Double Bees Flow Hive 2018 - observation window frame extraction finally!

hey guys it is July 12th and it's about almost 6:40 in the evening still nice and warm outside and I'm going to do take two of something that I try to do the other day which is an extraction on this outside most frame it's something that I've been wanting to do for a while now but I've been waiting these guys to completely finish and cap off the wax so I've looked inside the hive done an inspection on the inside and it's about I'm gonna call it 90 percent complete all right you see some cells down here at the bottom that are still a little bit open they're working on closing the capping but they haven't actually done it yet but everything else is is completely done the other exception as I pull the back off here just I don't know why but they don't like filling these last little cells in here I mean this this thing has been completed for a while I've drained all of these hives there all of these frames at least once except for this last one and I've actually drained these two twice and they're already back filling you can see these were done about a week ago already back filling this one's full I could probably drain it today too and I may so before I do this just one other kind of talking through how things have been going I think I'm up to five gallons of honey they've been taking off this season the bees are still out foraging and bringing in from what I can tell plenty of resources I did an inspection on the inside of the high maybe last weekend and everybody was happy and good to go the Queen's laying lots of eggs there's good food pattern plenty of nectar and resources and pollen inside for the season this we've had so much rain that the bees seemed really happy with finding resources right now which has been really great there's also there's a I wish there was some elevation but one of my favorite things about coming out here is the smell of a of a hive is just yummy like no other word for it it just smells really great it's like this you can smell the fresh wax and the honey and all of it together and it's all really great so with that I am going to go ahead and pull this off to the side pull the top out set it to the side pull that little cap out and pull this jar over here and make room so that it comes directly to there we've got the the drain now we'll go there it is that's nice and clean yep I keep reusing the same nozzle that the flow hive comes with one for each frame but the bees are just so good at cleaning them over here I've got my little key rod we use that and I'm just gonna do part of the way in here one of the things I've really been dying to see is how the framing X now I'm gonna make a couple assumptions here so I'm gonna talk about it before I do it but when I turn these the cells themselves split if you've done any research on the flow hive you'll know how this works but the frames shift up and it makes room for the honey to flow down into this little tube but I've never been able to do the window so I can't actually see it these ones that are open at the bottom I'm going to assume that they are going to spill a little bit down into the hive I do have a screened bottom on this bottom board down here so you can pull these out and check and see if you've got any mites or what's going on but the honey will well actually if there's any spillage will cool down there and the beasts can go down there and we collect it as well so it's not lost but I think some of those are gonna split and maybe have some spillage but the majority of it I'm hoping it's going to drain straight into my little jar here and we will see but I started this hive back in February of 2018 it's currently July 12th and I've been able to harvest off of every frame in here and two of them have been able to harvest twice but whatever reasons have not been able to harvest this one frame so with that said I'm going to turn the key and we're gonna see how this works all right you can see the ones that were shifted doesn't seem to create any issues within hive whoa but we've got honey drainage boom going in there it's definitely darker honey than the last ones ooh that is completely different I love it I love it when it tastes different each frame has been different this one doesn't have that citrusy flavor that some of the other ones had it's a lot more caramel II oh we do have some down the bottom that has some spillage the bees are already on it that's cool so this is also one of the main reasons I want to be able to do this particular extraction was I wanted to see how the bees were affected there's a lot of online beekeepers that are either commercial beekeepers or professional beekeepers that have their own little opinions about the flow hive but from what I can tell none of them own one and and all of its outside opinion and so my hope is that with doing this that I'm able to show not only does it not harm the bees or harm the hive but that it's a relatively non-invasive process for harvesting I'm inching the little the flow slowing down so I'm inching the bar further in and we're going to do the next little section here all right so I don't see any surface disruption at all that's interesting and the flow is taken back up a little bit I can see when it's buckled a little bit but just a little bit you can definitely see some of that honey spilling out on the bottom not a lot but a little bit and the bees are going around collecting hmm a little further in [Music] we're relatively far in now you can see that the wax capping now just looks hollow you don't see the honey underneath it like you did before it's all collecting here get another taste and see if it's any different those are really cool that it's it's worn still about a hundred and something like ninety eight to a hundred degrees today so it's still pretty warm inside the hive and it's flowing really well so I mean you see the cells are split the inside of this is split right now there's a few of them that are open from that split but the vast majority held their integrity so the surface the bees are walking around if there's spilt honey they're definitely going around and collecting it but as far as the bees walking around on the hive you know there's they're not freaking out there's no there's no no bees were harmed in the making of this video the open honey they're definitely reacting to and they're eating it up and once I finish draining this off I'll go back and give them an area to reconstitute inari we collect it all right I'm gonna I'm putting in the bar all the way in it's as far as it goes this would be the last little section here let's see if we can see it I did it I didn't see anything nobody's freaking out over here and see if we see the flow pick up yep here's the flow increase a little fly over here but overall like no the bees aren't I mean on the front they're still coming and going there's no swarm issues there's no nobody's freaking out and then looking at the actual frames themselves and every single cell in this is now split right now the frames are open the bees are not freaking out they're definitely going and collecting any of the honey what was spilt down here at the bottom I don't know if you can see this but you know they're cleaning it up but that's it so those torn cells there you can see that's where the split is and once I put the rod back in and put the cells in their closed position they will immediately go and start fixing all of that so you know I don't I don't see what the fuss is about I definitely tend to my bees so it's not like they're it's not a set and forget good thing which is what I've seen most of the people sorry I'm moving the bar here most of the people have issues with the flow hive that seems to be their concern is that people are not keeping their bees in my case that is definitely not the case you know it's not just a cheap and easy way to get honey or anything like that like you you have to take care of your bees you have to do inspections you have to make sure everything's working the way it's supposed to work but other than that it's just an easier and safer and healthier collection method in my opinion [Music] so I will say yesterday was my wife and eyes 13 year anniversary so a for us we went out to a restaurant or the next restaurant and we got a little cheese tray and in the cheese tray they had some honey on there and I tasted it and I am apparently a honey snob now officially I'm closing we're slowing down to next to nothing here so I'm gonna go ahead and close off the cells boom a little bit there righted okay all the cells are closed again and most of that oh that's so cool most of that tearing that you saw before has reformed where you came and see it now so the bees have very little to do to repair and fix those little issues now they're gonna they're gonna pull the capping off of all of this probably within a day or two they're gonna pull the caps but then start over and it'll be neat to see that process but they do not have to rebuild up all that wax so this is one of the other great things it takes about what was that seven pounds of honey for one pound of wax I think is the ratio and so one of the other great things about a flow hive is that they don't have to rebuild all the wax all they have to do is pull this capping because they don't reuse the well I say that I've been told they don't reuse the wax capping this will be the first time that I'll get to experience myself and will be able to watch it and I'll definitely post videos and keep it up to date but they don't reuse the wax capping supposedly so they will go and pull all of this wax capping but all the other wax that's supporting the structure is still there and so theoretically we should be able to have them fill it back up within 30 days that's the goal [Music] but that's just a fully capped wax empty frame now on both sides and the beetus we'll go through and redo that so to finish my little story we went to the we went to the restaurant and we got a little cheese tray and had honey and I tasted the honey and it immediately reminded me of like grocery store bottle bear honey and I missed my honey from home because it tastes so distinctly different it is so much more floral it's lighter it just has a overall just a lot more complex flavor and it tastes so good so I am I'm officially a bias honey eater I have do not appreciate formulaic you know homogenized and boiled honey the way the grocery store typically has I've become a huge fan of my honey I use it in coffee now I've completely replaced sugar and my coffee with honey we do honey lattes for dessert tonight we made some croissants and did butter and honey but it's just so so good and every frame has been unique and different in its own little way it's been similar like it's definitely just wildflower honey if I ever had to put a definition on it but some of it has a really citrusy flavor some of its kind of a caramel a flavor it's all great and just to show you again I keep using these jars over and over but this is one frame there's a one gallon jar and it is half full so we've pretty consistently I've gotten a half gallon per frame which is awesome I currently have a full gallon in the house right now that we haven't distributed yet this will be another half gallon and I I'm probably gonna go ahead and do that other frame because we're gonna be taking a trip soon and I probably won't be able to do it and that happens but I just I wanted to share this and and kind of give an update of how things we're going it's been a couple weeks since I've done an update and just wanted to show this I won't I'll pause and maybe do the other one here in just a minute but this is already 20 minutes I just I wanted to share and show how awesome and amazing this is little one hive set up oh I'm one other update just to kind of let you know from a progress standpoint um so typically the way the way the cycles work is you have the the spring bounty of of nectar and honey and things like that and then occasionally between July and August there can be at dearth we've had so much rain that that hasn't been an issue in fact our whole neighborhood and area is chock-full of flowers so the bees have plenty and plenty of resources to bring back more so we haven't had any issues with a scarcity right now but I do want to make sure that they're able to build up for the winter and I have more than enough honey for me and my friends and family and the people I've been kind of doling it out to so with that said I'm gonna be adding probably next week I think is my timeline but I'm gonna be adding a second brood box I'm not gonna be adding a second super yet I've thought about adding on top of of this a honey super that has a place where I can do comb extraction cuz I do like honeycomb and I've got some friends that have been rendering though or I've been rendering the wax but some friends have been using the wax for different things so oh yeah see there's a little guy that's ripped off some of the cap wax they're already in the process I mean like I just finished just finished and they're already like oh they're empty start over so cool so anyway I'm gonna add a brood box we're gonna do some checkerboarding from the the bottom box in the the new box and give them a chance to build up and want to make sure that there's lots and lots of room for winter so that they've got a really strong hive to to go through winter and over winter one of the things you do is you do take off the flow frames so I want them to build up enough in their own personal stores so then I'm not worried about them surviving over winter this has been a really great queen and a great hive colony and I mean personality-wise I set out here in a t-shirt and jeans every other day and they're happy as can be I've still have been doing this since February and cumulatively I've been stung four times all of which have been my fault I opened the hive during the rain one day and not rain but it was like sprinkling and the the bees got freaked out and popped me once and then laid my hand on top of the roof one day and there was a bee there

Channel: Vann Doubleday

Views: 7,933

Keywords: savannah, bees, bee keeping, flow hive, flow frames, flowhive, flow hive 2, honey, honey flow, savannah bees, backyard bee, backyard beekeeping, domestic bees, pollen, propolis, ants, frame, bees wax, brood box, flow super, super, observation hive, inspection

Id: XRQGqfWwDhQ

Length: 22min 40sec (1360 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 12 2018