Beekeeping Invention Potentially Makes Beekeeping 1000x Cheaper!

a reply to: jtma508

True, I agree with you completely, sorry for the misunderstanding on my part. lol

a reply to: jtma508

Full disclosure,I sort of suspect the bees get to know your scent after a while. Bee's die after their stinger gets stuck in ya, so its a last resort measure to sting. Most folks get stung by anything other than honey bees. I been studying up with the intention of starting one in the spring so you just may get your wish.

a reply to: ApparentlyStupid
For the love of God man, use the suit!! :-)

Read-up on locating your hive. That's key. Get all your equipment over the winter so your hives are built and ready-to-go as soon as Spring arrives. I may get flamed for this but go with plastic frames that are wax coated as opposed to using foundation. Yea, yea I know. But you'll have a lot easier time and the bees wont be able to simply destroy the foundation. ORDER YOUR BEES EARLY!!!! Many places sell-out quickly. Go with nucs as opposed to packaged bees (especially initially) so your hives get a running start. Start with a minimum of two hives so you have better odds making it through your first season.

a reply to: jtma508

I hope to find some wild "survivor" bees as I've read they show signs of pest and disease resistance. I'm in the camp that says bee's have been around long before intervention by man. For sure, if you want max yields and profit one must fiddle with the hive. Mostly I just want exp observing the fascinating little creatures.
Thinking a little more about the flow hives, it seems like they would be best suited for small time apiarists who want to minimize interaction and don't expect large yields.

a reply to: PerceptiveOne
So you mentioned you have the flow hive stuff. How has it treated you? Did it work as advertised?
I saw something that said they need trimming at the edge for improved bee space. can you confirm or refute that?
Thanks in advance

a reply to: ApparentlyStupid

I have just received all the stuff.
This coming season I will put 2 flow hives to the test. They say to run 2 hives for comparison purposes, so I went and did that.

I have been educating myself and getting everything prepared in advance so that I'm ready to go when I pick up my 2 x "4 frame nucs" in Barrie Ontario in May.

I am optimistic about the hive, but do have reservations regarding plastic flow frames, but have been told to spray them with sugar solution prior to introducing them to the bees, and then letting the bees feel them out. I have foundation frames, foundation-less frames and a few plastic ones as well and feeding systems too.

I'm going to start with one brood box and one "normal" super for winter stores, and if that goes well, then I'll add the Flow Frames on top. I don't expect a harvest for myself the first year, as the colonies will need to build up winter stores and I want to make sure my first year investment doesn't die over the winter, although it may have nothing to do with anything I do. lol

It's all a learning experience for me, first time bee keeper here.

a reply to: PerceptiveOne

That's very neat.

Is there any way you could do a video series or something when you do go to extract the honey from the hive.

I'd love to see the process.

a reply to: Ghost147

how do y0u get the proplis though? thats were the gold is

I got interested in the Flow Hive before they issued their crowd source prospectus. I am convinced, but where I currently lives precludes bee-keeping for now. It turns out that the developer is an friend of my nephew, which I didn't find out until I tried to convince him that he needed to start keeping bees

Anyway, the magic of FlowHive has nothing to do with not needing to keep on maintaining your hive, keeping it healthy, and all that. If you are smart you still need a smoker and a bee suit for all the maintenance stuff - though of course there are folks who have done it for so long that they don't worry about it, like in the vid above of the guy splitting a hive in shorts and t-shirt.

The magic of Flow Hive is in the harvesting of the honey. You don't, in general, need smoke or a suit for that. You don't have to break into the hive or destroy the comb. The bees don't have to start over building the comb, saves a lot of energy for the hive; they just refill the cells and put a new cap on them.

FlowHive has a lot of beautiful video's of their children just walking up to the hives and turning the tap.

FlowHive Videos

a reply to: ApparentlyStupid

I saw something that said they need trimming at the edge for improved bee space. can you confirm or refute that?

Installing the FlowHive into a 'traditional' Langstroth frame box.

a reply to: rnaa



Bee space is the space around the edges of the frame
Sorry about the crappy pic, its the best i could find.

originally posted by: jtma508
You'll never successfully keep bees if the only time you go into the hive is to collect honey. Beekeeping doesn't work like that. You need to manage for disease and inspect the brood boxes, feed Spring and Fall, add candy or sugar in early winter, manage the queen's health and swarming... I defy you to do that without a bee suit. What if you want comb honey? Sorry, may work in some specific instances but I'm not thinking it is an economical alternative to traditional beekeeping.

i helped a friend move his hives and we never used bee suits.
yes i got stung once but for me a bee sting is less then a mosquito bite.

There are bees that are "hot" and bees that are cold we call Africanized Honey Bee nuclear bees. you mess with them and its all out war.
he raises Carniolan honey bee (Apis mellifera carnica,) that are very calm and good honey producers.

Twice i have got swarms. once on a tree in a parking lot.
and once in a public park. and had no bee suit with me
The one in the park i saw park workers standing around and trying to figure out what to do with it.
I ask them if they wanted the swarm gone and they said they would have to call a exterminator to kill it off.
I walked to my truck and got a cardboard box walked up and cut the small limb off just above the swarm and laid it in the box and took it to a friends house.
We took a brood box and put a empty deep super on top and set the cardboard box open on its side in the empty deep super.
the next day the bees were in the brood and we took out the cardboard box and put a queen excluder in and frames..

a reply to: ApparentlyStupid

Bee space is the space around the edges of the frame Sorry about the crappy pic, its the best i could find.

Sorry. Wrong Video.

OMG, you think beekeeping is all about extracting honey?

You need to work on your bees, check them regularly and make sure the queen is healthy. You need to help them survive winter, you need to heal them if needed. You need to collect swarms and many other various things.

Beehive in this video is for rich folks that will buy every year new swarm, in other words they will not bother with bees, queen and other important things in beekeeping, they will just extract honey, let the bees die and buy new bees.

That is pourpouse if this stupid beehive.

a reply to: saadad

No, of course I don't think that. The level in which you jump to conclusions is absurd.

There are people in this thread that clearly have a solid understanding of beekeeping that are testing out this product, and they certainly don't sound like they would simply let their hives die every winter and rebuild.

Furthermore, your assertion that "That is the purpose of this beehive" is just ridiculous. Firstly, the inserts can be used in other brands as well. Secondly, no where in the video, kickstarter campaign, indiegogo campaign, or their website do they suggests to 'build and toss' the bees every year.

In fact, the design actually REDUCES unneeded stress on the hive, because the older way of extracting honey is extremely intrusive. It's pretty evident the designers of this concept wanted to benefit both the beekeepers as well as the bee's themselves.

OK let say that is true. But who will pay 700$ if he can buy LR for 100$. And LR produces more honey per year. So how is this invention good?

a reply to: saadad

Well, It's not $700. The 'Flow™ Frame' (the cartridges themselves) are priced as:

3, 4, 6 or 7 x Flow™ Frames
Classic 7 US$447
Classic 6 US$389
Classic 4 US$317
Classic 3 US$259

and can be put into a cheaper hive, if you'd like. source

The Flow hive, which is the $700 you're refering to, comes with:

Flow™ Super (Western Red Cedar)
Brood box (Western Red Cedar) with 8 x standard pine frames
6 x Flow™ Frames
6 x Flow™ Tubes
1 x Flow™ Key

So, it's not just an empty hive, and then you have to purchase the frames seperately, they come with 6 of them (the super is less expensive than the hive) Source

The cost savings aren't based on the product themselves, but the steps needed to extract the honey, and the equipment involved to extract honey, that is where you save the money. You'll be continuously saving money because the extracting process is now severely reduced, thus you don't have to spend time extracting it through other methods.

It would be interesting to hear from the experienced beekeepers on how much their extracting equipment costs, and the time needed to extract honey.

If it were up to me, and I had the specs, I'd probably build the hive part myself, and then buy the Flow™ Frame cartridges to put in them. Not sure how viable it is, but the hive part seems pretty simplistic.

a reply to: Ghost147

If it were up to me, and I had the specs, I'd probably build the hive part myself,

Langstroth Hive Plans

Go for it.

a reply to: rnaa

Nice thanks for the info, I'll have to save them

a reply to: Ghost147

Build your own, it's cheaper! And you'll get the same results..



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