Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => DOWN UNDER BEEKEEPING => Topic started by: beeutiful on February 07, 2016, 06:08:52 am
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Hi All,
I am new to this forum so hello! :grin:
I have searched previous posts and have not seen any about the new beehive that were on the ABC's Australian story the other day, they are called Flow Hives and have been invented and are being manufactured in Australia.
Has anyone got one and or any information or thoughts on the design would be great, it has piqued my curiosity.
Cheers
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http://www.honeyflow.com.au/ is the website.
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There was a discussion in the main forum last year re The Flow Hive.
http://www.beemaster.com/forum/index.php?topic=46340.msg401272#msg401272
Kev.
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Hi, yes I have one but am yet to set it up, I brought just the frames and need to modify a full depth 10 frame box to accommodate them. Looks like a great idea but is a lot of negativity out there about it also, can't knock it till you've tried it right!? Has raised bee awareness but may spawn a breed of bee pet owners. Time will tell.
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Welcome to Beemaster.
From reports I have read, it is a really good design.
Most of the negative comes from the fact that it attracts people that no nothing about bees to buy one and expect everything to work.
It is not the flow hive. It is the lack of experience of thousands of new beeks with no knowledge thinking they can buy it and have honey pouring out of it.
I recommend you get a hive first and learn how to keep bees first.
This is a great site for learning about bees.
Bee careful, beekeeping is very addictive. :grin:
Good luck.
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Welcome to the forum! The thread that's linked to above is a very interesting read. Good luck with your bees and if you decide to get a Flow, let us know how it goes.
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Welcome,
I too have just received my 'Full Flow' frames, and have this weekend been modifying the super to fit. It was not difficult, but more changes than I had initially expected, and did require tools like a jigsaw and a coping saw, and some spare timber and steel strapping and screws etc.
Mine is all painted up now and I will place it onto one of my 5 hives and see how it goes, and then in spring do a split and have it as the only super on a hive (currently I have 2-3 honey supers on each hive)
Enjoy
John
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I have four. I've had one for two seasons now and a few more this last season. It's a fun toy. It's very expensive...
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Thanks for all the info!
If I do decide to go with the flow hive will this mean I do not need to purchase the extraction equipment for my hives? I know the flow hive is expensive but if you factor in tha there is no extraction equipment needed and the time saved it maybe not be so expensive after all?
Your thoughts?
Cheers
Tori
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>If I do decide to go with the flow hive will this mean I do not need to purchase the extraction equipment for my hives?
You already didn't need to purchase an extractor to harvest honey, but now you can extract without purchasing an extractor...
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesharvest.htm
> I know the flow hive is expensive but if you factor in tha there is no extraction equipment needed and the time saved it maybe not be so expensive after all?
Certainly you can subtract out what you might have spent on a extractor, but one super of them costs as much as an extractor. I'm not saying it's a bad investment, but extractors are a poor use of your money if you only have a hive or two. Yet people buy them all the time.
Synopsis of what I think of the flow hive:
1) It works
2) It is the coolest beekeeping invention since Quinby invented the smoker we all now use.
3) It is currently overpriced (at least for me). It is not in the realm of being financially feasible on any scale right now, but then they were trying to launch it and I?m sure the price will come down eventually. Judging by their sales, they apprently UNDERPRICED it, but for me for practical purposes it's too expensive to buy very many. But then the first big screen TV I saw was priced out of the realm of practicality too as were early computers. To put them on my 200 hives would cost $82,000 and it would take me a long time to recover that investment, especially since I already have an extractor.
4) The presentation is a little misleading, though probably not intentionally, as most advertising is, and as any oversimplification of a topic is. You can?t just go out to the beeyard and run enough honey for your pancakes and then turn it off. You will have broken open every cell in that frame? You need to wait until it?s capped and then you need to harvest it all. But otherwise, yes, it?s that easy.
5) I?m not sure yet how it would change my management IF it was cheap enough to buy some more, but I?m sure it will require some adjustments. There are some experiments I would want to run to see how things work out. It might be possible, since it?s too deep for the queen to lay in and not the right diameter for either workers or drones, to put it on the bottom of the hive so you wouldn't have to move it? but I won?t know until I have time to try it.
6) You still have to LEARN to manage bees and you still need to MANAGE them. This device will not prevent swarming, it won?t fix brood diseases or mites, it won?t magically do your beekeeping for you. But it will make harvest much easier and less messy. It will probably make management slightly more complicated, or at least different.
7)It remains to be seen how it will age and how long it will last etc. It?s a new product and while Cedar and Stuart have been testing it for years, that is on a small scale. The large scale test is yet to come.
You can keep bees for almost nothing if you build your own top bar hive and you do crush and strain. This is the opposite. It's not necessary, but if you have the money to spend, it is a very cool thing to play with. Honestly I don't see how any beekeeper with some spare cash could resist it.
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Michael,
Thanks for the write up. Seems very thorough.
Will the bees put pollen in the flow hive? Does the cell depth discourage this?
Jim
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>Will the bees put pollen in the flow hive? Does the cell depth discourage this?
I haven't had them put pollen in them. I doubt the cell depth would discourage pollen storage but then the bees prefer to put pollen in the brood nest. If they did, I suppose it would only be a problem if they did it in mass and then you could hose it out and start over.
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Thanks so much for your help Michael,
I will be buying a box and some local bees from a lady here in Alice Springs who has been keeping bees for years, I do want to learn how to manage my bees first and will be receiving lots of help from her especially as Alice Springs has some very extreme temperatures. But I will be watching along with you to see if the price of the flow hive does come down in price :)
Cheers
Tori
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I would love to see Alice Springs someday. Good luck.
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Thanks for all the info!
If I do decide to go with the flow hive will this mean I do not need to purchase the extraction equipment for my hives? I know the flow hive is expensive but if you factor in tha there is no extraction equipment needed and the time saved it maybe not be so expensive after all?
Your thoughts?
Cheers
Tori
I usually hire an extractor for all of $10 a day.
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Yes Alice Springs is beautiful, I was born here and am still living here definitely a place to put on your bucket list!
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>definitely a place to put on your bucket list!
Next time I'm in Australia, I would like to have three or four weeks to hire a car and drive across the continent.
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:shocked: Michael 3-4 weeks might let you see something - just remember Australia is as big as the US but only has a population of 24 million. Nearly all concentrated on the Eastern seaboard and little in the South west corner and Tasmania. When the signs say next petrol 635 Km they mean it !
There is a sign on the Canning Stock route that says No Food No water No fuel 1200Km
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:shocked: Michael 3-4 weeks might let you see something - just remember Australia is as big as the US but only has a population of 24 million. Nearly all concentrated on the Eastern seaboard and little in the South west corner and Tasmania. When the signs say next petrol 635 Km they mean it !
There is a sign on the Canning Stock route that says No Food No water No fuel 1200Km
Wow, I guess I better not try to drive my Burgman 650 out there. It can get as much as 53 MPH but it only carries 4 gallons. :grin:
Most US cars will not make 635 Km (381 miles) let alone 1200 Km (720 miles).
Jim
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>Australia is as big as the US
Australia
7,692,024 km2
2,969,907 sq mi
US
9,857,306 km2
3,805,927 sq mi
Close. Looks like it's 78 percent of the size of the US. But yes, I know it's huge. That's why I figured a leisurely drive across (certainly not seeing everything, but crossing the continent) would take me 3 or 4 weeks.
Size is often misunderstood even by people back east in the US and certainly by the Europeans. Nebraska is roughly the size of the Island of Great Britian... Europeans often think they can stop off in the US and see New York and Chicago and LA in just a few days... The driving distance from Bath Main to Omaha, Nebraska is the same as the distance from Paris France to Istanbul. The distance from Bath Main to Los Angeles is the same as the driving distance from Paris France to Bagdad... The distance from where I now live (near Omaha Nebraska) to where I used to live in western Nebraska is about 500 miles (750 km). That's the distance across Great Britain the long way from Brighton to Thurso.
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What I'm trying to point out Michael is the Australia has a lot of space between nothing. Crossing the Nullarbor (east west highway at the south) you will see no habitation or people (other than the occasional oncoming traffic) except at the petrol stops and that is all there is - a collection of 3-6 buildings in the middle of nothing - no town or village, so you need to carry at least emergency provisions and accommodation like a tent. Hey but is a great country for exploring in a 4WD and getting away from civilization. Drove 4 days off the beaten track once and didn't see a sole - broke the accelerator cable and while scratching my head trying to work out a temporary fix a convoy of 10 4WD turned up on a club outing - one of them had a gas torch and silver solver- we fixed a new knob on the cable that had a bit of slack and we were off again with another day and a half before seeing anyone else. Its a big open space.
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Thanks. Yes, I'm sure it's even more empty than Nebraska... but Cherry County Nebraska has less than one person per sq mile and if the sign says "no services next 50 miles" it means it...
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Yes Australia is remote, and there in lies the appeal for me, I like visiting the cities (closest is 1400km away) once in a while but find them a bit overwhelming at times. Defiunitely worth the trip michael, it sounds like you already have plenty of travelling experience under your belt, as long as you are prepared it is worth the drive
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Thanks. Yes, I'm sure it's even more empty than Nebraska... but Cherry County Nebraska has less than one person per sq mile and if the sign says "no services next 50 miles" it means it...
Wow that is sparse! 7.8 people per square mile over the whole of Australia, and most of it is empty!
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I think Australia has larger areas of sparseness... but Cherry county might be more sparse than most of Australia...
I always love the contrasts. Cherry County Nebraska must be having a baby boom. The population density has gone up since I last checked and has skyrocketed to 1.02 per sq mi (was 9. something last I had checked). Housing units per square mile according to the 2000 census is 0. :) A total of 3,220 housing units in an area of 6009 sq miles. I suppose if they hadn't rounded it down it would be an average of 1 house per 2 sq miles. And then there is Manhattan with 71,672 people per sq mi (27,672.6/km2). 1.6 million people in 23 square miles...
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Even more so for commercial beekeepers as we are not supposed to fuel up when we are loaded with bees. Therefore I carry 400 liters enough to get me from home to almonds and back. Because we move during the night even once we have unloaded there may be no fuel station open for another few hours.
We become accustomed to the remoteness, I spend days on my own with no phone service. Or even to drive for 3 hours with no phone service and not see another set of head lights on the road, and the only radio is coming in from another state?
Some of our buyer of the honeycomb we produce want to know how much product we have for them, therfore I'll drive to a high point on the landscape to phone in at a prearranged time only to get a message bank service . The next time I speak to that buyer I explain how we have driven several kms to get to that spot and stand up on top of a stack of bee boxes on the back of the truck, face a particular direction with my head tilted a certain way.
Ah counrty folk have pleasures that the towns folk will never know. ( A.B. Patterson).
P.s just read back through this and it almost sounds like a rant. It must be getting Close to the end of season.
But this is the best job in the world! In the best country on the planet.
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...In the best country on the planet.
Careful with that sort of chat around here mate ;-)
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I wonder if the SHB becomes an issue with the flow hive and inexperienced beeks
Mick
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They will never know, because you don't have to look inside the hive anymore. Just turn the handle and out it comes.
Oh yeah your right it might not be honey that flows it might be beetle juice.
P.s. now I'm becoming sarcastic , it's definitely getting close to the end of the season.
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They will never know, because you don't have to look inside the hive anymore. Just turn the handle and out it comes.
Oh yeah your right it might not be honey that flows it might be beetle juice.
P.s. now I'm becoming sarcastic , it's definitely getting close to the end of the season.
The mind boggles should that scenario occur to someone who in innocence wasn't aware of the implications of living in an SHB area and not knowing what the beetle can do to a hive in a very short time.
But I can see it happening!
Mick
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Had a call tonight from someone who bought a flow super as they should be called looking for some bees to make it work sorry can't help you for 6 months give us your name and get in line maybee we can get you some bees.
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I keep getting people talk about Flow Hives to me. I have little interest in such, they're way too expensive to be of any practical benefit. My neighbour saw me doing some beekeeping, and asked that I supply her with some bees when she gets her Flow Hive: they've been waiting 9 months for their order, cost them $1700 for I believe two supers/frames and everything. Their knowledge of beekeeping is everything they learned when doing a course, that taught them how to open a hive, and other super basic stuff.
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The Flow Hive Web site now has a lot of information on it now about beekeeping in general - handy resource if nothing else.They are developing a commercial version - has electronics that read the honey content (weight?) and automatically drains the hive when needed - that WILL be interesting.
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The Flow Hive Web site now has a lot of information on it now about beekeeping in general - handy resource if nothing else.They are developing a commercial version - has electronics that read the honey content (weight?) and automatically drains the hive when needed - that WILL be interesting.
Good on them. They must sleep on mattresses stuffed with money now!
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Michael, the only issue I have with Australia is how far away it is. Hawaii was heaven but even that is hell to get to.
I would think buy now there would be some people who have used the flow hive for the spring flow and could give us a report unless they have been run off the forum with negativity.
The kind of thing I was hoping for were some answers on how to manage a hive with these frames. There certainly have been some comments on why it wouldn't work. I would like to see someone come back and tell us how they listened to the negativity and used that to figure out how to deal with the perceived problems.
Early on in this thread the comment was made that people buying this device knew absolutely nothing about bees. I dare say that anyone new buying a Lang hive fits that scenario. I certainly knew nothing on my first hive. And I still don't consider myself a beekeeper but I have had bees for 5 years now.
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Great comment Acebird, I started this thread with little knowledge on bee keeping but a huge amount of enthusiasm, I too was hoping to hear from some Flow hive owners to see what their opinion of the product is? I am about to get my first hive (not a flow hive, cannot afford one yet) but still very curious.
Over priced? or fantastic and easy to use and worth the money? I was/am still very interested to hear what they are like!
Cheers
Tori :happy:
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My uninformed opinion is that they're overpriced. The added functionality they can provide is just not worth the absolutely huge price difference for anyone focusing on profitable honey production, in my opinion.
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...for anyone focusing on profitable honey production...
Not exactly their target market, and in fact I would say the greater majority of beekeepers aren't focused on profitable honey production. I sell my honey at a high price and I'm nowhere near breaking even!
Something is only overpriced depending upon what you are willing to pay for it - plenty of people intend to only have one or two hives, and the Flow Hive is an excellent idea for them. I think it's cost is justified. It's revolutionary to the industry, needs a lot of manufactured parts, and the inventors have to make a profit.
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Received an email from Flow Hive yesterday - they have filled all 30,000 orders and now supplying ex-stock from their warehouse in Sydney.
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I have given in and bought one. The Australian made hoop pine ones are reduced in price and you can get another 15% off that again.
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Please keep us updated Yantabulla, I am really curious to see what they are like :)
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No problems. I have been waiting for the price to drop a bit. I'll give it a workout in August & report back.
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Yantabulla how did you find the flow-hive? I love the idea but im a bit negative towards it and can't see it working long term, hope im wrong.
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I would love to see Alice Springs someday. Good luck.
I'm sure Alice Springs would love to see you too!
And thanks for a lovely summary of the FH.
We get quite often a flow which can crystalize in the hive. How would you get the honey out?
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Max
I would put the super in my heater box. It is set for 104 degrees F.
The design/plans came from this site.
Jim
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Yantabulla how did you find the flow-hive? I love the idea but im a bit negative towards it and can't see it working long term, hope im wrong
Sydney Guy my flow hive is working perfectly Plonked the flow frames on top of a strong double & they filled it up in a few weeks. No brushing with wax of spraying sugar syrup. I haven't had a chance to extract from it yet however I have seen frames being extracted & once again they work. I met Stuart Anderson recently at a beekeeping club meeting. He is a humble person who is generally interested in the welfare of bees & beekeeping. In my opinion any issues with acceptance of the flow frames by bees is because the hive is too weak or not on a nectar flow. I don't think flow hives are going away any time soon.
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Thats awesome, I thought there would be issues with shb and things like that. I will try one out one day if I win lotto, it would make a cool toy to play around with.
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We get quite often a flow which can crystalize in the hive. How would you get the honey out?
At 150 degrees all wax and honey would come out but it is unlikely you would have to elevate the temperature that high. Better to extract before it crystallizes.
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Max
I would put the super in my heater box. It is set for 104 degrees F.
The design/plans came from this site.
Jim
I wonder if this is warm enough? The heat would have to get through the plastic frames.
Anybody with this experience?
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Max
I would put the super in my heater box. It is set for 104 degrees F.
The design/plans came from this site.
Jim
I wonder if this is warm enough? The heat would have to get through the plastic frames.
Anybody with this experience?
In about 24 hours it would all bee melted. The problem would not bee the plastic. I stack it full of glass jars and plastic bears and turn all of the solidified honey to a liquid.
My biggest concern would bee if you had tried to harvest it and all of the wax was opened. I would have to place a pan below the frames to keep from making a mess of the heater box.
Jim
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My biggest concern would bee if you had tried to harvest it and all of the wax was opened. I would have to place a pan below the frames to keep from making a mess of the heater box.
Jim
Like this:
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/vv333/acebird1/Extractor/P1030988.jpg
Clear plastic bin and a three sided eke to blow hot air up through the stack.
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Hi Team,
A year on, what are your thoughts/performance on the flow hives? I'm interested to see how they will hold up over time?
Cheers,
Clint