Paul Hosticka wrote:

"As a curiosity I have been looking for a first hand review of a working 
flow hive. Haven't found any from knowledgeable beekeepers who have used 
it for a season. Just wondering if my skepticism was right on or not. 
Even if it does work as advertised I would not have a use for it but 
like I said, just curious. Something to muse over as I scrape boxes in 
the barn."


Paul, commercial beeks here in Australia, like those in many other 
places, were very cynical, even scathing in their assessment of the Flow 
hive.
Unable to see past the initial presentation of the concept as an easy 
entry for new beekeepers, most it seems to me, have failed to appreciate 
the paradigm change that the technology presents. Its early days yet, 
and the evolution and proof of concept into commercial honey production 
has a way to go, but I am absolutely convinced it will happen.
For my own 'education' I have trialled individual Flow hives and indeed 
have modified some other types of hives to use Flow frames for the crop.
To summarise my experience so far, there is absolutely no difference in 
bees acceptance of the Flow frames compared to standard honey super 
frames. I normally use wooden frames with Plastic foundation, which of 
course bees will not draw unless a) they are strong enough and b) there 
is a honey flow. No difference there.
I find use of a queen excluder is not optional...its essential! Queens 
will, and do quite happily, lay drones in the Flow frames, and the bees 
are happy to raise them.
Also, because the Flow frames are fatter, and the bees are not drawing 
so much comb, the yield per box is higher and the time taken to fill is 
quicker. And of course you still have to supply the resources the bees 
need to ripen the crop. Here that is a minimum of 2 boxes of comb in 
order to ripen 1 box of honey, as well as adequate ventilation.
One technical issue is that of overflowing of honey into the hive from 
the sides of the bottom trough when harvesting, if all the cells in the 
frame are opened at one time. Because of our warmer climate and the fact 
that the honey is at hive temperature, it flows easily from the cells. 
Faster in fact than it can exit the drain tube at the end of the bottom 
trough of the frame. So caution is needed. And the hive design must be 
able to cope if there is an overflow.

One of my trials has been using a polystyrene 6 frame nuc supered with a 
polystyrene 6 frame super holding 4 Flow frames. These are the nucs I 
use for queen rearing and restocking purposes. Normal management sees me 
having to remove 1 or 2 frames of honey from time to time to give the 
queen space to lay and maintain the unit's viability as a restocking 
unit. I do not normally super these because honey production is not 
their purpose in life, the full size hives do that.
However because of the polystyrene construction, the queen is laying in 
all 6 frames in the bottom box, and honey is accumulating at a higher 
than expected rate in the Flow super. Initially I thought all that would 
be required would be to harvest 1 Flow frame occasionally. But no, even 
harvesting 1 frame in rotation each week was not fast enough either! So 
now harvesting all 4 frames at 8 to 10 day intervals has become 
necessary, yielding over 10kg each time. I am about to move to an 
undersupering regime with this unit,  as I do with my production apiaries.
Remember this is just a one-off trial. So managing restocking nucs as 
commercial honey production units was not the purpose, and perhaps 
defeats the object of the nucs in the first place. But in my mind it 
does call into question a review of what is the optimum size of the hive 
unit I should be using in my production apiaries!

To become commercially viable for large scale honey production, the Flow 
technology will need to be adapted in ways not currently used. But I 
have no doubts that this will happen. I have no doubt too, that this 
technical innovation will impact the market for, and marketing of, honey 
itself.
But that is another whole subject for Bee-L to feast on.
Time for a new crystal ball?

PeterD

in Western Australia, where seasonal fluctuation is causing honey 
shortages and creating  financial pain for beekeepers.
This is exacerbated in North, Central and Eastern Australia by rains 
causing floods. Never a dull moment downunder!

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