A Welsh Flow Hive Harvest

[enrico]

This is a very old thread that you have resurrected. This is a forum for debate as well as education. It does no harm to air your feelings as long as they are polite. Some of us old fuddy duddies are happy to accept change but don't need to be involved in it. Our ways work and a different way of doing something doesn't make it right, wrong, or necessarily better or worse.
Good luck if you are venturing into the unknown with a species you have never handled before. Let us know how you get on and welcome to the forum. Looks like a good post to start you off !!!! ..

 

[thenovice]

Now that it is resurrected, does the OP Tremyfro have an update for us? I have always wanted to know how the flowhive performs after a few years of use when propolis and wax is thrown in the mix. Has she had an OSR or heather crop with it yet? Please share your experiences with us. I want to learn from a user rather than a naysayer...

 

[pargyle]

Now that it is resurrected, does the OP Tremyfro have an update for us? I have always wanted to know how the flowhive performs after a few years of use when propolis and wax is thrown in the mix. Has she had an OSR or heather crop with it yet? Please share your experiences with us. I want to learn from a user rather than a naysayer...

As she's not visited the forum since march I suspect that she has been far too busy harvesting from her flow frames !

 

[pargyle]

This is a very old thread that you have resurrected. This is a forum for debate as well as education. It does no harm to air your feelings as long as they are polite. Some of us old fuddy duddies are happy to accept change but don't need to be involved in it. Our ways work and a different way of doing something doesn't make it right, wrong, or necessarily better or worse.
Good luck if you are venturing into the unknown with a species you have never handled before. Let us know how you get on and welcome to the forum. Looks like a good post to start you off !!!! ..

Very politely put Enrico ... this is a very diverse forum where all sorts of innovative ways of keeping bees have been aired and discussed. It's the last place I would expect to find fuddy duddy stick in the mud beekeepers ... they all seem to have migrated to the BBKA forum !

Some good ideas stick around - some are destined for early failure -it does no harm to bring out the possible hurdles that 'new' ideas bring with their design and perhaps protecting some of those people who are newer to the craft from the hype of marketing that occasionally accompanies these wonderful new inventions ... I'm always game to try something new that looks as though it will work ... but we've all got cupboards and probably sheds full of the next best thing since sliced bread ~ mostly collecting dust when they don't meet their original promise !

 

[Erichalfbee]

As she's not visited the forum since march I suspect that she has been far too busy harvesting from her flow frames !

You're probably right
One you have something that works you just get on with it
OR
Maybe it hasn't worked.......only joking.
I do wonder how the frames have coped with this year's manic nectar flow.
One of my colonies was on eight supers before any of it was capped.

 

[mintmoth]

The flowhive seems great if you have a honey flow like we've had this year, because as I understand it, you can keep emptying the frames each time the box is full without disturbing the hive or having to remove/add supers. I guess that's why they work so well in Oz, with little or no winter season, pretty much year round activity by the bees.

But here in the UK we have to remove supers for the winter so the bees can stay warm, and you've still to lift supers off, be they regular or flowhive, to check the state of affairs in the BB re swarming, supercedure etc. so apart from time (and in my case, messiness) saved actually extracting honey from combs, I see little benefit in flowhives in the UK.

 

[Erichalfbee]

The flowhive seems great if you have a honey flow like we've had this year, because as I understand it, you can keep emptying the frames each time the box is full without disturbing the hive or having to remove/add supers. I guess that's why they work so well in Oz, with little or no winter season, pretty much year round activity by the bees.

I have been trying to find out from Flow hive owners whether that actually is the case but most of them have new small colonies which are not gathering nectar in any large quantities. Our UK nectar flows seem to come in Manic instalments. This year has been exceptionally manic and I have had a colony with seven supers of uncapped honey before they started capping. The only way a Flow super could cope would be if you kept extracting unripe honey to give the bees room to collect more. Either that or put traditional supers on too which rather defeats the object.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

yerrrs - I can imagine the bees patiently waiting whilst the bee haver empties the floo frames so that they can quickly nip in and fill it up again with miraculously ripened honey.
I think it's lucky that most of the floohive honey gets used for own consumption or TS would have a field day slapping enforcement orders on over hydrated honey that would give the average refractometer a nervous breakdown.
Either that, or a massive rise in swarm calls in those areas

 

[Erichalfbee]

yerrrs - I can imagine the bees patiently waiting whilst the bee haver empties the floo frames so that they can quickly nip in and fill it up again with miraculously ripened honey.
I think it's lucky that most of the floohive honey gets used for own consumption or TS would have a field day slapping enforcement orders on over hydrated honey that would give the average refractometer a nervous breakdown.
Either that, or a massive rise in swarm calls in those areas

This is off the Flow Forum

 

[For want of a better word]

Very politely put Enrico ... this is a very diverse forum where all sorts of innovative ways of keeping bees have been aired and discussed. It's the last place I would expect to find fuddy duddy stick in the mud beekeepers ... they all seem to have migrated to the BBKA forum !

Some good ideas stick around - some are destined for early failure -it does no harm to bring out the possible hurdles that 'new' ideas bring with their design and perhaps protecting some of those people who are newer to the craft from the hype of marketing that occasionally accompanies these wonderful new inventions ... I'm always game to try something new that looks as though it will work ... but we've all got cupboards and probably sheds full of the next best thing since sliced bread ~ mostly collecting dust when they don't meet their original promise !

All of the three keepers of bees in *Flowhives... that I have had anything to do with, seem to have given up keeping bees and have moved on to Alpacas!

Just bought a single handed queen catcher... I wonder if that will be a new fad or not?

Yeghes da

 

[pargyle]

This is off the Flow Forum

Perhaps someone should tell her to read a bee book and possibly start at the chapter on swarming !!!

Or consign it to landfill and buy an Alpaca or two ...

 

[Beefriendly]

You sad person laughing at someone else's ignorance. That person needs assistance not derision

 

[Erichalfbee]

You sad person laughing at someone else's ignorance. That person needs assistance not derision

You mean you never indulge in a little schadenfreude ?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Or consign it to landfill and buy an Alpaca or two ...

Now there’s Pyramid Selling if I ever saw any

 

[Beefriendly]

You mean you never indulge in a little schadenfreude ?

Very rarely and certainly not in public

 

[mintmoth]

I've just had an email from my sister. She had friends from Australia visit and now they are back home in Oz they tell her someone has given them a flowhive.

If they are being given away in their country of origin that doesn't sound too good does it?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

You mean you never indulge in a little schadenfreude ?

I'm not into desserts - I prefer savoury food actually, although I enjoy the occasional blackcurrant tart with fresh cream.

 

[Ian123]

I've just had an email from my sister. She had friends from Australia visit and now they are back home in Oz they tell her someone has given them a flowhive.

If they are being given away in their country of origin that doesn't sound too good does it?

Maybe they just had it in for her sister

 

[pargyle]

You sad person laughing at someone else's ignorance. That person needs assistance not derision

I'd probably laugh at someone who bought a herd of cows without knowing how to milk them as well ...

Far too much hype went with the flow hive marketing and now some of the fools who parted with their money are learning there's a bit more to beekeeping than putting bees in a box and cranking a handle.

But... hopefully you have been over there and given her your advice as to what she could do to rectify her current predicament ... and what makes you think that I might not already have done that ?

Pompous, self righteous .... fill in the gap. Rhymes with stick ...

 

[Beefriendly]

My My........did you help her though?
No course you didn't.