A Year of Using The Flow Hive: What We Loved, Hated, and Learned

The bees did take to the Flow frames and fill them with about 3 gallons of glorious honey, but was it worth it? Maybe not!! Traditional beekeeping methods still may have my heart.

#beekeeping #beekeeper #flowhive #honey #homestead #homesteading

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[debbyengland]

Thank you for this. I had nearly convinced myself i was ready for this.
Now, not so much

[alexandrealintner]

Wow. I was looking into these. Thank you for your honesty

[honigtrailapiary]

It is best if you wait until 80-90% of the Flow frames are full and capped over by the bees before harvesting the honey. When the cells are capped over, then the moisture content should be low enough to harvest. If you are getting an overflow of honey into the hive, We recommend that instead of trying to harvest the entire frame at once, try harvesting about a third of the frame at a time. When the honey flow has reduced a fair amount, then push the Flow Key in another third and harvest. Repeat the same procedure until you harvest the last third of the frame. (You can harvest just a portion of the frame at a time). When finished you can reset the entire frame all at the same time. This should nearly eliminate any honey over flow. When resetting the flow frames after harvesting, try leaving the flow Key in the vertical position for a minute of two so that all the cells will re-align before removing the Flow Key. Hope this will help.
Chuck, SE Ariz, U.S. Flow Ambassador.

[Mirchev]

This is actually really helpful, I've been trying to find detailed reviews of these flow hives. Thank you for being so detailed!!

[cindyboard]

Great video Heather!! I have learned so much from your channel about a variety of different things. Beekeeping is still very intimidating to me but hats off to you! It's hard to believe this is only your second year with the bees, you have a wealth of knowledge and are a great teacher!!! Best wishes as you prepare your hives for winter!! Stay safe!!!

[nancylee]

My name is Nancy Lee from Pemberton NJ and I have been watching you and Flow Hive from Australia for several years prior to my son surprise me with the best Flow Hive for my birthday. We used Eco Wood to treat the cedar wood from watching your video.
We picked up the bees May 1st 2022 for my Flow Hive. I am very excited to have my family of bees. Well that excitement lasted only a few days. We had May showers on & off for a few days. Everyday I would go to look at the hive and bees and I noticed the brood box has a horizontal crack from one end to the other hand. The 2 triangle roof pieces of cedar is damaged from being outside only for a couple of days. I was literally in shock having my son spend soo my to getting his mom the best. Contacted the company about the damage, sent them several detailed photos and they told my son this happened because we used Eco Wood and refused to stand behind their product. The love of their product and the bees became such a heartbreak and disappointment.
I have spent several months dealing with this and all I'm getting runaround and they have no intention of replacing their
overpriced product.

Fredrick Dunn is a podcaster from North PA who has 124K Subscribers to almost 1000 videos. This is the 1st comment that I have posted and I will do it with every single one online since you don't stand behind your overpriced garbage.

[stonesoupsubstitutions]

Very thorough and helpful! It's a neat system. I can't wait for you to get a long hive and talk about that after using it for a while.

[CraigConnors]

When I was young, I hated the taste of Honey, now that I am much older, I love it and I am thinking of starting out in the bee keeping industry. I've been trying to learn a lot, but the learning never stops. Thanks for your learned wisdom.

[mandyg]

This will probably be our next subject for notebooking😂! I'll have to save your playlist! Thank you for the review and great info!

[dirtroaddestiny]

Tuned in and watching with my hubby! ❤ bees are so amazing. Hubbys dream lol

[psyched]

I'm an old time beekeeper and have been using flow supers in Texas for several years. The problem with the overflow out the cells is that the draining trough is full and overflowing. You can see this in the video. The way that the trough overflows is out the cells. This will happen when the whole full frame is opened at one time and the trough can't handle all the honey. To solve this is to open only a third or fourth of the frame, let it drain, then the next third, etc.

I keep my bees in double deeps and only put a flow super on for the honey flow. After I drain, I take it off for the winter. You should never do a hive inspection during the honey flow and, therefore, should never need to lift a full flow super.

[HickorycroftFarm]

Fantastic video. We saw you guys live on Old Swedes Farm the other night and are glad we did. Bees are something that we have been back and forth on numerous times for our homestead and to be honest I (Steph) thought the flow hive was a great option. So glad that we watched this video as it has answered many questions that we didn't even know we had.

[TheOldSwedesFarm]

Great video and great info! I've learned a lot from you this season. I'm hoping we have some bees in the next couple years. Thanks for sharing everything! Cheers!

[fredfable]

Well, a very good approach to pros and cons on flow hives.
Congratulations and thank you very much!

[nolliesteers]

Good morning Heather. Bee safe. 🐝 🐝 🍯 🍯

[rickmoore]

I love the Flow HIve and I haven't had any of the negative issues that you mentioned. It is best to wait until the flow frame is mostly capped before extracting, but if you just key open a 1/4 to 1/3 at once then you should not have much if any overflow. You can do all your brood box inspections prior to the nectar flow, so you don't need to remove a full and heavy Flow super, or extract the honey so it's not so heavy, then do your inspection. Timing is everything! Use the Flow HIve only for honey extraction and keep a separate traditional Langstroth if you want beeswax, comb or to distribute honey frames to other hives that need some extra resources for winter. In a colder, northern climate you can and should remove the Flow Super after extraction and allowing the bees to tidy up. If there is still some nectar flow then you can put a standard honey super on the hive and then leave it for the winter, or condense your hive as needed at the end of season. If you think the brood box is full and the queen has not enough space for egg laying then add another brood box before adding the Flow Super. I would suggest watching videos by Frederick Dunn and how he manages his Flow HIves in a northern climate. He has great success. My experience has all been positive and I find it amazingly easy to harvest honey and keep my hives happy. But I think many new beekeepers see the Flow HIve in action in a warm Australia and expect their experience to be the same. It looks so easy. And it is if you understand how to manage it in your location.

[hickoryhillinthebigwoods-r]

I took beekeeping classes back in 2015-16. Ann Harman was my teacher, but she passed in 2020. I also took a few classes from Spikenard Bee Sanctuary in VA. That was an amazing class. I am really wanting to get back into bees, but I feel as though I forgot everything already. LOL First step is to clean up my hives. Then we will decide what is best.

[firsttimemommy]

Great video! Beekeeping is a dream! Fresh honey for years 😘

[AlphaFarms]

Great review! I find your logical, in-depth information invaluable and even though I’m a relatively newer subscriber, your opinions have become much more heavily weighted in my decision making than other creators.

[Cockney]

We get cold winters in Australia especially here in Victoria. I removed my flow and put an ideal on with no excluder and they did fine. To be honest after 2 years of trying the flow frames I've removed them for good my Bees just did not like the plastic frames, tried all the tricks coating with wax etc and the results were poor. As soon as i replaced with traditional frames the bees did their thing in no time. So great for some people i guess but not for me at the moment.