A Brutally Honest Review of the Flow Hive | Who Should NOT Buy a Flow Hive

A Brutally Honest Review of the Flow Hive | My Experience With a Flow Hive

Thinking about buying a flow hive? I hope you watch this video first because I will discuss the differences between a flow hive and a regular Langstroth style beehive, what I like and do not like about a flow hive, who should NOT buy a flow hive and when the flow hive has come in handy. I'll also talk about my experience harvesting honey using their new technology.

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⏱️TIMESTAMPS⏱️
00:00 - Intro
00:45 - What is a flow hive
00:39 - Price difference between flow hive & other hives
28:35 - Who should NOT buy a flow hive
29:45 - When the flow hive came in handy

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#flowhive #flowhivereview #beekeepingwithaflowhive

[MrDogilvie]

Bee people have the longest comments and replies I have ever seen.

[andrewmckeown]

I ALMOST bought a flow hive 2+ then realised I can get every piece of gear I need for 2 full hives with 4 boxes each complete with a fancy base, feeder, queen excluder, escape board, inner cover, outer roof and all 80 wired frames with foundation . On top of that I bought a bee suit, smoker, electric embedder, hive tool, brush, queen clip, marker and a T-shirt that says "I'm a keeper" with a picture of a bee. All of that was still cheaper than the flow hive 2+ with shipping.

[BeekeepingMadeSimple]

Thank you to everyone who has watched the video. I created it with the hopes of making sure people understood a few things about the flow hive, the 3 main ones being that 1) you still need to open and inspect a hive no matter if you have a flow hive or a traditional hive. 2) the flow hive honey super is heavier than a traditional langstroth honey super. If weight is not an issue, than this point means nothing to you, but as someone who was not allowed to lift items over 35lb at one point, the flow super weighed almost 20lb more and it was a problem for me. 3) The Flow Hive does not save the bees. It is not bad for bees and it is not a magic hive that makes bees happier. It allows you to pull honey from a frame without having to take it out of the hive.

In the end, the flow hive is a gadget that makes harvesting honey faster especially if you have just a few hives. In order to prevent myself from the unnecessary anxiety and annoyance I've been having by reading some of the rude comments calling me names and telling me I shouldn't be a beekeeper, I have decided to keep this video up, but won't be responding or reading any future comments related to this video. I encourage people to add their experience but to please be polite and respectful of others. After all, this is just a honey harvesting gadget.

[craigslattery]

I now have 3 flow hives, super happy with them. I harvest some honey from each one every month, straight into the jar.
Now 4 Flow Hives.

[francinekeane]

Thanks for your video. Different courses for different horses. my Daughter her Father in law and myself have had flow hives for over 5 years absolutely love them. So much easier to extract honey we have 8 flow hives between us and get so much honey for our family and to sell. Had not problems with the very high quality and their after sales service is excellent.

[RobinPoe]

We had a beehive in our wall when I was a child. A beekeeper came and removed the bees. I'm not afraid of bees, so it was really fun to watch. We got all the leftover honey extracted from the combs by scratching the caps with a fork and setting the combs over cake and pie pans to drain. It worked pretty well, even with the old honey. Unless you have several hives, an extractor is not really necessary

[multifarming]

Hi instead of talking about price . i think we wanted to know technical things about flow hive. like Performance of bees is same as other beehive? bees likes to live with flow hive? how to clean it after some times? or any other real problem. flow hive mostly bough as hobby and for hobby nothing expenssive.

[maddavo]

I have had success with a flow hive, having purchased just the 7 frame super for a 10 frame Langstroth hive. I do think that this review was rather harsh in that it raised issues that are largely addressed by methodology of using and attending to a hive with a flow super per instruction from Flow, and seemed to skim over some of the advantages. Also there were times where the reviewer raised a query about why things were a certain way without doing any investigation or research into the reasons for things to be so.
Further I think it should be noted that this was more a commentary on an experience with a very obviously old, tattered Flow Super and not an actual complete Flow Hive as tagged.
The reviewer mentioned the flow frames being wider than standard Langstroth deep frames, yes they are, this is by design, it was unclear why this was a problem.
The reviewer weighed an empty flow frame and compared it to the weight of a deep frame, I do not understand the purpose of this experiment. As the flow frame is not comparitively empty, it contains partially formed cells, AND the cells are longer than cells in a standard frame, would it not be more appropriate to compare it to a deep frame with wax formed cells multiplied by a factor of 10/7?
The reviewer complained that it was difficult to perform inspections because the flow super is heavier than a standard deep super. When both supers are full, yes the Flow super is heavier. However this is where methodology comes in. The Flow super can be lightened. If it's too heavy, drain a frame or two. You can't do that with a standard super.
The reviewer complained that you have to use a queen excluder. That is not the case. Although it is recommended because in Australia we generally only use one brood box and one super, a "Honey Bridge" can be used as a virtual queen excluder, in fact the reviewer held a medium super as an example of a super, this can be used as a honey bridge between the brood box and the Flow super and keeps the queen down where she needs to be (see videos made by Frederick Dunn).
The reviewer complained that the handle was too short. I don't know why there was a handle cutout on the long side of the super that the reviewer had (perhaps it was an old version) but in Cedar Anderson's videos he demonstrates how to hold the Flow super using the front and back not the sides. The reviewer very unfortunately had her hand right were the cutout was that you use as a handle but said there wasn't a handle. By holding the super at the front/back, the centre of gravity of the super is closer to the body and hence easier to lift and carry and place down on the lid when performing an inspection.
The reviewer expressed concern about the Flow frame cells being plastic rather than wax and surmised that normal frames are better because the cells are wax. This seems to be speculation rather than based on any evidence. What the reviewer did not mention is that in terms of resources and bee work efficiency, it takes 5kg of honey to make 1kg of wax. So using Flow frames is more efficient for the bees to save making wax and rather store the unmetabolised honey. Further, in the process of a normal extraction procedure (the reviewer mentions "crush and strain" several times), wax is taken from the hive as well as honey. Whereas draining a Flow frame does not extract wax from the hive, the bees are able to recycle the wax cappings and cell joints to prepare the frame for refilling with nectar. Also the honey from a Flow frame does not need to be filtered. So you get more honey output for nectar input and you get raw unfiltered honey.
The reviewer expressed frustration about the time it takes to drain a frame. It is true it takes about 1 to 1.5 hrs to drain a full frame completely. Given that the reviewer said she sets it going and then comes back later, I'm not sure what the problem is. That's pretty much how it's done. What are the expectations here? If the reviewer just quickly wants to get a portion of honeycomb, then again Cedar Anderson has shown a video of removing the outermost frame from the brood box, cutting out a chunk onto a plate, and then placing it back in the brood box. Such a chunk could be 'crushed and strained' as the reviewer seems to like. But this is nothing to do with a Flow super, it can be done on any hive, including Flow Hives. At least on a Flow Hive you have the option of doing either, which is not available on a standard hive. Back to the draining of Flow frame, the reviewer's method of using an alternative pipe and 5 Gallon bucket sounds like an excellent solution.
The reviewer was very critical of the cost of a complete Flow Hive, but performed no analysis of the unique features of the Flow Hive nor the quality of workmanship compared with other hives more cheaply available. I was certainly impressed by the quality of just the super I received. A complete Flow Hive has the brass hardware, the cedar wood, the precision laser cutting, the observation windows, the pest management, the self-levelling feet and adjustable legs with ant traps in the base of the Flow Hive 2, all things the reviewer does not mention at all. Whilst I agree a Flow Hive is certainly more expensive than other hives, I think it is to be expected somewhat. Do you expect to buy a Mercedes for the same price as VW? Many of those features of a Flow Hive may not interest an experienced beekeeper who might build their own hives. Some people don't want a Mercedes and are happy with a VW.
The reviewer states that she does not know why the Flow company doesn't sell their hives with two brood boxes and two supers. Some research may reveal the answer. Cedar Anderson addresses this issue in a couple of his videos on YouTube. There is a school of thought amongst beekeepers that one deep brood box is enough, thereby encouraging smaller colonies, easier to inspect, easier to manage pests and diseases. Other beekeepers are of the opinion that two broodboxes and larger colonies are better. My understanding is that there is research suggesting the former to be more fashionable nowadays with academic beekeepers. With regards to the super issue, because the Flow frames can be drained individually, there is no advantage/purpose in having a 2nd super. You drain the frames as necessary, once they're drained they're available to be refilled. If you have a packet of biscuits that keeps getting refilled, does it matter if there are 7 or 14 biscuits in the pack? Again, this is methodology different from traditional deep frames where you might, for efficiencies of scale, have two deep supers and harvest the whole lot at once when they're full.
The reviewer does identify that she had difficulty in getting her bees to use the Flow frames initially. This is a common issue, but again has common solutions available on investigation. One method is to scrape burr comb from inside the hive and smear it onto the flow frames. The bees then recycle this wax for use in/on the Flow frames. I experienced this issue myself and that was the solution I used, a solution incidentally that was found by my use of the community forum on the Flow website. One wonders if the reviewer availed herself of that community forum when issues arose for her. It doesn't sound like it, but perhaps some angst could have been avoided had she done so.

[LileCremeans]

We never considered bee keeping until we saw an ad for a Flow Hive. We are so happy with our Flow Hive purchase! I think there are a lot of people out there, like us, now caring for bees that never would've done it before had it not been for Flow Hive. And that is a great thing for the beekeeping community and our ecosystem.

[laurabrewer]

Thank you for your honest review, it definitely has given my something to think about. I have been looking at purchasing a flowhive. I am wondering what your thoughts are if I am not looking at keeping bees for the purpose of honey. I am looking at keeping 1 hive for pollination. As it turns out I am not a very effective bee even when I buzz and wiggle. We just don't have very many pollinators in my area and my garden has suffered the last couple of years. Honey is just a nice bonus for me. The weight is not an issue, at least not yet.

[Chris-ftkf]

I bought a flow hive and used it on one of my hives last year... I run two deeps for the brood box like you suggest. I use all deeps, even above the excluder for the honey. Trying to keep it simple. The weight isn't an issue for me yet :-).
I got significantly less honey out of the flow hive than I did from a full deep using an extractor. I yielded in the neighborhood of 4.5 gallons from a full deep. The flow hive yielded about 2.5 and some of it was thin.
I'm not a big flow fan either. The marketing caught me. I'll probably use it again this year but I won't be buying another.
Thanks for the vid.

[waynebrown]

I’m relatively new to bee keeping, flow hive owner, some of the comments in the vid didn’t make sense. For example, queen excluders are always needed if you are harvesting honey. Without one you would end up with brood mixed in with a honey harvest, the queen will lay wherever she wants. Harvesting honey from 5 or more supers using a 2 frame extractor, 5 X 8 = 40 frames 2 at a time….messy. Any super is heavy when full of honey. Pulling the flow frame supper apart and using it as a prop was a pretty obvious trick, letting frames fall out when moving it around was great theatrics. But not entirely ‘honest’, a more accurate title for the vid -My brutal biased view of flow hive😬😬. I’m guessing the vid was produced by someone making/selling honey extraction gear. Flow hives aren’t for everyone, I did my research before buying mine, no need to store any extraction gear, washing up after extraction goes away, no need to put a one way bee excluder to prior to removing each super, etc. I’ve just ordered my 2nd one, the grandchildren really like looking in through the side panels, makes it an easy conversation about birds & bees😂😂😂

[jamielandry]

She is so right about the flow hives weight they are freaking heavy!! I wish I had seen some of these videos a year ago when I started beekeeping.

[SageandStoneHomestead]

Heavy is good here. We have a lot of spring storms and heavy doesn't fly.

[annefagrew]

thank you so much for this in-depth review... I've been looking at the flow hive for some time, but was hesitant because of the plastic frames, I recently sampled some honey from a flow hive ( their 1st collection) & it seemed to have a slightly plastic taste... The biggest thing is the weight... I'm no "spring chicken" & I think it would spoil the joy of beekeeping having to weight lift each time ..

[LoneWolf]

I bought the Chinese knock-off Flow Hive for $199.00. It came with 1 brood box and the super. I bought a second 10 frame deep box to add a 2nd brood box for the bees to use to winter. I probably won't even add the flow super until next year. But I guess we'll see how well the bees do. It's my 1st time trying this. But when my frames do need replacing, I will just by the frames for the flow hive and build my own boxes if needed. Much cheaper and easier to deal with harvesting the honey.

[johncoleman]

There’s a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding in this video. The “3 frame flow hive” doesn’t really exist. Flow sells a honey super with 3 flow frames and 4 langstroth deep frames that fits on any other company’s 8 frame deep brood box. I bought a standard 8 frame langstroth hive from Betterbee, and a hybrid honey super from Flow, and it wasn’t terribly expensive. Plenty of people use two brood boxes, then a medium standard super, then the flow super WITHOUT a queen excluder and the flow frames get filled without concern about where the queen is since she routinely won’t cross the honey super. When I harvest from my flow supers, it only takes about 15 minutes for the 3 frames, and my bees don’t harass me at all or come around back where I work. The drama of having a ratty busted down box as your example is hilarious.

[sirkildalot]

Ive been dealing with a very experienced beekeeper (2, 500 colonies) and he recommends only ever over-wintering with a single broodbox. It keeps the colony very tight and they keep warm better in the UK climate.

[JustineDodd]

I have 3 Flow Hives - one is a 'Hybrid' (the 3 frame mentioned) - and just for clarification, the Hybrid super has 3 'flow frames' and 2 regular frames each side of the flow frames - so 7 frames in total.The brood box has 8 regular frames (it was almost half the price of a full Flow Hive, and is probably the best choice for someone who already has other beehives and wants a taste of a flow hive - but for a newbee, i would recommend springing for the full size flow hive). I removed the queen excluders for winter, as is recommended by Flow hives so that the queen can move up with the nest and stay warm, and, when i opened my hives for inspection in spring, I found the queen in the brood box, and replaced the queen excluder. I also opened the plug in the roof just enough for bees to fit through and angled the roof sideways so that any drones I might have caught in the super could escape, for a few hours a day, at first every day, then every other day over a month. To prevent swarming, I also added a second brood box (a regular 8 frame deep brood box purchased from a different supplier, which cost about $20, and filled it with frames that cost a few dollars each). It's been over a month since I did that, so any brood that might have been laid in the super would have hatched, and, with no new brood being laid (if there was any) the bees have cleaned the frames and stored honey in them. I watched all 3 flow frames, which were partially full, fill completely and I harvested 2 days ago, without even having to put my bee suit on! The two ordinary frames either side in the super are also full of honey which I left for the bees, and which might be useful when I do a hive split in a couple of months. Unfortunately Australia is facing varroa - it somehow got into the country last year and in areas designated as 'eradication zones', all hives are euthanized. It's very sad

[Banyan]

We are now using flow frames in long hives and many of issues of weight and bee management go away. We’ll let you know how it develops.
The quality of the flow hive boxes has taken a bad hit recently with QC issues, but the frames are first class.