I coined the title of this thread, but I am taken aback by the assumption
that reducing the work required to merely harvest honey will result in bees
that are neglected, or beekeepers who are ignorant.  I wonder if the same
discussion took place when the extractor was first introduced.  

Years ago, Kim Flottum was writing his first book, and asked me to design
for him a "disposable super" from the heavy-duty waxed cardboard I was using
for my swam traps.  He wanted a super that people could put on their hives,
"harvest", and then put into the trash.  Yeah, sacrilege, I know, but Kim's
point was well-taken.  Many people like having bees, but don't want to "deal
with" the honey, as it is so much work.  Kim's insight into the demographics
is far more broad that any of the rest of us, as he does his survey.  This
gizmo should satisfy Kim's concern without offending my sensibilities on
"waste".

In an urban setting, people simply do not have the room to store an
extractor and all the other gear associated with extracting.  We must plan
events in advance where beekeepers get together and extract using
group-owned equipment, and there must be multiple Saturdays to handle all
the supers, and all the varying harvest times.  Getting the gear out of
storage, and getting the supers of honey to a central location is tedious
for a group that tends toward not owning vehicles with more than 2 wheels.

I do not see why the "flow" honey super will be any more or less of a
disincentive to learning and following best practices in animal husbandry
than choosing to use Ross Rounds or Hogg Cassettes.
Each product claims to reduce the work required to process the honey, and
each does so by introducing specialized plastic "supers" to the hive.

I agree with Trevor, these things will have a secondary market when the
inevitable percentage of wannabee beekeepers decide that they would rather
try their hand at growing mushrooms or macramé, and the secondary market is
going to bring the price down for the new product.  But the profits have
already been delivered to the inventors on the mere hope that they will be
able to manufacture a reliable mechanism.   Not too many people in any
aspect of beekeeping have ever seen close to the "sales volume" already
committed, and much of the money pledged is for trivial "deliverables", or
no deliverable at all.  If I gave you $8 million, and told you that you had
to make a plastic gizmo for a few years and sell it to beekeepers, you'd
likely accept the job.  But these guys should take their money and sell the
company along with the liability to make and deliver the products, to
professionals.  The valuation of this endeavor will never be higher than it
is right now, but company owners never admit this sort of thing to
themselves.

The patent won't fly, it is merely a plastic version of an already-patented
metal implementation from decades ago.
The gizmo won't work in cooler climates as well as it works in the
convection oven of an Australian summer.
The nature of plastic and bees is that bees will propolize it, and humans
will damage plastic removing the Propolis.
Even a simple planar object, like a Ross Round "frame" has a useful service
life.
But we've all seen much worse, and those catalog houses continue to carry
these "much worse" gadgets, even though some are an overt disservice to
novices trying to learn to keep bees.

 

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