I can't believe I am contributing to the discussion of the "flow"!  As a small urban beekeeper I must respond to the concern an urban/suburbanite does not have space for equipment let alone an extractor. 

I keep 10 hives one mile from my 4 bedroom double garage suburban home. When I started with 2 hives I used crush and strain. 2 Pails. I now use a Maxant 6 frame extractor. I hump it up and down the basement steps on a dolly with no problems or dings in the drywall. It and 50 cases of jars plus decapping tub take up less space then my sons weight training system and ping pong table that he left here 10 years ago. I use the ping pong table as my bottling table. I have 16 supers, 3 brood boxes, and 6 four frame nuc boxes stacked neatly in one corner of the garage. I park two cars all winter in the garage. I will have to sell some bees this year or convince my wife the little nook outside the side door is available for more boxes. 

The flow concept is technically interesting but more importantly has been a marketing success. Once a person gets involved in keeping bees they will quickly learn they do not need or even want the flow mechanism.

Regards Peter

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