeeping family) are so excited to be letting you and the world know about the invention we have been working on for over a decade. The response has been quite overwhelming, thanks for all the amazing comments. We are working as fast as we can to complete a video that will show you all the details about the technology.
We want to tell you a little more about the Flow frames/hives, how they work, what we think this will mean for beekeeping and where we are at with producing them.
How do the Flow? frames work?
The Flow frame consists of already partly formed honeycomb cells. The bees complete the comb with their wax, fill the cells with honey and cap the cells as usual. When you turn the tool, a bit like a tap, the cells split vertically inside the comb forming channels allowing the honey to flow down to a sealed trough at the base of the frame and out of the hive while the bees are practically undisturbed on the comb surface.
When the honey has finished draining you turn the tap again which resets the comb into the original position and allows the bees to chew the wax capping away, and fill it with honey again. The Flow frames are inserted into standard bee supers (boxes) in much the same way as standard frames, however the box itself is modified by cutting two access doorways in one end.
When the frames are inserted, the ends of the frames now form the end of the super. This allows access to the operating slots and honey pipe outlets.
You can see into the hive
Each Flow frame is designed with a unique transparent end allowing you to see into the hive. This means you can watch the bees turning nectar into honey and see when each comb is full and ready. Both children and adults get excited seeing the girls at work in their hive. Importantly you will be able to keep an eye on colony numbers thus giving you early detection of any problems within your hive.
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no. I'm extracting in a building 300 ft from the hives. but-when I start uncapping within seconds they are at the windows & doors trying to get in. my question though is why aren't there any bees in the video?
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What are the odds of just using a fume board and transfering the whole super to a honey room and doing the exstraction as you would with an extractor only strait into your honey jars?
Would this get rid of some of the extra equipment cost and robbing issues?
Cheers
gww
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>where were the bees in the video? those pancakes would have had bees as well as honey on them under normal circumstances. when I'm extracting they stalk the extracting area within seconds when I start uncapping frames.
In a dearth, yes. In a flow, no. I think it was a mistake to show that as everyone seems to focus on it. I made a bucket lid with a hole just big enough for the tube so no honey is exposed. I see no reason to expose any. I think their point was that you don't disturb the hives so you don't have a lot of curious bees in the air.
>my question though is why aren't there any bees in the video?
There is no disruption of the hives and so there is only the traffic at the entrance, not a lot of bees flying.
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Man, you mean you extract where the bees can get to your area?
I do it in the kitchen and the bees cover the screen while i work. that'll make you patch the screen without delay!!
This looks almost to good to be true. what a time saver if it works as advertised!
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Reality always has it's gotchas... but it does work.
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In one segment of the video it looked as if the jars had white plastic lids on and they must have had a hole in the lid for the tube to go through. That should keep the bees away while the extraction is happening.
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The site goes active Sunday night at 7:00 PM EDT which is 11:00 AM Feb 23.
Jim
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Wow! FlowHive fundraising started on Indiegogo less than 15 minutes ago and they are already at 211% of their $70,000 USD target.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flow-hive-honey-on-tap-directly-from-your-beehive (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flow-hive-honey-on-tap-directly-from-your-beehive)
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Did you contribute at all? I wouldn't mind getting my hands on some of those frames. The idea that you can forego all the extraction and processing portions for only 350 bucks is not bad at all.
I wonder if it would benefit to stack 2 flow deeps? I don't know all that much yet,but it almost seems to good to be true.
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I was contemplating contributing but, first, they were already far past their target and, secondly and more importantly, I am unwiling to spend another $400 USD per hive on unproven technology. I am shooting for 100 hives in the near future (this year or next) so that would be $40,000 USD (or about $50,000 CDN). Plus shipping. That kind of money would buy an aweful lot of labour and conventional extraction equipment. Especially when there remain a lot of unanswered questions such as how will these frams fare from year to year and what kind of maintenance will be involved. Even to put down $400 bucks for an evaluation set is not very appetizing.
I think it is a very, very promising technology but I need a little more real life performance data before choosing to put out that kind of money. My hives complete with frames are costing me around $125-$150. So the FlowHives for me are a lot like looking at caviar and champagne for lunch.
Technically, they could be stacked but I think that, for commericall or semi-commercial apiary, the business case could would be hard to build. If someone were just keeping a couple of garden hives, it could all make sense.
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Dang - $700K now! :shocked:
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Yes, unblievable, isn't it. I am very happy to see these guys get more than ample capitalization.
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Make that over 750k looks like 1 mil is well in sight....
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Make that over 750k looks like 1 mil is well in sight....
Yep, and it only went live less than two hours ago. Wonder how that choice of a 42 day fund raising period is looking.
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Did anyone get to the point that they tell you the shipping costs are to the east cost of the U.S.?
Jim
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All I got was that they intend to manufacture in the USA due to the great response from there. I am in Canada so shipping will be huge no matter how I slice it.
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Did anyone get to the point that they tell you the shipping costs are to the east cost of the U.S.?
Jim
Quite expensive for freight - it's on their website but if they manufacture in the US that should be better for you - probably cheaper getting it made there too as our manufacturing costs, especially for small volumes typical in Aus are very high.
I'm thinking that this could be a good option for my beehives in the shed idea - http://www.beemaster.com/forum/index.php?topic=45997.0
I'm using all deep boxes anyway, this would mean I wouldn't have to buy any more than I already have, (3 boxes for each hive), as we could draw off the honey as the super becomes full, rather than having to extract the whole season's worth,stored in several supers on a single day. Won't have to buy many more frames or foundation etc either.
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$990K...... :grin:
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(http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130727183557/mlp/images/0/04/Dr_-Evil-One-Million-Dollars.png)
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can I get a link to where yall are tracking the donations. Thanks. G
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https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flow-hive-honey-on-tap-directly-from-your-beehive#comments
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Wow. $350 for six frames (which will fill an eight frame deep super). That's $58.34 a frame. I guess I should get mine in the house and lock them in the vault...
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I reckon they'll have a whole new set of headaches tomorrow! :cheesy:
I wish them all the best, and I hope all the folks that are getting Flow hives that have never had bees... do their homework.
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Wow. $350 for six frames (which will fill an eight frame deep super). That's $58.34 a frame. I guess I should get mine in the house and lock them in the vault...
My guess is that commercial beekeepers won't be that excited about it.
Could also be that they weren't expecting as much interest; if they get enough orders, the cost per unit will fall accordingly.
Mind you, they are in Byron Bay which is the hippy capital of Australia for overvalued/overpriced everything from real estate to beekeeping veils woven by Tibetan virgins from Unicorn hair, so anything's possible.
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I have to wonder if there will not be a major price adjustment if the Indiegogo donations are any indication of potential sales. At massive levels of production, I would think that the frames could be built for less than $10 each ... maybe a lot less than that. Even with a nice markup for the R&D and the price could realistically drop by 50%.
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I have to wonder if there will not be a major price adjustment if the Indiegogo donations are any indication of potential sales. At massive levels of production, I would think that the frames could be built for less than $10 each ... maybe a lot less than that. Even with a nice markup for the R&D and the price could realistically drop by 50%.
If their orders match the crowd-funding, I think there's a danger that they could end up like the dog that finally caught the car, if orders outstrip production capacity - worst thing you can do is whip the customers into a frenzy and then find you can't deliver. Hope not though - I think they deserve success with an original idea like this.
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Wow. $350 for six frames (which will fill an eight frame deep super). That's $58.34 a frame. I guess I should get mine in the house and lock them in the vault...
Sounds like you didnt see that coming Michael. What were you realistically expecting after working with them and seeing the makeup and craftmanship? G
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https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flow-hive-honey-on-tap-directly-from-your-beehive#comments
Thanks. G
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Wow. $350 for six frames (which will fill an eight frame deep super). That's $58.34 a frame. I guess I should get mine in the house and lock them in the vault...
Michael,
I think you need to have a talk with e bees in that hive about doubling up on the number of guard bees. :grin:
Jim
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>I think you need to have a talk with e bees in that hive about doubling up on the number of guard bees.
Yes. Give them a lecture on how much it costs...
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Did you contribute at all? I wouldn't mind getting my hands on some of those frames. The idea that you can forego all the extraction and processing portions for only 350 bucks is not bad at all.
I wonder if it would benefit to stack 2 flow deeps? I don't know all that much yet,but it almost seems to good to be true.
"If it sounds too good to be true...." -- old adage, but true in most cases.
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I think that it is too good to be true from the point of view of cost. Also, I have not found any information at all on how long these frames might last. They are primarlly plastic so forever seems out of the question. Even if they last five to ten years, I do not think the economics work. I have to crunch the numbers and see what I come up with (this -20 C/-4 F temperature here this morning will have me looking for something to do indoors).
The thing that I keep thinking of is that I figure I will have $12,000 - $15,000 CDN in hive equipment for my near future target of 100 hives. Adding these frames would cost $50,000 CDN plus shipping and modifying boxes thus nearly quintupling my hive equipment investment.
To put that into perspective a little more, if I can manage to achieve our current provincial average honey production of 93 lbs/hive at a current wholesale value of about $3/lb, I would have around $70,000 sitting out the field in anticipation of about $30,000 gross annual return. Even if I put in the extra work and retail my honey at $6-$7/lb, the numbers are still not close to working.
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For some context.....of you have a deep frame with 8lbs of honey you can extract, and you can sell your honey for $7/lb, the "value" is about the same per frame.
Wow. $350 for six frames (which will fill an eight frame deep super). That's $58.34 a frame. I guess I should get mine in the house and lock them in the vault...
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No doubt it will only be a matter of time until some enormous plastics factory in China makes a copy and sells it for a fraction of the price.
I've ordered a set of 6 frames, more out of curiosity and as a toy rather than with a view to replacing all my honey supers with them. I'm looking forward to them turning up so I can have a play :happy:
Looking at how they work on their video I am impressed by the whole concept, the design and engineering that has gone in to the frames is very impressive, it's easy to see where the money has gone. I suspect if the inventors knew how well the Indiegogo campaign was going to go they may have been able to set the price point a bit lower but as I am buying it as a one off just to see how it works I'm not too stressed.
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If I didn't already have six frames, I'd have to buy some... just to play with it... but I do, so now I'll wait for the cheap ones now...
BTW someone pointed out to me that a new beekeeper may think that "I can go out and just drain off some fresh honey whenever I like". But that won't really work. You have to wait until it's capped for two reasons: 1) so it will be ripe and will not ferment and 2) so there are NO bees with their heads in the cells to get crushed when you run the action on this. I think you'll have to keep an eye on things too, because if you don't harvest as soon as it IS capped they are likely to backfill the brood nest and swarm. So, to recap, no, you can't just drain it whenever you want some honey and yes you have to drain it when it's full if you want to keep them from swarming... Bottom line, this means you don't get to harvest whenever you feel like it... Still harvesting will be much simpler.
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Michael,
Good point. Thanks for that info.
Jim
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I'm still reading about all this, it's really too good! One thing, instead of a stack of supers, the honey could be pulled out of the hive (assuming you would have the time to monitor) and then they would be refilled to be harvested later in the flow.
This would reduce storage space, amount of equipment, and the cost of...
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Most of the people I have seen/heard talking about this are non-beekeepers thinking "wow we can have a hive in the backyard and just turn a tap when we want honey" - No experience at all!
The fine print on their site does say supers and bees not provided so for the back yarder average start up cost here is around $400 before buying these frames - they add another $350 for 6 frames or $400 for 7 ( max that will fit a 10 frame super) The buyer will also need some wood work skills to modify a box to take the frames and operate the system - a template is provided !Also the fine print says that the broad box will still need to be monitored for signs of a healthy queen and to check for diseases and pests so other gear will be required - smoker,veil,hive tool - and no where do they mention (for Australia anyway) you have to be a registered beekeeper to have a hive.
Great idea but I will wait a few years before even trying - I have too much invested already and currently this will double the cost of that to introduce it.
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I agree, David L. The hype is far outpacing reality on these new frames. I do not for a second question Michael Bush's assessment and endorsement of the technology. Michael doesn't mince words - he tells it like it is. However, aside from that we really have almost nothing to go on.
I am alarmed at the dearth of technical information provided on the honeyflow.com website - particularly in respect to durability. I am also alarmed at how polished that site is in terms of marketing. I did not miss the fact that one of the endorsements is from a P.J. Dawson of P.J. Dawson & Associates, which is a business development firm. What I come away from that web site with is that Cedar's grandma made him a bee veil and even though he knew enough about bees to know that they would be cranky at dusk, he still went into the hive and took a lot of stings after squishing a lot of bees trying to steal some honey. So, he and his dad decided to invent a better system, which took ten years to develop. And then they engaged some cute little girls to help with the promotion.
Make no mistake, I think that these frames are a truly remarkable technological development (with the exception of my question about durability). However, I cannot avoid the feeling that the target markets are, first, people who do not really understand what they are looking at and, two, hobbyists with endless amounts of cash to get rid of.
To new beekeepers - unless your real objective is getting rid of cash, be very careful.
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I always advise small investments in ideas you haven't used before. Reading C.C. Miller and Jay Smith, I'm struck by how often they abandoned something they had invested heavily in and it became firewood. I've had a few similar experiences where I thought something was a great idea, but the reality of it did not fit well into what I was trying to do, or my ideas on other things changed and those things didn't fit so well. I have a stack of inner covers and telescopic covers I don't use anymore and I could have saved a lot of money if I never bought them... Not that there is anything wrong with inner and telescopic covers, they just don't fit what I'm now doing.
This new gadget is really cool. If I didn't have six frames I'd probably get some just to play with it. But how it will work out in a system of beekeeping remains to be seen. Especially at the current price. I worry that they make it look like you can go out and turn the tap and run some honey out, turn it off and leave and a beginner might think that's how it works. It's not that way. You have to wait for it to be capped or it will be too runny and it will spoil, and if it's not capped bees may be in the cells working and you may squish a bunch of bees. You still have to learn to be a beekeeper.
I was given some frames and asked to test them and give my opinion, which I did. I am not endorsing them. Incredulity seems to be the biggest issue they were facing. I'm just saying they work. If they turn out to be durable enough, and if they get cheap enough, I will probably buy more of them. If they don't, I probably won't. Right now, I will wait for the price to come down.
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Cautionary words duly noted...
My first exposure to local beekeeping when I was a teenager. A friend's father kept a hive in his backyard. I was impressed and knew that one day I would try to do the same.
I am one of those who has never been a beekeeper that has decided to try a Flow Hive in my back yard. Spent $600 USD for the entire Complete Full Flow Hive package - flow frames, brood box, super box, roof, and I'm sure other stuff that I currently know nothing about. On top of that shipping cost is still unknown and I expect it'll be north of $100 as shipping from Australia to US is very expensive.
Now, I'm not expecting to receive anything until late this year (but more likely Q1 2016). I will use that time to get my family educated and hopefully connected with local beekeepers. I don't know what I don't know, but I think that most willing to lay out this kind of $$ understand that robbing/taping the hive is an integral part of the hive's maintanance and not something that is done just to fill up an empty jar.
Will we be a commercial honey operation, no, but I look forward to integrating a hive into our backyard's horticulture and introducing my family to the amazing intricacies of the honey bee.
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Wow, I like this concept...who wouldn't? but they are going to be swamped I am sure with orders at first and I am sure costs will reflect that.
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I'd probably get some just to play with it.
Right now, I will wait for the price to come down.
Ditto. G
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Wow. $3,266,877USD
raised of $70,000 goal.
wonder how much people make for writing books on beekeeping comparatively?
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Mind you, they are in Byron Bay which is the hippy capital of Australia for overvalued/overpriced everything from real estate to beekeeping veils woven by Tibetan virgins from Unicorn hair, so anything's possible.
:cheesy:
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It's beginning to look more like they won a lottery than successfully raised some venture capital.
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I am really surprised that they work. That's awesome though. I will wait for the price of them to come down and also wait for some time to pass before I put any money into them. My question with them is regarding how well the honey will drain out not in just conditions where it's cooler, but also with thicker honeys like golden rod. And as I write this, I wonder if you could put those frames into an extractor, if needed, in case it is cool outside and thick golden rod refuses to flow through this set up. I know Mr. Bush stated his limited use of these frames already so I don't really expect much for answers...just food for thought.
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I am really surprised that they work. That's awesome though. I will wait for the price of them to come down and also wait for some time to pass before I put any money into them. My question with them is regarding how well the honey will drain out not in just conditions where it's cooler, but also with thicker honeys like golden rod. And as I write this, I wonder if you could put those frames into an extractor, if needed, in case it is cool outside and thick golden rod refuses to flow through this set up. I know Mr. Bush stated his limited use of these frames already so I don't really expect much for answers...just food for thought.
I remain skeptical that they do work because of the complete lack of performance data offered. Will honey flow out of these things at 10C (50F)? What does one do if it will not? What happens if honey does happen to crystalize? What are the minimum and maximum ambient temperatures that these frames will be functional at? Is there a greater than 90% probability of each of these frames will last at least, say, 10 years if properly cared for? Is it really a non-issue that traces of honey will remain in those interior channels between extractions? What happens if the cells are not completely drained? How many times can the control lever be operated open and closed before the frame achieves a high probability of failure? Weather records for Byron Bay, Australia, where these frames were developed, show that the weather is quite toasty there pretty well the year around - does that mean those of us up here on the Tundra need be concerned about the viability of these frames in our climate?
I was quite pumped when I first learned of these FlowHive frames. I am now feeling quite deflated.
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I have been following this thread since it started. Alot of questions have been asked and thoughts revealed.
One area I haven't seen mentioned is those people who also harvest bees wax for making foundation,candles hand creams etc... If you use these Flow frames your wax production will be cut down drastically.
I know the bees have to add wax to the frames so they can store and cap honey in the cells. That wax will be reused by the bees to recap the sells. Therefore less wax to harvest.Even if you can reclaim the wax on Flow frames it would bee less wax than on more conventional frames.
Bees would still have to make wax for the brood and drone cells. I read somewhere that bees love to make wax. Would the use of these frame still allow the bees to make enough wax to satisfy there desire to make wax?
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I have been following this thread since it started. Alot of questions have been asked and thoughts revealed.
One area I haven't seen mentioned is those people who also harvest bees wax for making foundation,candles hand creams etc... If you use these Flow frames your wax production will be cut down drastically.
I know the bees have to add wax to the frames so they can store and cap honey in the cells. That wax will be reused by the bees to recap the sells. Therefore less wax to harvest.Even if you can reclaim the wax on Flow frames it would bee less wax than on more conventional frames.
Bees would still have to make wax for the brood and drone cells. I read somewhere that bees love to make wax. Would the use of these frame still allow the bees to make enough wax to satisfy there desire to make wax?
I may be new to all this but, the personification of bees wax making activities seems like an unusual perspective. ..
Now, if you mean that bees 'love' wax making like they 'love' mushroom mycelium for what turns out (after some analysis) to be the antiviral qualities imparted by the mycelium to strength the bees immune response and lengthen their lives - see http://www.beemaster.com/forum/index.php?topic=46011.0 (http://www.beemaster.com/forum/index.php?topic=46011.0) then I would think their love would be something other than the strictly functional aspects that wax provides within a hive.
Maybe, just maybe the Flow Hive frames aren't best suited for both honey and bees wax harvesting. Isn't this simply an opportunity for another entrepreneurial minded person(s) to come up with another design that would be well suited for both?
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This is my inexperience talking but, what surprises me is that the entire comb is used for honey and that the split doesn't threaten any breading combs? Do bees nicely segregate which combs are going to be used for breeding and which are used for honey? If so, aren't there two sides? What if one side is used for honey and the other for breeding? Or is it a seasonal thing (i.e., honey sometimes, breading others) Again, I'm just short of clueless. Thanks!
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Bees strongly tend to place only honey in the honey supers, which is the intended use of the FlowHive frames. Conventional frames would be used in the brood boxes, which are where all brood rearing takes place. it would be quite unusual for a queen to enter the honey supers as long as her brood area volume is adequate.
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>I remain skeptical that they do work because of the complete lack of performance data offered. Will honey flow out of these things at 10C (50F)?
You should be harvesting frequently during the flow and that would be when it's warm. A bee hive is pretty much 93F when they are rearing brood. If you wait until the honey is 50F, it will run far to slow.
> What does one do if it will not?
Harvest sooner. Of if you waited that long, the bees should be clustered below, so pull the super, put it on the kitchen table and wait for the honey to warm up. When you are done, put it away for the winter.
> What happens if honey does happen to crystalize?
Again, frequent harvest is the prevention. Worst case, I would do as I now do with HSC or PermaComb, heat it pretty well, then punch it with a Hackler Honey punch and extract it. Then you can hose it out if there is still some left.
> What are the minimum and maximum ambient temperatures that these frames will be functional at?
The action will work at any temperature. Of course honey does not run when honey is cold.
>Is there a greater than 90% probability of each of these frames will last at least, say, 10 years if properly cared for?
I have no idea. Time will tell.
> Is it really a non-issue that traces of honey will remain in those interior channels between extractions?
If you are harvesting frequently it should run out before it's crystallized. Of course if what was coating the inside of this is crystallized the resulting honey will crystallize quickly.
> What happens if the cells are not completely drained?
Not a good plan. Let it finish draining.
> How many times can the control lever be operated open and closed before the frame achieves a high probability of failure? Weather records for Byron Bay, Australia, where these frames were developed, show that the weather is quite toasty there pretty well the year around - does that mean those of us up here on the Tundra need be concerned about the viability of these frames in our climate?
Time will tell... no way to know right now. But they should not be on the hive when it's cold. They should be removed at the end of the main flow probably so that the cluster will not be in them, and the winter supply of honey will be in the regular boxes. It would not be good to have the cluster in the Honey Flow box because the queen can't lay eggs in it so the winter cluster would get no opportunity to rear any brood.
>One area I haven't seen mentioned is those people who also harvest bees wax for making foundation,candles hand creams etc...
> If you use these Flow frames your wax production will be cut down drastically.
If all you use for honey is the flow frames wax production is completely eliminated. You don't even have cappings. You would need to use regular frames to do that.
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Michael, I already harvest capped frames, extract and return them during my weekly or bi-weekly inspections, as the case may be. It is always nice and warm .... except whenr over achievers force me to harvest in late September/early October so that I can finally remove honey supers.
The point I was attempting to make was that the technical information and performance data needs to be associated with the promotion of this technology. Otherwise, I start to think I can smell something fishy.
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>I remain skeptical that they do work because of the complete lack of performance data offered. Will honey flow out of these things at 10C (50F)?
You should be harvesting frequently during the flow and that would be when it's warm. A bee hive is pretty much 93F when they are rearing brood. If you wait until the honey is 50F, it will run far to slow.
> What does one do if it will not?
Harvest sooner. Of if you waited that long, the bees should be clustered below, so pull the super, put it on the kitchen table and wait for the honey to warm up. When you are done, put it away for the winter.
> What happens if honey does happen to crystalize?
Again, frequent harvest is the prevention. Worst case, I would do as I now do with HSC or PermaComb, heat it pretty well, then punch it with a Hackler Honey punch and extract it. Then you can hose it out if there is still some left.
> What are the minimum and maximum ambient temperatures that these frames will be functional at?
The action will work at any temperature. Of course honey does not run when honey is cold.
>Is there a greater than 90% probability of each of these frames will last at least, say, 10 years if properly cared for?
I have no idea. Time will tell.
> Is it really a non-issue that traces of honey will remain in those interior channels between extractions?
If you are harvesting frequently it should run out before it's crystallized. Of course if what was coating the inside of this is crystallized the resulting honey will crystallize quickly.
> What happens if the cells are not completely drained?
Not a good plan. Let it finish draining.
> How many times can the control lever be operated open and closed before the frame achieves a high probability of failure? Weather records for Byron Bay, Australia, where these frames were developed, show that the weather is quite toasty there pretty well the year around - does that mean those of us up here on the Tundra need be concerned about the viability of these frames in our climate?
Time will tell... no way to know right now. But they should not be on the hive when it's cold. They should be removed at the end of the main flow probably so that the cluster will not be in them, and the winter supply of honey will be in the regular boxes. It would not be good to have the cluster in the Honey Flow box because the queen can't lay eggs in it so the winter cluster would get no opportunity to rear any brood.
>One area I haven't seen mentioned is those people who also harvest bees wax for making foundation,candles hand creams etc...
> If you use these Flow frames your wax production will be cut down drastically.
If all you use for honey is the flow frames wax production is completely eliminated. You don't even have cappings. You would need to use regular frames to do that.
I just ordered your book! - The Practical Beekeeper Volume I
Thanks!
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I think that it is too good to be true from the point of view of cost. Also, I have not found any information at all on how long these frames might last. They are primarlly plastic so forever seems out of the question. Even if they last five to ten years, I do not think the economics work. I have to crunch the numbers and see what I come up with (this -20 C/-4 F temperature here this morning will have me looking for something to do indoors).
The thing that I keep thinking of is that I figure I will have $12,000 - $15,000 CDN in hive equipment for my near future target of 100 hives. Adding these frames would cost $50,000 CDN plus shipping and modifying boxes thus nearly quintupling my hive equipment investment.
To put that into perspective a little more, if I can manage to achieve our current provincial average honey production of 93 lbs/hive at a current wholesale value of about $3/lb, I would have around $70,000 sitting out the field in anticipation of about $30,000 gross annual return. Even if I put in the extra work and retail my honey at $6-$7/lb, the numbers are still not close to working.
Yes, it would certainly be a big capital investment in anyone's language.
To some extent though, could this not be balanced against reduced labour costs in the longer term? And the need for a truck and lifting gear to load supers, transport to your honey shed, then hours of extracting and then having to take it all back to the hives so they can clean it out etc.
One other thing occurs to me; if you aren't destroying significant amounts of wax by uncapping and damaging comb which will then require repair by the bees, will you not get a greater honey yield by getting better utilisation of nectar that would otherwise have been used to make new wax? (One possible unintended consequence here could be a future shortage of cappings wax to make new foundation.
I guess if you've already got a significant investment in existing equipment, it would be bordering on foolish to abandon it for a new and as-yet, not totally proven technique.
I'm not commercial, never will be, I have an interest in 5 hives and that's all it will ever be. It's attractive to me as a hobbiest, for a number of reasons, not least of which being, as I now keep bees on a small suburban block, that I don't have to disturb my bees at the time of year they're at their tetchiest, to harvest the honey.
Whilst some would take home a message from the ad that you don't need to do any of that nasty getting inside hives thing, we all know that's not true but if possible, I'd prefer to limit most of my hive fettling in this suburban location to the Spring/early Summer when they're not so irritable. Even so, with just my 2 "home hives", it's a sizeable investment to get past the Domestic Finances Manager without her veto.
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I think that it is too good to be true from the point of view of cost....
Yes, it would certainly be a big capital investment in anyone's language.
To some extent though, could this not be balanced against reduced labour costs in the longer term? And the need for a truck and lifting gear to load supers, transport to your honey shed, then hours of extracting and then having to take it all back to the hives so they can clean it out etc.
One other thing occurs to me; if you aren't destroying significant amounts of wax by uncapping and damaging comb which will then require repair by the bees, will you not get a greater honey yield by getting better utilisation of nectar that would otherwise have been used to make new wax? (One possible unintended consequence here could be a future shortage of cappings wax to make new foundation.
I guess if you've already got a significant investment in existing equipment, it would be bordering on foolish to abandon it for a new and as-yet, not totally proven technique.
I'm not commercial, never will be, I have an interest in 5 hives and that's all it will ever be. It's attractive to me as a hobbiest, for a number of reasons, not least of which being, as I now keep bees on a small suburban block, that I don't have to disturb my bees at the time of year they're at their tetchiest, to harvest the honey.
Whilst some would take home a message from the ad that you don't need to do any of that nasty getting inside hives thing, we all know that's not true but if possible, I'd prefer to limit most of my hive fettling in this suburban location to the Spring/early Summer when they're not so irritable. Even so, with just my 2 "home hives", it's a sizeable investment to get past the Domestic Finances Manager without her veto.
I did start to crunch the numbers but, even assuming that the frames would last 10 years, it was clear that making a business case to invest was going to be impossible. That by the way was assuming a startup, which would not already have made a significant investment in equipment.
Hobbyists typically do not have to rationalize invests from a business point of view so that those serously considering the purchase of these innovative honey frames is an entirely different "ball game". If a hobbyist wants to start out with a couple of hives, one might say, "Well, about $400 for each hive, $150 or so for each colony of bees is, say, $550 so adding the Flow Frames makes it about $900 - $1800 for two hives is not bad. And, look at the convenience plus no extraction equipment needed which might be an effective saving of $200 or $300". That's a fair argument, I think.
For myself, the numbers exercise is entirely different. First, I already harvest during my weekly or biweekly inspections so that, first, a smaller extractor is adequate, second, I have honey to sell earlier, three, I need only one honey super for each hive and, four, the bees make a lot more honey which is due, in part, to not having to build as much honey comb. Hence, the FlowHive frames would save me carrying frames to the extractor, spinning up the extractor and returning empty frames to the hive but I still have to get the honey to my truck. No matter how I wiggle the numbers, I cannot get that saving to me to be worth $50,000 plus shipping plus the care of the frames. Even if the frames last ten years, the $5000, or so, per year still is not worth it. Especially when there are so many unanswered questions around reliability and service life.
It depends on one's objectives. For hobbyists, the numbers could be quite attactive. For commercial operations, I do not think it can work. For me, it will not work.
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Fair comment - I guess time will tell, especially if the price comes down significantly with what will probably be a much larger than anticipated production rate - production is usually fed by demand - eventually, if the production capacity is high enough, then it should bring the price down, in which case, buying this stuff now might not be a great idea - think of the Thousands of $$$s people were paying for CD players, VHS machines etc when they first came out. Not quite such a mass market for these, so the price drop wouldn't be quite so dramatic but I suspect it will happen.
As a hobbyist, I'm feeling a wee bit conflicted at present.
I just bought 2 new hives, comprising 3 deep boxes each but so far only enough frames for the bottom boxes, although I'm pouring sugar into them so they draw the foundation ASAP and hopefully we can go into winter with two deeps of fully draw frames in each hive.
The flow-frame units won't be available for me (if I order now) until Nov 2015 at the earliest - this might be just in time to allow me to convert the third boxes for each hive to a flow-frame box, after which it should all be pretty good. Problem is, I suspect this will be a bit like a Defence Dept procurement, with everyhting running several months late and right now, I'm still in my first year of a new business, having been made redundant after 30 years in my old career only 12 months ago, so going out and spending another $700 on top of the late Xmas present of 2 new hives probably wouldn't be wise.
Ah well - first world problems eh? :smile:
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> MDavid I was more thinking along the lines of bees having an internal desire to create wax as a natural and inherent need to make wax and build comb.
I have seen several of Paul Stamets videos, but I was not referring to the heath aspect of the bees wax/honey.
I was talking more about the loss of revenue to the Beeks who harvest wax for more profit from their hives.
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> MDavid I was more thinking along the lines of bees having an internal desire to create wax as a natural and inherent need to make wax and build comb.
I have seen several of Paul Stamets videos, but I was not referring to the heath aspect of the bees wax/honey.
I was talking more about the loss of revenue to the Beeks who harvest wax for more profit from their hives.
If wax is your a big earner, then I'd imagine you'd want to avoid this system.
Regarding wax etc, I was thinking that if I went with a honeyflow super, this would mean that the frames in the two bottom boxes would be for brood and the colony's pollen & winter stores only, so they wouldn't be going into an extractor or handled roughly, in which case, I wouldn't need to build these frames with full-depth, wired in foundation, I could simply fix a thin (say 1" / 25mm wide), strip of foundation into the top bar groove and let them build off it as they would in a wild hive or top-bar hive. That way, they'd make the comb size they wanted, rather than what the bloke who made the foundation rollers wanted, so as much drone cells or worker cells as they needed/desired and of the size they needed/desired.
With the 8 frame hives I use, then that's 16 frames in each - so I'd only need to replace 4 to 6 frames (8-12 for the two hives) each year to ensure that the old comb was changed out and at that rate, I'd only need to buy maybe 2 sheets of foundation and no mucking about wiring it either (although I do actually get a perverse pleasure from doing this).
In practice, I think there'd still be plenty of wax in the system as it's unlikely that the commercial operators would completely embrace this method.
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One thing that does bother me somewhat though frankly, is the cost. I'm not going to be nice about it, and I do understand manufacturing and development is a very expensive thing...but here these guys came up with a idea....a good one, and they deserve the credit for that for sure....but in reality it is everyone else's money that is really making it a reality, a BIG reality with multiple millions of dollars being handed to them to do it....and the costs for the units seem to be still pretty darn high. I hope they are available for much much lower when they offer them commercially after production, since in reality they have already made their profits far in advance. at least to the people who donated. I sort of dislike this method of funding things for that reason honestly. it used to be you would have investors, now it is just gave to you basically (After the site takes a certain amount I imagine.) and you have no real accountability to those who actually made it happen.
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One thing that does bother me somewhat though frankly, is the cost. I'm not going to be nice about it, and I do understand manufacturing and development is a very expensive thing...but here these guys came up with a idea....a good one, and they deserve the credit for that for sure....but in reality it is everyone else's money that is really making it a reality, a BIG reality with multiple millions of dollars being handed to them to do it....and the costs for the units seem to be still pretty darn high. I hope they are available for much much lower when they offer them commercially after production, since in reality they have already made their profits far in advance. at least to the people who donated. I sort of dislike this method of funding things for that reason honestly. it used to be you would have investors, now it is just gave to you basically (After the site takes a certain amount I imagine.) and you have no real accountability to those who actually made it happen.
Not sure, but I don't think they're getting contributions or gifts or something. I think crowd-funding is just a way of funneling investors. Seems to be a way around securities regulations. I could be wrong, but it does seem a bit dodgy, not to mention risky for the supposd investors. Anybody have experience with how this works?
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One thing that does bother me somewhat though frankly, is the cost. I'm not going to be nice about it, and I do understand manufacturing and development is a very expensive thing...but here these guys came up with a idea....a good one, and they deserve the credit for that for sure....but in reality it is everyone else's money that is really making it a reality, a BIG reality with multiple millions of dollars being handed to them to do it....and the costs for the units seem to be still pretty darn high. I hope they are available for much much lower when they offer them commercially after production, since in reality they have already made their profits far in advance. at least to the people who donated. I sort of dislike this method of funding things for that reason honestly. it used to be you would have investors, now it is just gave to you basically (After the site takes a certain amount I imagine.) and you have no real accountability to those who actually made it happen.
B2B,
As with all new products, if you want to bee the first to own a new product, you will be paying for the RD&D.
After they have recouped those costs and the fever has died down and the demand has backed off, then the prices will drop.
It is capitalism at its best. Without it we would still be in the Stone Age.
Jim
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I had assumed that this invention was similar to US Patent 2223561A from 1939/40 - which certainly looks feasible, but which for some reason never caught on ... But it's not.
(http://i61.tinypic.com/8yrrd2.jpg)
If you look at the Flow-Hive Patent Application US20140370781A1, you'll see just how complex this invention is, and the level of manufacturing precision required to hold liquid in the cells. Hundreds of mating surfaces - it's no wonder these combs are expensive.
(http://i61.tinypic.com/314a541.jpg)
I can't see this device functioning at all when it becomes worn, and if the camshaft should inadvertently be operated with crystallised honey in the cells, then I'd say there's a good chance that something will disintegrate.
In my opinion, all working kit intended for beekeeping use should be capable of withstanding plenty of use, and the occasional accidental abuse. I don't think this design will.
LJ
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Not sure, but I don't think they're getting contributions or gifts or something. I think crowd-funding is just a way of funneling investors. Seems to be a way around securities regulations. I could be wrong, but it does seem a bit dodgy, not to mention risky for the supposd investors. Anybody have experience with how this works?
Crowd funding is a digital "passing the hat". I have searched about Indiegogo to try to find out just how it all works. The best I came up with is that it is essentially a charitable fund raising service that, presumably, takes a percentage for its efforts. Folks raising funds can make a 'commitment' to contributors but how that commitment might be ensured is not at all clear. FlowHIve says it will give contributors "a discount". That's it.
I think that crowd funding is great in principle as it provides funding for worthy projects that investors see as too risky or irrelevant to consider, which raises a question - where are all the Warren Buffets in this?
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Kick starter is another.... they basically have promised to deliver a bought product. But look at the fine print on the page. A lot of ifs and buts..... I understand someone done this on a cooler idea a while back and disappeared with over 2 mil. I am not insinuating the founders of the flow hive intend on doing this.... just a comment on the hazards crowd funding.
Not spending too much time researching I found the cooler deal but no reference of the skip town by inventor so that may be false??? I heard it on another site.... and it was well over 2 Mil made on the cooler deal. Well, Well OVER!
How much do Indiegogo and Kickstarter make?
Indiegogo charges 4 percent for fixed and flexible funding campaigns that reach their goal.
Indiegogo charges 9 percent for flexible funding campaigns that don't reach their goal. (The difference between flexible and fixed is that flexible campaigns can keep funds even if they fall short of their goal.)
Kickstarter charges a 5 percent fee on projects that reach their goal. (It does not have a flexible funding option like Indiegogo.)
Both sites charge card-processing and PayPal fees that can range from 3 percent to 5 percent.
And now to put it all together and provide an example: Kickstarter should have made roughly $665,000 from the $13.3 million Coolest Cooler project. Of the $1.1 billion Kickstarter now states as total dollars pledged across all successful projects in the past five-and-a-half years, it should have made over $57.1 million in project funding fee revenue.
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Not a bad deal for SOMEBODY :wink:
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B2B,
As with all new products, if you want to bee the first to own a new product, you will be paying for the RD&D.
After they have recouped those costs and the fever has died down and the demand has backed off, then the prices will drop.
It is capitalism at its best. Without it we would still be in the Stone Age.
Jim
I am all for capitalism, but 1) they have already gained well over $3 million dollars, so let's not try to claim they are in the gaining back the research and development stage or even close to it anymore, and is this really capitalism at its best? I am not so sure. But ya people are free to spend their money the way they decide to spend it....and the chinese or others are free to then later buy one of these units and mass produce it for far cheaper too I suppose.
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I also though this was probably a scam. People started emailing me with the link to the website. I saw Michael Bush's endorsement and the slick clean site and I thought this sounds a bit to good to be true, to be honest. Spoke to family members in the area and they know people who know the inventor family. I just hope they put some of that money into further developing the concept. Michael Bush's manifold sounds like a good idea.
I don't believe this is the intention of the inventors, but one downside to this is that people may think they get some bees and keep them without opening the beehive.
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The 2 gentlemen have a tiger by the tail. My 2 cents is they'll sell off the "company" to an investor who knows how to run a company profitably, produce and distribute product and make a return on investment. They'll use the 4 million from crowd funding as proof that the market exists and substantial money can be made. I know that'd be what I do once I realized I was over my head.
If they don't imagine being a company of 2 and getting 4 million in orders and donations. You'll never handle it yourself and the amount of instant growth you've got to successfully achieve is more than just a serious challenge.
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Seems to me that folks here would close down every Starbucks Coffee shop.....after all, no one should have the freedom to spend their own money on a $5 coffee.
What are we to do about million dollar small apartments in NYC?
...and of course no one should collect money for package bees or queens that they won't have in hand for three or six months.
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Seems to me that folks here would close down every Starbucks Coffee shop.....after all, no one should have the freedom to spend their own money on a $5 coffee.
What are we to do about million dollar small apartments in NYC?
...and of course no one should collect money for package bees or queens that they won't have in hand for three or six months.
Is there a "Like"button on here?
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> had assumed that this invention was similar to US Patent 2223561A from 1939/40 - which certainly looks feasible, but which for some reason never caught on ... But it's not.
Actually the other one from 1940 could not possibly work if the honey was capped. It would be the equivalent of when you uncap some honey and turn the frame upside down. The honey never comes out because the air can't get in because of the surface tension of the honey. The intended result for that one was the same, honey running out of the comb, but the actual result, I'm sure is that the honey did not run out very much at all.
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So how does this latest design get the honey to flow if air has to replace the honey?
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I think the air enters it by actually splitting the comb in two then putting it back together. It allows air to enter similar to air entering as you pour out a two liter of soda. The previous patent expected honey to escape by rotating a "pin" with holes in it so the honey could slide down a type of tube. The problem was there was no way for the air to enter the comb, thus creating a type of pressure stop similar to air being trapped in a container under water. I hope that made since, and this is only a guess. I'm not an engineer so I couldn't say for certain.
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I can't see this device functioning at all when it becomes worn, and if the camshaft should inadvertently be operated with crystallised honey in the cells, then I'd say there's a good chance that something will disintegrate.
In my opinion, all working kit intended for beekeeping use should be capable of withstanding plenty of use, and the occasional accidental abuse. I don't think this design will.
Given that it's unlikely that the frames will not be kept on the hive over the winter, is there any reason why you wouldn't give it a good wash in hot water to dissolve any crystallised gunk out at the end of the season?
Also, once open to the humidity of the hive, won't the sugar crystals, being hygroscopic simply absorb moisture and dissolve again?
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>So how does this latest design get the honey to flow if air has to replace the honey?
See the diagram above. In fig 2 you can see what the comb looks like when it's open. There is a zig zag path from the very top, where the air comes in, to the very bottom where the honey runs out. The path is about 3/4" by 1/4" or so all the way to the bottom.
>Given that it's unlikely that the frames will not be kept on the hive over the winter, is there any reason why you wouldn't give it a good wash in hot water to dissolve any crystallised gunk out at the end of the season?
No reason you can't. Worst case if it all crystallized solid and you couldn't run the action anymore, you could use a hackler honey punch (or one of the knockoffs that the other suppliers are selling) and uncap it and then hose it out. But if you could run the action it would tend to make the honey move which tends to make it more liquid again.
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Am I dreaming or did I hear they were considering a way to heat the combs. If I am not dreaming, would this fix cristalized honey and make it flow?
Thanks
gww
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>Am I dreaming or did I hear they were considering a way to heat the combs.
I believe their patent includes that possibility. The current product that I have seen does not.
>If I am not dreaming, would this fix cristalized honey and make it flow?
Yes.
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They have crowd funded $5 million in 12 days.
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Um, yes - we'd like 70K, if you could spare some pocket change..., thank you very much!
We'd like to rename our project.. Money Flow. :wink:
Can't get this song outta my head...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WCFUGCOLLU
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Aww come on Glen, I dont think they are going anywhere, lets at least give em the benefit of the doubt. I imagine they have alot of headaches trying to get in front of manufacturing on the enormous scale it has become, but, if the product in the end wins or loses, I dont think they are trying to or intended to scam anyone. Great song though. lol. Sidenote( Small clusters made it) got 4 flying today. G :wink:
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Crowd funding seems to have a serious downside that is not readily apparent. For example, a four year old went for a walk in sub-zero F temps in the wee hours here in Ontario a couple weeks ago and froze to death. A helpful guy set up a crowd funding fund raiser to raise the $17,000 for the funeral. It raised $170,000, which all went to the parents. Now the parents are in therapy trying to deal with having made $170,000 out of their son's death.
Apparently something similar for the guy up in Detroit? that was walking 21 miles to work and back. Crowd funding was started to buy him a car. He got not only a car but a sizable chunk of cash. A grand total of $350,000. Now, it seems, he has way more problems than the 21 mile walk ever was.
While I still think that the Flow Hive roll out has been terribly poorly planned and executed, especially in terms of market analysis and presentation of technical information, the fact remains that people have willing overfunded the project by 7100%. If someone comes along and offers you something silly like, say, $1500 per double deep hive to set them up with an apiary, what would your response be?
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Y'all are both right. I'll lighten up. :grin:
Good deal on the 4, G. Should be smooth sailing around here as far as temps.
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Here's an interesting video on the flow hive, not much new information about the product itself but gives some insight in to the people behind it.
The piece was produced by Landline which is Australia's premier rural and agricultural program.
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2015/s4193259.htm (http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2015/s4193259.htm)
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While I still think that the Flow Hive roll out has been terribly poorly planned and executed, especially in terms of market analysis and presentation of technical information, the fact remains that people have willing overfunded the project by 7100%.
They've gotten 5 million dollars in 12 days and it's not a success? They wanted $70k and got $5M in orders and donations. No matter how I may slice or dice it can be considered nothing but an incredibly well planned and executed marketing strategy. It's a low cost sneezer campaign that's spread by word of mouth. It bypasses gatekeepers and apparently gets to those who control the purse strings. Orders are pouring in no matter the supposed lack of technical information or market analysis. No one can argue with success like this without appearing silly or jealous.
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While I still think that the Flow Hive roll out has been terribly poorly planned and executed, especially in terms of market analysis and presentation of technical information, the fact remains that people have willing overfunded the project by 7100%.
They've gotten 5 million dollars in 12 days and it's not a success? They wanted $70k and got $5M in orders and donations. No matter how I may slice or dice it can be considered nothing but an incredibly well planned and executed marketing strategy. It's a low cost sneezer campaign that's spread by word of mouth. It bypasses gatekeepers and apparently gets to those who control the purse strings. Orders are pouring in no matter the supposed lack of technical information or market analysis. No one can argue with success like this without appearing silly or jealous.
I don't think he was arguing their success, as you say it would be pointless to do so with a $5 million price tag. At the same time the amount of money they have made was not based off a sound marketing plan or great information presentation. Though in their defense, they probably didn't have the funds for a marketing and PR firm until the got the crowd funding. My point s this; the ability to pull in massive amounts of money is not based off the ability to run good marketing and PR, while this helps the key s being able to offer a product that is new, helpful, and borderline unbelievable. If you have these three things your garunteed to pull in the cash.
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While I still think that the Flow Hive roll out has been terribly poorly planned and executed, especially in terms of market analysis and presentation of technical information, the fact remains that people have willing overfunded the project by 7100%.
They've gotten 5 million dollars in 12 days and it's not a success? They wanted $70k and got $5M in orders and donations. No matter how I may slice or dice it can be considered nothing but an incredibly well planned and executed marketing strategy. It's a low cost sneezer campaign that's spread by word of mouth. It bypasses gatekeepers and apparently gets to those who control the purse strings. Orders are pouring in no matter the supposed lack of technical information or market analysis. No one can argue with success like this without appearing silly or jealous.
I don't think he was arguing their success, as you say it would be pointless to do so with a $5 million price tag. At the same time the amount of money they have made was not based off a sound marketing plan or great information presentation. Though in their defense, they probably didn't have the funds for a marketing and PR firm until the got the crowd funding. My point s this; the ability to pull in massive amounts of money is not based off the ability to run good marketing and PR, while this helps the key s being able to offer a product that is new, helpful, and borderline unbelievable. If you have these three things your garunteed to pull in the cash.
You are precisely correct, Bee Haven. To paraphrase my comment - Regardless of my reservations about the project, it has been incredibly successful so far. Realizing over 7000% of the capitalization target cannot be seen in any other light.
I made no comment at all about marketing strategy.
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I found this interesting. It took them 2 1/2 minutes to reach their 70K goal...
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I don't think he was arguing their success, as you say it would be pointless to do so with a $5 million price tag. At the same time the amount of money they have made was not based off a sound marketing plan or great information presentation. Though in their defense, they probably didn't have the funds for a marketing and PR firm until the got the crowd funding. My point s this; the ability to pull in massive amounts of money is not based off the ability to run good marketing and PR, while this helps the key s being able to offer a product that is new, helpful, and borderline unbelievable. If you have these three things your garunteed to pull in the cash.
It was clearly a VERY effective marketing campaign. They were marketing the project to get 70K in funding. Slick or high dollar doesn't mean good. The results speak to their effectiveness even if there's a perceived lack of technical information of market analysis. Many times if it looks garage style people don't really look at it as advertising and sneeze (forward) it on to their friends. I've had articles on this sent to me at least a 1/2 dozen times from friends I don't get anything else from advertising wise. They pulled in the cash in spades, therefore it was brilliantly effective towards their goal.
I haven't bought one yet only because the deliver date was Dec. of '15. Am I skeptical? Sure but I saw enough on the video to at least put money down on one as a novelty (when they get US distribution and I can use it in the year I buy it).
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D,
I'm going to do the same thing, wait until the start building it here and can get it when I order it.
Jim
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I'll wait till it proves itself. Thankya very much.
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An acquaintance of mine has ordered a full Flow Hive; brood box, lid, the lot but she has no idea about what's involved, apparently didn't realise until after she'd ordered that it's not for native bees - asking questions on Facebook about where to go from here, where do I get bees? etc
I get the distinct impression that she hasn't yet got much idea that the Flow Hive only gets you out of the usual extraction process and, I guess the faff of building lots of supers and frames but that all the other (as yet unknown to her) management requirements are still necessary and that it will likely be over 12 months before she gets any honey.
I think there will be lots of people who've ordered on the basis - my guess is that half or more will have lost the initial enthusiasm in a year or two when they realise what else is involved and that yes, you're gonna get stung, also there will be other expenses like suit, smoker etc.
On the bright side, if even 20% of the new beekeepers stick to it and make beekeeping work, and if it improves recruitment to amateur beekeeping by and extra 10% each year, then that has to be a good thing in the longer term
I'm also thinking that in a couple of years, there could be a huge number of these units coming cheaply onto the second hand market from bored/disillusioned first-timers; unfortunately, I'm not sure if I can benefit from this as it's illegal to bring used beekeeping equipment into this State.
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Well they are now over $8,200,000.
I sure hope they can gear up production to handle the demand.
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I ordered a full set. Early delivery for June. Ive been looking yo get in my to beekeeping and this pushed me over the edge. I realize there is tons of work to it too. Not looking for easy bee keeping via Flow. Just think it might be a neat idea. If it breaks,.. 300$ out the window. Worth a shot.
That said, I'll let you know how it works later this summer.
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"$12,183,381USD
raised by 36,477 people in 1 month "
closed on april the 19th (Guess they were tired of people throwing money at them?)
that is a average of $334/person. not bad....
I think they got matching father and son Lambo's .....
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I thought this thread was DEAD :tongue: Thanks :wink:
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naw, figure I'll come back once a month and keep it going just for random sake. you are welcome.
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Guess I'll have to get one and check it out..
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I think I will wait a while before I get one... My biggest concern is what do you do with it if you get AFB? Burning plastic is a bit harsh on the environment. I suppose in a commercial incinerator it isn't too bad but I don't know where I might find one around here. Not to mention the cost of replacing it if it does require burning.
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Did I miss something ?
Do they act as a incubator for AFB ?
Why the worry ?
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AFB is in the brood. The cells are too long for the queen to lay her eggs in henced only honey is stored in them.
Have you had hives burned before due to AFB?
Do you buys hives from commercial beeks who treat for AfB?
If not I would not worry about it.
Jim
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My parents got out of bee keeping when they had to burn pretty much their entire apiary. It was what pushed them out of beekeeping. I have not had any problems.
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No issues here either