37 replies to this topic

[Mercutia]

 

Have you all seen this? Might be the push I need to get me into back yard beekeeping. So far feedback from it has been a mixed bag. A lot of the negative feedback seem to come from people who haven't even tried the product yet but its enough so that I'm holding off getting one.

 

PARTICULARLY aimed at MILTA: Would this work? What are the draw backs? I'm just looking as a hobbiest for a single backyard hive.

 

Obviously weekly care and checkup of the hive should still happen but the fact that this negates all the expensive extraction equipment is what I'm most interested about. I'm still probably planning to have standard racks in there as well because.. you know... HONEY COMB. NOMNOMNOM.

 

My want is just for small doses of backyard bee honey, not to make a small fortune selling it however being of that mindset, I don't want to spend thousands of dollars getting myself started. I think this is a great idea.

[Crystals]

Looks neat, but that hive doesn't seem suited for our cold northern climate Mercutia.

We need to wrap even the insulated hives up here for the honey bees to survive.

 

Price is $700 USD (& whatever shipping turns out to be - they have a page showing it).

 

I love how easy it is to see into the hive.

[Mercutia]

Yeah I saw that listed price, but I've been told that the extraction equipment alone can run you up into the thousands so that + the actual beekeeping equipment seem to be much more expensive than the flow hive itself.

[Crystals]

I didn't realize that the hive and the extractor were separate.

 

Great idea, maybe someone else will create something similar one day.

[Mercutia]

Yeah, I'm assuming extractor equipment could make more sense if you're harvesting in large bunches but I figure not for myself. And the whole extraction process is a bit archaic. You gotta do everything manually; uncap the comb using a hot knife or a saw, spin it in a kind of barrel, drain that barrel into your jars, then clean everything (often by leaving everything outside so the bees can repurpose the left over honey). Way too much work for the single jar of honey I require to get me through most of the year.

[William. T]

We have a local beekeeping group that loans out extractors for $20. It's free for members. It seems most beekeeping groups have one. Considering how a good kit, and some bees run up to half the cost of the flow hive, I can't see the point in buying this. Also heard you can do some cutting and end up with good honeycomb and honey.

[Mercutia]

I should check that out. If the local beekeeping association has a loan on extractors perhaps that is a better route to go.

 

I'm still going to wait to hear reviews on this product from keepers that actually use it. I like the convenience of not having to go through a whole extraction process. I hate cleaning things and physical labor makes me sad.

[Mercutia]

 

They were kind enough to give us a demo of how to reconstruct the langstroth ones to fit these frames. A+

Now I can just buy the regular langstroths and re-purpose. Hope I can get two supers going. One for comb honey and one for honey.

[dermy]

I'm assuming you mean for next season, seems a bit late to start now.......

 

But there is tons of information out there about beekeeping. I remember watching an awesome video series about it.

[Mercutia]

I'm going to probably wait until me and the SO settle down into a properly owner property with a backyard before I get started raising bees. But its never too early to do research. =)

 

Maybe I can convince my mom she should get into beekeeping. She's already really interested because we ended up with a hive of wasps in our spare garbage can. She wanted to know if we could move them to a real langstroth and get free honey. I think she was disappointed when I told her they were wasps, she even tried to convince me they were honey bees. xD

[William. T]

Have you heard of "cut honey?" It's when you cut a honey filled area of combo off a super. The combo tastes good, and there is honey inside. No extractor needed.

[Mercutia]

I like jarred honey though too. Comb is nice but I want jarred honey for cooking and other things.

[spinyeti]

I have been following and researching beekeeping for quite some time now. Everything I read from experienced beekeepers is that this flow design is bad for the bees and prohibitively expensive.

[Mercutia]

I have been following and researching beekeeping for quite some time now. Everything I read from experienced beekeepers is that this flow design is bad for the bees and prohibitively expensive.

Do you have any reasoning for why the design is bad for bees?

 

The only thing I've uncovered why it's bad is because it's plastic but I know a lot of beekeepers use plastic frames. Sure bees might prefer to build on wax and wood but they seem to build on plastic just fine too.

 

Others say that it's because bees fill their comb from the outside in which means just because you can see it on the ends as full and capped doesn't mean they are. Which I'd argue they don't do because every single extraction video I've seen even done with semi-full comb has been top center filled first.

 

Another one is that the bees won't know those combs are empty and they won't fill it which I think is another fallacy though this I can't be certain of. Their demo videos show that the bees open up the caps once the frame has been drained so I'm not entirely sure they could stage that.

 

A lot of the bad reviews are aimed towards the video itself falsely advertising that getting a flow hive would mean you wouldn't have to handle bees or break open the hive, which I'm of the understanding you still would have to do regularly to assess hive health, etc. You would still probably break it open to check if the flow hive frames were full before draining them too. I know I would always want to double check.

 

But otherwise all the "bad reviews" have come from people who have not used the product at all but for some reason I haven't seen any comments on why its bad other than "i'm an experienced beekeeper, I know bees, they won't like this." or something of the sort. Which is why I wanted to get some first hand reviews from beekeepers who have actually used this product.

Personally I've been researching beekeeping for quite some time as well but have always been apprehensive when it comes to the extraction process. It's an archaic model that I think in many ways is inefficient and slow and you need all these gadgets to do it, space to do it, etc. So I'm praying that this product works because if all I need to do is repurpose the langstroth to fit 3 flow frames, that's more than enough honey for my personal use and some on the side for gifts.

[Foogoo]

I have been following and researching beekeeping for quite some time now. Everything I read from experienced beekeepers is that this flow design is bad for the bees and prohibitively expensive.

I wanted to say the same but hesitated since I have a big, fat, 0% experience with beekeeping. I've seen the Flow Hive mentioned here and there, usually followed by comments from those with more experience on how it's more of a gimmick than an actual, sustainable nest. There's probably better info on a bee forum somewhere, which I'm sure exists. But good luck and let us know your progress if you pursue the hobby!

[Foogoo]

Dang it Mercutia, now you've got me interested and I'm starting to look into getting an observation hive. I've got too many hobbies already!

[spinyeti]

Do you have any reasoning for why the design is bad for bees?

You actually covered everything I have read, and seem to have done more research than I into this specific beekeeping option. Thanks for the detailed breakdown!

[Mercutia]

 

Do you have any reasoning for why the design is bad for bees?

You actually covered everything I have read, and seem to have done more research than I into this specific beekeeping option. Thanks for the detailed breakdown!

 

I like to do a lot of research before I do something, especially if it's got an expensive startup cost like beekeeping. ^^"

[William. T]

I have been to quite many seminars. Have you heard or seen those "observation hives?" They are common in museums. Well, since they are vertical glass frames, they are bad for the bees. My local chapter is strongly against them. They give the extractors to members as part of their membership dues. I would box hives from what they say about them.

[Mercutia]

But why are glass frames bad? I've heard no back up for this statement. Please someone back it up with like science or something.