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Author Topic: flow hives  (Read 5697 times)

Offline crispy

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flow hives
« on: March 05, 2020, 07:34:29 pm »
Hi all , i have just seen a posting on the flow hive disscussion group that made me realize it was not the group for me to be following or be part of , a chap in america who for what ever reason has built his own version of the said flow hive now  he is obviously fairly new to be keeping and cannot afford one of the original hives so with this in mind he has asked the question about getting aftermarket flow frames i would say to try to cut down on expenditure .
Well some of the comments were not nice bassically bagging him for asking about these aftermarket frames .
 Now it possibly was the wrong thing to do seeing it is the inventors site , but i was a member of this site up until about 5 minutes ago after seeing some of the nasty and rude comments made toward this poor guy . A lot were from americans as that is where he lives but some were from aussies as well . I wont be returning to the site as i thought it was about learning about bee keeping obviosley not regardless if you had a fancy flow hive or not ,its funny you know i havn't seen any large operators using these hives . When i watch videos on bee keepers and some of the manky old hives they have i have to think why would you pay over a thousand dollers for one of these things anyway im angry and thats my rant for the day as far as im concerned keep you nancy pancy flow hives il stick old school thanks .  :angry:

Offline Bob Wilson

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Re: flow hives
« Reply #1 on: March 05, 2020, 10:55:30 pm »
I think a lot of beekeepers have tried to cut cost by building hives. I did. I built mine. They are made well, but as cheap as I could. Since beekeeping can be expensive, I found it was the only way I could get into it... Just like that guy.

Offline crispy

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Re: flow hives
« Reply #2 on: March 05, 2020, 11:57:30 pm »
Bob i have got nothing against anyone who wants to save a doller we all have our reasons but some of the comments towards this poor bloke were almost as if it was some elitist club ,if i could get the timber in the size i needed for my hives i woud build them too as im a carpenter by trade . It just annoys me that becuase someone has not either got the moneyor has commitments to buy the original item for whatever reason they bag the hell out of them .They probably dont like long hive owners either ,i read a comment the other day that basically said old bee keepers wont advance with modern technology and will stay with the langstom hives i nearly left then . As far as i am concernend its about bee keeping not how bloody pretty your hive looks , and they can stick their flow hives where the sun dont shine !   

Online Ben Framed

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Re: flow hives
« Reply #3 on: March 06, 2020, 12:57:36 am »
Hi Crispy. I must have missed that one. I have not seen many nasty post here on the bee-forum part. Although I have seen some stiff debates on the Coffeehouse lol. 
Was this nasty post that you read recent? Just curious.

Phillip

May I add. Try not to be too wroth, mostly there are some pretty well meaning folks here.






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« Last Edit: March 06, 2020, 02:44:27 am by Ben Framed »
2 Chronicles 7:14
14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Offline crispy

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Re: flow hives
« Reply #4 on: March 06, 2020, 05:51:29 am »
Hi ben it wasnt on this site mate i think the moderators would have stepped in if it had been .

Offline Acebird

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Re: flow hives
« Reply #5 on: March 06, 2020, 08:42:14 am »
I am not sure how you would make your own flow hive on the cheap unless you are just talking the box not the frame system.  To my knowledge the flow hive people do not discourage making the box yourself.
Brian Cardinal
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Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: flow hives
« Reply #6 on: March 06, 2020, 01:09:48 pm »
The only way I know you could make one is if you have a 3D printer and found a set of designs to make them.
Jim Altmiller
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin

Offline CoolBees

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Re: flow hives
« Reply #7 on: March 06, 2020, 04:34:30 pm »
I've only been beeking for 5(ish) yrs - but in that time, I've observed that you really need to know what's going on inside a hive before you start yanking honey out of it. Every hive is different inside. For this reason, the Flow Hive just doesn't make sense to me.

I know the Flow Hive sounds nice - to those who haven't kept bees, or those that don't study what's going on inside their hives, but ....

For those people that know their bees, and want to play with a new "Toy" - ok, I get that. I've got enough toys already, so I'll pass.  :cool:
You cannot permanently help men by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves - Abraham Lincoln

Offline crispy

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Re: flow hives
« Reply #8 on: March 06, 2020, 06:11:50 pm »
Hi all the guy may have been a little out of line asking where he could source aftermarket frames for his home made hive but some of the responses were to say the least in poor taste , Coolbees this is what concerns me that some people will think this is an easy way to keep bees and i suppose it is BUT are they doing the required inspections ,Do they know what pests to look for ie: afb , ect ,are these hives registered a tank commander could see my registration letters from 3 miles away without binos . The way i look at it is these are for hobbiests who want to take the easy way out rather than use a langstroth hive to learn first ,it makes me woner with a price tag of 1000.00 for the unit alone if they discovered A.F.B. would they be prepared to burn there hive or would they even know what they are looking at ?   

Offline CoolBees

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Re: flow hives
« Reply #9 on: March 06, 2020, 08:27:15 pm »
Hi all the guy may have been a little out of line asking where he could source aftermarket frames for his home made hive but some of the responses were to say the least in poor taste , Coolbees this is what concerns me that some people will think this is an easy way to keep bees and i suppose it is BUT are they doing the required inspections ,Do they know what pests to look for ie: afb , ect ,are these hives registered a tank commander could see my registration letters from 3 miles away without binos . The way i look at it is these are for hobbiests who want to take the easy way out rather than use a langstroth hive to learn first ,it makes me woner with a price tag of 1000.00 for the unit alone if they discovered A.F.B. would they be prepared to burn there hive or would they even know what they are looking at ?

Crispy - I think you nailed all the correct answers to the problems the Flow Hive presents, all in one post. I couldn't have done as good a job. Cheers!  :grin:
You cannot permanently help men by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves - Abraham Lincoln

Offline crispy

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Re: flow hives
« Reply #10 on: March 08, 2020, 12:03:20 am »
Hi coolbees it might sound like im bagging on the flow hive owners but thats not really what im on about as it isnt just flow hive owners who are ignorant of pests . Just recently on a local forum i follow a member came up with a photo of what she described as varoa mite ,now we dont have that in australia  yet unfortunately they do in new zealand but when the photo of said varroa mite was shown it was a wax moth larvea , Now there are numerous videos on varoa mite and wax moth and afb ect on the net and as a beekeeper you should know what the hell you are looking at .
Here in my state bees are classed as livestock and there are certain rules you must follow as regular inspections and keeping records of what you find ,there are online courses for identification of AFB with links to pathology centres for test kits if you are unsure, but f you follow some of the you tube videos you will know exactly if you have it or not ,not really that hard to identify after seeing the vidoes as they explain how to identify it , it just concerns me that there seems to be an explosion of backyard beekeepers but are they really taking this seriously as if you just say well thats enough bee keeping for me there are massive fines for leaving hives una tended ,.
This country has just gone through some of the worst fires on record and a lot of pro bee kepers are really doing it hard one place has the most pure strain of ligerian bee in the world he cannot import bees from the mainland so he is going to find it hard for a while till he builds up his colonies again and the last thing they need is someone who doesn't care or want to look after there hives properly be it a flow hive or langstrom .   

Offline CoolBees

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Re: flow hives
« Reply #11 on: March 08, 2020, 02:57:29 pm »
Crispy, I totally get what your saying - and I agree. I don't have any issue with the flow hive either, when it's in the right hands. However, where I do take issue with them, is their marketing. They are clearly targeting the backyard "no-nothing" would-bee beekeepers as the primary customer. This is going to cause problems exactly as you described. Anyone keeping bees has a responsibility to know what's going on in their hive(s). ... but - I'm sure this has all been hashed out many times before, and it isn't likely to change. Cheers.  :grin:
You cannot permanently help men by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves - Abraham Lincoln

Offline Acebird

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Re: flow hives
« Reply #12 on: March 08, 2020, 06:37:38 pm »
The only way I know you could make one is if you have a 3D printer and found a set of designs to make them.
Jim Altmiller

I am not sure that a 3D printer will make the parts accurate enough not to cause jam ups.
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Just do it

Offline Hillbilly

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Re: flow hives
« Reply #13 on: May 16, 2020, 06:11:28 am »

Well some of the comments were not nice bassically bagging him

I was on the Flow forum until a year ago. I asked a question and I was mobbed by two old aussie guys. I'm a beginner with only a couple of Flow hives so that forum is ideal for me. When I brought the issue to the attention of the moderator she was very condescending and unhelpful. I left the forum and deleted my account. Occasionally I have a look and always find some sort of nasty argument going on.

One of those old guys, although sometimes nasty, is actually quite knowledgeable and did enjoy his input. He used to answer almost every question. Now he got kicked out of the forum for ever because he used to point out problems with leaking and AFB and better to harvest off the hive.

The Flow forum has a serious problem with moderation. The moderator is not a beekeeper and never participates. Occasionally she pops her head up and fires someone out for complaining about something. I've been told by a couple of members that it used to be good with the previous moderator but now it's gone downhill.

Last week there was an american girl asking about preventing swarms, and some boofhead suggested to just let them swarm. Not only the advice was not corrected, but it got 'likes'.

I now just joined this one because without that old beekeeper they just kicked out, their forum is dead.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2020, 06:54:24 am by Hillbilly »

Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: flow hives
« Reply #14 on: May 16, 2020, 07:50:19 am »
Hillbilly,
Welcome to Beemaster.
This is the place to ask questions. We love to answer them. If you ever have a problem on this site, like you just described, PM me. I doubt it will happen here.
Jim Altmiller
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin

Offline Hillbilly

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Re: flow hives
« Reply #15 on: May 16, 2020, 09:46:31 am »
Thank you Jim. I'm about to fire my first question.

Offline Skeggley

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Re: flow hives
« Reply #16 on: May 17, 2020, 08:22:25 pm »
Hiya fellow Hillbilly, sounds like fireworks went off on the other forum!

Offline Hillbilly

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Re: flow hives
« Reply #17 on: May 18, 2020, 03:26:14 am »
Hey Skeggley good to see you here.

Don?t know exactly what was going on as I don?t really follow the other forum. Jeff is no more. Got banned for spruiking his way of harvesting flowhives.

Big mistake in my opinion. To his credit, he was the most active contributor helping their own clueless customers.... by far. Should have booted his neighbor first.


Offline Skeggley

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Re: flow hives
« Reply #18 on: May 18, 2020, 08:22:58 pm »
Yeah right, shame, that?s a head scratcher for sure, he knew his stuff.
I?ve just started to pack down my colonies and unexpectedly found full supers much to my dismay. ;)
Crush and straining all the traditional frames have made a mess, I?ll be moving away from them and going full Flow and after over 100kg from just 3 of the colonies makes me think about cutting back the numbers but as each colony is from a different source may find that difficult.... How?d you go this season?

Offline Hillbilly

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Re: flow hives
« Reply #19 on: May 19, 2020, 10:12:31 am »
Hey Skeg, how long have you been using your flow frames? Any idea how long do they last? I'm having issues with mine, both old and brand new frames. I have some persistent leaks in some and I don't think it is related to wire tensioning. I never extracted honey in any other way and crush and strain is not on my radar. I am tempted by a basic spinner though. If flow frames start to fail I might not replace them.

I inspected my hives this weekend and one of the hive's bees are refusing to take the honey down from the super to the brood box. They have about three and a half empty frames down there. Go figure. Anyway I will be leaving my supers on again this winter.

We have a prescribed burn going on this week, and I hope it will get rid of those bloody robbers menacing my hives. I have a bed sheet all over them...... until they go away.
« Last Edit: May 19, 2020, 10:25:25 am by Hillbilly »

 

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