Flow Hive 2 - Tips and tricks 🐝🍯

it's a bit of a rainy day today so today we're going to be covering the tips and tricks for flow hive 2. if you've got any questions put them in the comments below we'll get to answering them at the end we're basically going to be going through from the uh from the ground up all the parts of the flow hive 2 and tips and tricks of how to use them so questions below and we'll get to answering them it's also would be interesting if you've got any tips of your own to to make that part of the discussion as well so if you've got any tips put them in the comments and also let us know where in the world you're tuning in from so i'll just explain a little bit about this base now the reason why we decided to integrate the stand into the hive is that most people need to put their hive on a stand of some sort to get it up away from the pest the bees are flying in this side coming into the landing board into the hive and you don't want to be too close to the ground or things in australia here like the cane toads will actually eat bees and knock on the hive at night and the bees run out and then the cane toads will gobble them up and there's also other things like skunks and all sorts of things that um ground dwelling critters that might eat your bees if you're not a little way off the ground snow is another thing if you've only got light snow then this might be high enough to get your entrance out of the snow line heavy snow you're going to have to go higher or use a top entrance the baseboard we've we found that we were doing a lot of leveling of hives like like spending a lot of time making sure the ground was level and it was this annoying thing where you're lifting a hive on and off and it's not quite level and we thought why not build an integrated leveling system into the actual baseboard so that's where this came about where where you can actually turn this to adjust each corner independently to get your level and then we've put a level in the in the back here to give you your your level now you can see a bubble going across and what you want to do is get it level in the sideways direction by making sure the bubble is in the middle like that now that's near enough to level and what they'll do is make sure the bees are building their natural comb nice and straight down on inside the frames and not going too wonky so to get the level all you need to do is turn these feet here now i find easier than going and finding a spanner is just to lift the hive with one hand and just give it a bit of a twist like that so that's a little trick you can do to level your hive is just lift it up give it a bit of a twist and go around until you've got it nice and level at the back here now this side level is actually built to give you the three degree slope when the bubble is in the middle so again you want the bubble in the middle that gives you the perfect harvesting angle because you want the honey to flow right out of the back of the hive so level on both is a good idea one for natural naturally drawn comb when it comes to harvesting you want that correct slope next these wing screws now these l screws if you twist them like this you can actually tighten them up and you want it you don't want it loose out like here or or this cover is going to be not held in properly so you want to twist them in until you get close to the actual wood like that so it's holding it nice and and firm the brass knobs if you uh it's a good idea to make sure that screw's done up so it's flush with the wood that way it's not interfering with our system of ventilation in here or if it's on the windows it's not interfering um with the uh the um plexiglas so then here's the uh the ventilation control now what we designed here is vents up provides air to flow through the vents up past this handle here and up underneath this screen and into the hive providing a lot of ventilation if you want to turn that over what happens is this comes in contact with this part of the tray and limits the ventilation if you want more ventilation than that then you can take the tray out all together and then you've got a lot of ventilation but if you've got a wind you've got a lot of wind and it's cold then you don't want to do that because you've got so much cold air rushing up into the hive now this tray can be useful for for a whole lot of things one is catching the small hive beetle to do that you can use some cooking oil i use just old cooking oil from the chip shop because i collect it for running my car on anyway but you can just use some cooking oil from your kitchen you pour it into here so it just covers the surfaces you don't need to fill this tray you just need enough to cover these surfaces here and put these baffles in there so if your hive is on a bit of a slope then it won't um or pull at one end and we've counter sloped these rails so that it roughly becomes level even when you've got the front elevated to the correct harvesting angle so another tip with the tray is you can use it for counting your varroa mites if you're depending on what treatment you're using for here in australia we don't have those mites luckily so we don't have to deal with that it's also interesting to look into the tray and just have a look at what's going on sometimes you'll notice there's some small high beetle larvae dropping onto here and that's a sign that there's actually small hive beetle prominent in your hive laying your bees are trying to get on top of it that's a good time to start managing that and make sure you're um trapping some of those beetles if they're they're around bigger numbers especially when your hives quite weak now one thing that can happen with your tray if it's really rainy like the weather is at the moment you can get um especially if you've got a wind blowing into the hive you can get driving rain coming into the front going down through these vents and collecting in your tray so you need to empty that out periodically give that a bit of a clean or if you don't want to do that you're not actually using your tray for catching beetles or or any um pest control then you can turn your tray over and that way any water will just flow right off that and the ventilation control will still work against this handle here so there's a bit of a a trick if you you get sick of um cleaning out that tray just you can just turn it over now if we'll just put that ventilated cover right back in place like that and that's in vented position with vents up the next thing we're going to do is put on the brood box so you can see your brood box here for those that are just tuning in we're covering tips and tricks with the flow hive too if you've got any tips yourself please put them in the comments below if you've got any questions please put them in the comments below and we'll answer them at the end so this is your brood box this is where your hive is is naturally drawing its comb from these comb guides and this is where the queen is laying thousands of eggs a day she can lay up to 2 000 eggs a day in in that in your brood box and that's what she needs to do to keep that population going especially in the busy times when there's lots of forages the turnover is quite quick the bees might only last four to six weeks and the queen has to keep up with that and there might be 50 000 bees in your home so it's a lot of eggs she's got to lay so there there is a video we've covered on tips with naturally drawn comb but basically a major one is when you install your frames make sure to press them together you don't want space like this because what will happen then is the bees like their combs spaced at about 35 millimeters and they'll start to put comb in between to try and get the correct speed space inside the hive so you want to make sure they're together so that you've got a better chance of the bees connecting their comb in the right spot so that you can manage the hive by pulling the frames out if you're installing with a fresh bunch of frames like this with all comb guides then do check often just when they're getting started make sure they're going straight and if not you can push them back into line and get them hanging their natural comb off these guides you can also use wax foundation or plastic foundation if you prefer some people prefer to to do that in the brood box okay so um what we're going to do next is show you a little bit about the harvesting shelf because there's a dual use for these they can go on the hive here which we'll show you in a minute for harvesting honey but they can also go on the side if you are doing a breed inspection and you want a frame rest so the way these click onto the hive is there's a keyhole here and you wind up which screw in the position you'd like to put your shelf over like that and then twist down and if you're using them as a frame rest you want it to be nice and firm you don't want it wobbly and having frames falling on the ground so same on this side so you've adjusted the screw so it's nice and firm and i'll show you that in a minute then when you're doing your brood inspection you can lift out the frames and rest them right on here like that so you often just need a frame or two out of the way and that gives you more space to work the hive and move frames across in order to do your braid inspection if you've got any questions put them in the comments below we'll be uh answering them at the at the end of the call okay next is your queen excluder i'm just going to take these off again because we'll be using them in honey harvesting positions here's your queen excluder now what that does is make sure the queen's not getting up into your honey collection area into your flow frames and laying eggs some people find that um they can run with no excluder but it is queen specific some queens will lay in flow frames and some won't and i've definitely seen that i've got hives that i run with no excluder and hives that i won't so i recommend using an excluder keep the queen down below and then your honey box goes on top of that so here's the flow super now i'll just lift it up here and show you a little trick that beekeepers often miss out on and that's when you're lifting it this is a really good handle that's the reason why we don't need a handle on the back of this hive so you can use that and then the handle at the other end to lift your hive like so now before you put your flow super on it's really important to make sure that you've prepared the frames correctly to do that what you do is you take these caps out and in transit what may have happened is these flow frame parts here might have moved what you don't want to do you can see you see me moving it right here what you don't want to do is install the flow frames when the cells are in open position or the bees actually won't be able to use it to store honey so to put them into closed position it's simple to do and you grab your flow key and you just go along insert it into the top of each frame like this notice there's two slots so you'll be inserting it into the top slot giving that a turn just to the 90 and what that's what's happened is all of the cells are now set in the correct position for the bees to start covering them all in wax and storing honey in the cells so again you go along you just do this to each frame once you've done that make sure you put your caps back in important thing if you don't put your caps back in what can happen is ants move into this area so important thing make sure you get your caps and put them back in whenever you're using your hive the next thing to do is make sure you've got a nice flat face here see how here we've got a situation where one frames at this level one's at this low and it's not making a nice window so to to adjust that what we've done is put a screw on the back of the frame when we design the frames and that makes them adjustable for various different box sizes we also have have a number of different frames now over time with with um slight differences and variations in length so this um leaving a little space here makes it backwards compatible if you've already got flow frames and what you do is you wind this screw out until it's just touching the wood at the back now um and you want that just touching there to take up the slack if um if you get impatient like me you can also just use a something like this comb guide here push all your frames to the front like this make sure um they're all in position and you can actually use a just a chalk like this to take up that space and keep them all at the front so there's a little trick if you don't want to wind out those screws you can just put something in here to make sure all the frames are pressed forward and giving you that um nice flat face here so no bees are escaping and everything looks good there once you've done that you can then put your flow hive super on the time to put it on is when all the frames are drawn out the bees uh are really starting to occupy all of this space here there's lots of bees in your brood box only then should you put on your flow super because the bees are really looking for more space and they'll be quick as long as there's a nectar flow start waxing up the flow frames and occupying the space and what you want to see is lots of bees in these side windows that's when they'll start really storing honey in the flow super so um next is a is a little trick here um first of all let's have a look at these harvesting shelves now there's a few different spots you can click them on so what we did here is design it so they can latch onto any one of these screw points which gives you adjustability depending on what size jar you're using and the way it works is again over the screw and twist and you want that nice and firm once you've set them up it's quite easy just to click them on and off best to take them off and not leave them on there for months at a time out in the weather and it'll keep your shelves nice and and good next your door becomes the shelf like that and you can then put your jar on it choose your frame for harvesting now if if it's a bit firm to get the the cap out here you can use the end of your tube just to lever that cap out just like that there we go and then this bit here is made to slot underneath the yellow bit to clear the wax out of the way to form a pathway for any remaining honey in the frame to drip back into the hive so i'll talk more about that in a second but basically that tongue needs to go under so give it a bit of a wiggle to break any wax and push it in the flow logo there goes on top now if you find that over time you've got some honey building up in here sometimes the bees will be joining all the parts together and they won't quite seal all of those moving parts and you get a bit of honey seeping into this trough area over over months and you'll see it building up in here so the first thing to do is just spin that cap around and often that will just break the wax in this leak back point here and we've put a little bit of space here for the bee's tongue to go up and lick the honey from this trough area to keep it free from honey and nice and clean but bees being bees they like to block up everything and wax it all up so they'll come and and wax up that area again and if you see that honey level building up and you turn this and it doesn't clear it then what you'll need to do is take the um cap out and often you might want to do that quickly because um the uh um honey might be flying out at that point so you then take your cap out quickly and insert a tube if the honey in there is has been in a while and you're in a tropical climate you might find that the honey started to ferment in that area because it's an area where the bees can't service it in that case then you would just let it drain out in and discard that fermented honey there'll only be a small amount of it now if if the honey tastes fine what you can do and this is what i normally do is just clear that leak back point either by inserting that tube in or you can simply insert something like your flow key or a stick just underneath that area there and what that'll do is clear out that leak back point you can then put in your cap and that honey that's been building up in there will just drain back into the hive for the bees to reuse if you're just tuning in we're just covering tips and tricks on the flow hive 2. any questions you've got put them in the comments below we'll get to answering them at the end also if you've got tips and tricks of your own put them in the comments and it'll be great just to share them with the community okay next of course is when you go to harvest this this was another innovation really seeing a cross-section of the honeycomb you can actually watch the bees putting honey into the cells with their tongues and time to harvest is when you can see capping all the way down the edge here when you can see that capping and you can see a lot of full um full honey cells then it's a fair indicator that most of the honey in the frame is ready now commercial beekeepers will usually take honey if it's 70 percent capped so it's often a pretty good indication combined with the side windows now there's there's a few variants here and that's if it's if there's been no nectar flow for a while then what you'll start to see is the bees eating honey cells out you see this patchy kind of pattern here now if that's happening you can probably be sure that they're also starting to eat honey out of the center of the frame above the brood nest as well so um you can still harvest you can still get honey but it's not ideal the frame isn't fully capped and full so you won't get as much honey out of that frame and there's potential to get some uh fresh nectar because as the season goes on the flowers start blooming again the bees will start filling in that area with nectar that they'll turn to honey so there's a possibility you'll get a bit of nectar if the bees are hungry and the frames aren't full and that just means that the honey will be more liquid and need consuming before it starts to ferment okay so next if you if you want to uh harvest a larger jar of honey then you're going to need to move these shelf brackets down a bit further so to do that and i'll just show you how to adjust these shelf brackets once they're done then they're usually set but what you want to do is i like to put the screwdriver bit in this end here and you're turning it around about one and a half turns and that gets you to about the right tightness to then do that what you want to see is that this is firm and not too wobbly if if you had it a bit further out like that what you'll find is it'll just be a bit wobbly and could get a bit um dangerous if you've got a lot of weight on that shelf so if it's a bit wobbly like that just wind it back in a little bit and find that point where you can latch your shelf on and uh then it's nice and firm like that now i find that it's easier putting it like that and twisting it to get yourself into the right position same on the other side connect your shelf on and again you'll use your rear window cover as the shelf and that will allow you to do a nice big jar like that or you can actually fit three of these big jars on this shelf which is a fair bit of honey but the shelf will actually take that weight okay so there's a few positions you can use if you're using small jars like this then i would recommend that screw there as your shelf bracket position because that will put your jar about there these little jars are great if you're harvesting honey for a wedding or something like that or you've got a whole lot of a lot of school kids that you want to give honey to the other day i was doing a show-and-tell with a flow hive and we harvested 120 of these from one hive and all the kids who are loving just collecting their honey and taking their little jars home [Applause] so um yeah it can be great to have those options of jar sizes okay next uh the inner cover so the inner cover goes right on top this is the the window cover we'll just put this back together and turn that so it holds these two pieces in place now what we've done with the flow hive 2 is we've included a plug for the inner cover here which which gives you options of whether to let the bees go into the roof or not if you let the bees into the roof eventually they'll start building a lot of comb up here into the roof in the roof cavity in in this area here under the roof which can be fun to collect some honeycomb and uh and chop that out and take it to a party but also can be a bit of a mess it depends on what you want to do i prefer um to just put that cap in and that way the bees don't get up into that roof cavity and start building comb there so that simply goes on top cover in place make sure there's no bees on top when you put the lid on you don't want them stuck inside the roof so next need to slide this over the top and just get yourself in position making sure it's um it's sitting down like that now we've included these wing screws most of the time you probably won't have to use them we find even in strong winds these flow have two roofs with more overlap don't tend to blow off however if you're concerned and there is big winds then you can do these wing screws up and that'll actually hold your roof onto the hive so if strong winds come it won't blow the uh won't blow the roof off side windows are on both sides on the flow hive too again make sure that you have screwed this screw in all the way so it's not pushing on the plexiglass and the window is uh fantastic to just get an idea of b numbers and also to check whether the bees are storing nectar or maybe they're in that time of eating nectar and you want to choose that time that is good for harvesting make sure you're also leaving enough honey for your bees wing screws go all the way in like that when you go to sealing your hive you can see this is a sealed box this is unsealed you can decide with western red cedar to leave it perfectly natural and it will over time grey and go quite a beautiful silver grey but it does take a year or so so the time between it's partially going grey it doesn't look as good but then it goes nice and gray alternatively you can you can put a a coating on here some kind of mold resistant um oil or or decking coat is good and will last longer or you can paint it when it comes to the roof best to use an outdoor house paint right on top that does cop a lot of weather and you want to get the paint right into the joints and make sure you're creating a good weather seal on top to keep the rain out any questions put them in the comments below and we'll answer them [Applause] yeah we've got some great questions coming in um ben would like to know when do you boost ventilation okay so it's um it is a bit of a hot topic ventilated or not ventilated and uh for me what i do is we're in a a subtropical climate here so this is our winter i'm outside it is cool today i'd um probably go an extra layer if i was out here for a few hours but um only in probably the coldest times would i shut the ventilation off altogether however if you're in a colder climate than this then as the the the nights get cold in in the late autumn heading to winter then it could be a good idea to shut that um ventilation off just by turning your your cover upside down and this presses against the tray here and limiting the um airflow up under the screen um sarah is asking will the racks the harvesting shelf brackets fit an original classic flow hive okay they do so what we've done actually is is made custom ones for the classics so you'll find them on our website and you can then use them and the reason why they are a little bit different is the finger pattern is a slightly different size now when it comes to using these as your um [Music] frame rest on the side of the hive then you have to be a little bit more careful that the wood dimensions are such that when you use the shelf brackets on the side with a classic you have to be a little bit more delicate or the frame could fall down but in terms of honey harvesting it's just the same and you can wind out your phillips head screws and put the shelf brackets on and it provides a nice shelf it's much much neater and it looks great compared to piling up bricks or things to rest your jazz on siobhan would like to know is it okay to rotate the frames in your brood box or should they go back in the same spot okay so what she's asking there is when you do a brood inspection and you're taking your brood frames out is it okay to move them around and the answer is be careful if you do have to move them around because what can happen is is um the the bees might have built a bit of wavy comb especially if you're doing a lot of naturally drawn comb and if you put frames together that that don't allow the bees to move between them then that'll be where hive beetles can take over it'll take the bees a number of days to chew the um the comb away if you put two bulgy bits together and there's no space for the bees to actually service that area it would take the bees got a few days to chew that away and regain the proper bee space between the frames and that's when the hive beetles could take advantage and start laying a lot of eggs in that area that the bees can't actually police so so best to put them back in the same order unless there's a reason why you're moving them around you might be choosing to get an old dark comb that's been in the hive for a few years and migrate it towards the edge to then let any brood in it hatch and then you might be taking that frame out to or just simply cutting the wax out and putting it back in somewhere in the center to allow some new uh area for the beast to draw a nice fresh comb it's a spring a spring management thing to allow some some fresh space for the bees to drop home and lay eggs in the brood box if you're trying to limit swarming and also just uh rotate out old dark frames great question bindi's asking do you have to use paper or wax in the brood frames or will the bees fill the frame as you have them okay so asking about the naturally drawn comb so i'm just going to lift this box off and we'll get into the the brood box again um my preference is just to let the bees draw it reason being is i got sick of threading all the wire through tightening it up putting in the um the wax foundation you've got to get jumper leads from your car battery and connect it up or have some other other system in order to melt that wax into the frame and then you've got a a frame that has wax and wire in it bees will then build nice and straight but um i find it has some benefits to letting them draw the cone themselves one is they can size the cells perfectly for them and that is said to have health benefits to have the cells just the right size for your bees bees actually will vary their cell size a bit for different reasons so it allows them to do that as well if you um some people prefer to put plastic foundation these frames uh are actually um they can accommodate waxing wire or plastic foundation all you do is don't put in the strip in the top and the plastic foundation sheet can fit inside your wooden frame now i'm not a fan of the plastic foundation sheets i have used them a fair bit over the years and i just find the bees much prefer to either draw it themselves or at least have a wax foundation in in the frame you can get them to use plastic foundation of course and and a lot of beekeepers do use them um and what you need to do usually unless it's a really strong flow is to cover them in wax put them out in the sun let that wax melt onto the plastic foundation and that makes them a lot more inviting for the bees to start drawing out their cells on great question jason's asking if you're going to add a second brood box do you move some of the brood frames from the bottom box up and if so what sort of number okay now that's an interesting one if you're adding a second brood box then um then there's a few things to take into consideration one is if you're using naturally drawn comb then you put that box straight on top what can happen is the bees will start building comb here on the bottom and then it gets really wonky and turns into a big mess so what you want to do is add a second brood box underneath this one so under super ring well it's called if that's what it's called if you're uh if you're using supers and you're putting it underneath in this case it would be um adding a box underneath your brood box a bit like the juare hive and that means the bees can build their comb hanging from here much more likely to do it nice and straight if you're using foundation you can just put it on top and the foundation will keep the bees in line you don't have to worry about that step if you're you could choose to check your board a little bit and move some of the frames from this box in to the box that you would then be putting underneath but um you'd only do that if it's nice and warm and you you can open up the beehive that much so that'll be taking some of the already drawn out frames putting them into the next box and what that'll do is it will keep the bees in line because they'll be building the naturally drawn comb between the frames um so there's a fair bit to that um and but the basics of it is these won't build naturally drawn comb very well if it's above the brood nest so put it underneath using foundation you can put it on top jessica would like to know how do you wax up the flow frames okay so the flow frames don't need wax on them for i almost never put any wax on them um but i live in an area where you get nice nectar flows and and there's plenty of bees in my hives and the bees take to it quite easily now if you're in an area and you don't want to risk it you want to give give yourself the best shot or simply you're finding it's all a bit slow and you're getting impatient and you want the bees to start working on the flow frames then the easiest thing to do is just press some wax into the comb surface so get your hive tool scrape some some wax that's built up on the excluder or underneath here some some burr comb and just press it in you won't damage the flow frames press it in doesn't matter if it's got a bit of honey in it and the bees will then recycle that wax and quite quickly start start reusing that and waxing up the flow frames some people do and i've never done this is to melt a pot of wax and paint all of the cells but that's quite time consuming i find pressing some wax in is a lot quicker and easier and we'll get the bees working on it with the same result um eric's asking how do you inspect the brood after the supra is installed okay so you'll need to take the super off so we've got lots of videos if you're typing brood inspection into our youtube channel or on our facebook page then you will find how to do a brood inspection and the basics of it is you lift the box off so then you've got access to the brood box so you lift that the flow super off and then you can get in here and start doing your brood inspection and looking after the bees making sure pesticide disease aren't taking over your your your uh brood box okay good questions diane's core flute slider is stuck in the baseboard of her classic flow hive how should you get that out okay if if you've got the flow hive classic and you've left the core flute slider in that top position for a long time sometimes what the bees will do is they'll actually connect the mesh to the core flute slider and it can be very hard to to release it so one trick is you can use your your flow key and just slide it up on on the edges and see if you can free it so you just be sliding under you're breaking that wax and propolis that the bees are connecting your core flute slider to your mesh so that's not applicable to this hive it's applicable to the flow hub classic and you just be trying to slide this in and break that mesh to the core flute now it can be can be quite firm and you also might need to um then lever up a little bit just to to get a grip on that core flute and start pulling it out you may need to cut yourself another piece of core flute if it's um too damaged by the time you get it out um with the classic it's best to um when the bees are they get getting busy and and starting to really um produce a lot of a lot of is to move that down to the lower position and leave it in the in the lower position for um so the bees won't connect it to the screen glennis i'd like to know do you need to paint the inside of your flow hive i don't paint the inside of my bee boxes but a lot of bee keepers do a lot of bee keepers will dip their boxes in chemicals to preserve the wood for as long as possible and then use like a um usually the cheapest um paint they can they can get if they're doing it on a commercial scale um some outdoor house paint and they'll coat the whole thing and that does make a box last a long time now if you've got the cedar then it will last a long time anyway and there's no reason to start painting the inside i like to leave it perfectly natural for the bees but it is up to you a lot of beekeepers who are in the industry will tell you to paint the inside the bees will be okay either way so it's up to you rhys is about a month's off putting his super on and is wondering how long after shall he expect the first harvest okay that really depends you know sometimes it gets really quite exciting and and uh standing here behind the um the camera he put his super on and they filled up in in two weeks he harvested and they filled up in two weeks again are harvested and i think they filled up in a week again and um when that happens that's usually in the springtime when you've got a lot of flow in a really healthy colony and you won't expect that all year round and you probably won't expect that most of the time now conversely you can have a situation where it's not a very good season perhaps the weather hasn't been good for the flowers or your colony isn't very strong and if if you don't get that situation where you've got a strong colony and a big nectar flow then it can take a long time for the bees to fill the flow frames and for you to get a honey harvest and sometimes you won't even get a harvest that season it really is like all farming dependent on weather and dependent on the season and dependent on the health of your hive aaron's asking do you have any issues with ants entering the flow hive and what do you recommend okay ants now um there's a few things you can do if you're having ant issues now ants will really only be a cosmetic issue they like to get in behind the window covers and and find any honey they can get they won't actually move into the hive and and bother the bees because the bees will chase them out they can however move into these areas if you've left the caps out so make sure you put them back after harvest make sure you put them both back and that way you won't get ants moving into those areas ant problems for me come and go a lot of the year they're not an issue they don't seem to be there but then you get this you get a wet time in the right time of year and the ants will will really want to come up out of the ground and make nests behind these window covers and in order to limit that there's a few things you can do one is you can use a bit of grease if you've got a flow hive 2 stand like this it's perfect for it you might want to use a um a white grease or vaseline and put it around these stems you wind them out a bit further give yourself plenty of room and that will provide an ant barrier and the ants will crawl up now hit that grease and that'll slow them down another thing some people do is they put trays of of water underneath these feet but then you have to go and top those trays up so it becomes a bit more maintenance than the grease another thing some people do is get some cinnamon powder and throw it behind the covers just as a deterrent and that does work however it does make it look a little bit messy because you've got this brown kind of powder behind the um the cover so you do have to use a fair bit to deter the ants away from behind the covers if you are using an out barrier like a grease on these stems then you want to make sure the foliage isn't touching your hive or the ants will just walk up and onto the hive anyway so there's a few tips there to try let us know how you go with um keeping those ants away sarah's bees have built the wax out on the flow cells but have not filled them up she's had the flow the super on for eight weeks um it sounds like they're doing the right thing yep so that's pretty normal um what your bees have been doing is preparing those cells they're they're coating this all in wax and that if you have a close look they're joining all of these parts together with wax to form nice honeycomb cells and they're starting to then build their wax out further and fill them with nectar eventually so what your bees are waiting for is a nice strong flow to um to then go and fill those frames so you won't get any honey until you've got lots of flowers and lots of bees in your hive and when those two things coincide and it gets quite exciting and you can watch even on a daily basis them feeling themselves it's really exciting when they get to this point here and you can see all the nectar that they're drawing out and sometimes they're um they're just splattering it all around the cells all around the hive and just using it as a drying area and you can see it all or kind of wet in the morning and then consolidated in the evening or by the next morning into into uh into thicker honey as they dewater it and get that nectar below 20 so the honey will store justin's asking why is it controversial for some beekeepers that's a um that's a good question um and there's there's lots of answers to that but i think the main reason it's controversial is is we got a lot of press for the flow hive and when something new comes out and gets a lot of press then um there's a natural reaction against it because people are attached to the way they do it and that's fine whatever way you want to keep bees is great it's important that we're looking after bees and whatever way you want to harvest honey is up to you we simply made this so that we could harvest gently and easily without having to go through that long process that for me was really disturbing for the bees i didn't like that that um long weekend in the shed cutting all the capping off the frames and squashing lots of bees in the process just to to get your honey and what the flow however's allowed you to do is just tap honey out as needed for your family um but people um often are resistant to change there's people fall into a few different baskets some that love new things and love new inventions and others that would rather just keep going the way they um the work and the world needs all different types of people so so um what we've our response to that is hey we've invented this use it if you like but you don't have to it's um a a device to put into any hive you don't have to see it like a flow hive not a flow hive you can even just put a few of these frames into a regular langstroth hive and experiment see if it works for you see if you like it and go from there we've got designs for you to do that if you want to with templates to to cut a window into a regular box to insert a few of these frames and get started with the flow frames another reason it's controversial is that um when we launched we had such an extreme uh launch that all beekeepers in the world almost were were getting um sent so much so many links about the flow hive have you heard of it have you heard of it have you heard of it and um it was just quite tiring for people and there was a natural reaction against that yes i've heard of it go away and um and yeah we just had a groundswell around the world of people interested in our invention so sorry about that to anybody who got posted thousands of of links about our flow hive it was just the world responding to our invention not something we necessarily tried to make happen um so um there's there's other reasons why people find it controversial one is the the plastic there's plastic parts in here that the bees coat with wax and some people don't like to use plastic which is fair enough i'm someone who who really doesn't like the use of one used plastics in the world and thinks we need to stop but i also find it's very useful for lots of different products and it should be used wisely and it should be used for products that last a long time and it should be used only when the plastics are of the highest quality and and not going to be um doing detrimental things now plastic isn't new to beekeeping at all as we're talking about earlier lots of beekeepers like to use plastic foundation there's also fully drawn um plastic comb that's been around for for uh about 25 years or so that some beekeepers use for for storing their honey and what we've done is just introduce the movable parts that allow you to do that really useful thing of turning the key and watching the honey flow straight out of the hive without having to open it so plastic's not new at all but it's one thing that some beekeepers find controversial great question um tom's asking do you have to use a queen excluder so you don't have to use a queen excluder so in the bottom box for those that that is tuning in you've got your bees doing the same thing they've always done and what i like to do is keep it perfectly natural for the bees by providing frames with a comb guide for the bees to draw their natural comb now then what happens is you come along and want to put a honey super on so the queen excluder is designed so that the queen can't fit up through this grid she's a little bit bigger and she won't then get up and start laying eggs in your honey box however some queens won't anyway and you can experiment by not using a queen excluder if you're going to do that monitor that for a little while make sure the queen isn't laying in your flow frames before you harvest if you find she is laying in the flow frames you'll need to you need to brush all the bees back down make sure the queen's in the bottom put the queen excluder back in place and let any brood that was in the flow frames hatch it won't it won't harm the frames at all the bees will then just refill it with honey and you can be back to where you were now um if you find that your queen doesn't lay and it does seem to be very queen specific i've got a hive right outside my door i haven't had a queen excluder in place for years now they've never laid in the flow frames however i've got other hives that they definitely will i have had a hive that was years no queen excluder no problem one day i actually watched them drag the queen out i just happened to be there at that moment when they were dragging the queen out superseding the queen and breeding a new one a month later brewed in the flow frames so that really does show that it's very queen specific if you've got a queen that doesn't lay in the flow frames you can then experiment with not using your queen excluder a good question michael would like to know once you get your hive how do you get bees once you've got your hive then the the next uh step after you assemble it of course is to install your bees now there's um there's quite a few ways to get bees there's um there's four main ways this you can buy a nuke which is probably the easiest way where you get uh five or so frames from a queen breeder in a small box so if you picture it like this you've got your you've got five frames here already with drawn out comb already with a population of bees they've got the brood their queens laying and all you have to do once that arrives you'll often have to go and pick that up from a queen breeder and once you've once you've got that you've transferred it back to um where your hive is situated you then need to get in your bee suit and transfer those frames into your hive look after your bees and they will build up from there and away they go and that's probably the easiest way to get going you can also order a package and bees can come in the mail in many countries and what that basically is is an artificial swarm where a beekeeper has shaken bees off frames into a box for you and sent them in the mail with a mated queen usually in a little queen cage now you shake the bees into your hive again in your bee set put your queen in a little cage with a block of candy at the end and over a few days she will be released into the hive as that candy disappears and the bees will then start from there building the comb you can also take a split now that basically is taking frames from another hive and putting them into yours you can either let them raise a queen if they've got the resources to do so which is eggs or larvae under three days old and they'll raise their own queen most of the time and away they go or you can choose to take a split from another hive without the queen which means you will have to locate her in the hive you're bringing the frames from and make sure you're not taking the queen away from your friend's hive and then you can put a queen in to your new hive with a number of frames you probably want to grab at least three frames from another hive make sure you're putting the rest of the frames in you don't allow space for the bees to go random and build their random comb you can put your mated queen you've ordered from a queen breeder that way you've got known genetics and away they go from there the other way of course is to catch a swarm which can be a really fun way something i really recommend you doing if you get the opportunity to catch us warm we've got plenty of videos showing you how to do it we've got live swarm catches and it can be a really fun thing to do but you really only get storms nearby a lot of other hives so you'll need to um you need to get in the know you can put ads in the paper you can get on on facebook groups and find out when the swarms that you can go and catch now um that's the the four main ways there's another fifth way which is called a bait hive which is basically getting uh set up like this and uh hoping the bees will go wow that's a great home and move in hoping a swarm will come and find your box and move in you can increase the likelihood of that by putting it near other hives usually six to 12 feet off the ground and a few hundred meters away from the existing bee hives and if you want to increase the likelihood even further you can then put different scents in the hive like swarm commander there's one or you can get some lemongrass or you'll put it in a ziploc bag tiny little pin hole drop it in there and that mimics some of the uh the uh queen pheromones and that'll increase the likelihood of a swarm coming to your bait hive so there's five different ways to get started easiest one being the nuke order a nuke from a queen breeder put the frames in a box keep the frames all together put any spare frames on the edge and away they'll go look after your bees once you've filled the box then you can put your queen excluder and then your super on top then you would like to know where do bees enter the hive so the bees enter the hive at the landing board area here so if it was a sunny day we'd be out at the hive and showing you just how that works the bees come in here there's a nice landing board for them they're often carrying almost their whole body weight in nectar and pollen as they come in from foraging and landing here and then crawling into the hive he'd also like to know is would you recommend using a flow hive in a small backyard so absolutely we have a lot of customers in in a lot of countries keeping beehives in urban backyards so so it is a is a growing movement you'll find lots of people keeping flow hives in backyards flow hives do have the added advantages you don't have to pull them apart quite so much because the honey harvesting process is turn the handle and honey comes out rather than pulling the hive apart every time to get your honey so that can be an advantage in a close urban area however you do have to pull your heart apart to inspect your brood and how often you have to do that really depends whether it depends on the pests and diseases in your area and what you might have to manage so you can find out that from your local beekeepers um how often you do actually have to get in to the the brood nest now there is factors to consider when keeping when situating your flow hive and we've got a whole video on that if you want to type that into our flow hive youtube channel but the main one is just making sure that flight path isn't going directly where people are walking whether it be your neighbours or your visitors or or your or your family now reason being is you can get accidental stings just from bees flying into your hair and things like that if you're in this area in front of the hive so point it somewhere where they can set up a nice flight path flying out to find their flowers that isn't going to to bother people and there's a few more things to consider if you look up that's situated in your hive video elston and connie um say we get very hot weather for some for many months of the summer do you suggest ventilating from the top somehow to help the bees out their bees end up hanging outside the hive instead of being inside okay so that is typical to see if you've got a really strong hive and it sounds like you do and you've got hot weather you get the bees hanging out enjoying the evening air at the end of a hot day now what they're doing is they're making space so the ventilation can occur in the hive and also there's enough room to do all the the chores in the hive that need to be done now um i don't suggest top ventilation but some beekeepers do so you can do your research and decide for yourself if you do want top ventilation all you need to do is take that plug out of the top and then chuck up the um the roof with a couple of matchsticks on the inner cover to to allow a little slot for ventilation i find that when i've installed vents on my hives which i have done a lot in the past in the lids then the bees just block it up they don't seem to like having the ventilation in the top and if you do a lot of reading on bee ventilation you'll find some experts saying that the bees like it non-ventilated in the top and they like a um to do their air conditioning in a fashion weather where they air's coming in the entrance or if you've got a a ventilated screen like like this hive has it's coming up providing a nice circular motion down the edge of the hive and out again the bees will actually fan that process and get the air moving in that fashion and that helps with drying out their honey and controlling their environment if you've got an open bottom and an open top it's very hard for the bees to then control the um the humidity and temperature in the hive whereas um if it's open at the bottom they can use their their fanning and their evaporative cooling that they do by collecting water to air condition their hive which is amazing that they can do that but extraordinary little insects the way they can work together to really basically air condition their hive and keep it at a specific temperature of specific humidity which is important for the brood nest so many good questions eric would like to know can you use two brood boxes and then the super okay if you're using two you can certainly use two brood boxes and then a super we did discuss that earlier and a lot of beekeepers in the colder regions where you've got a long cold winter like to do that you get a lot of honey storage in that second brood box as well which gives them something to eat over the winter however if you're going to i would recommend starting with the configuration of brood box and then flow super first get them working the flow frames before adding that extra brood box reason being is you might be waiting a long time and getting you patient and writing to our customer support team otherwise because if they've got a whole other box it'll be quite a long time before they've actually filled all that area and starting to work the flow hive super especially for that first time when they're getting used to the flow frames and wanting to cover it in wax you want to allow a bit less area so they they start to use the flow frames have a good time for a couple more okay time for a couple more questions if you if you've got more beyond this then put them in the comments below and we'll keep answering them in written form rudolph is in south carolina and is wondering when the best time to set up a hive is okay south carolina so depends um a little bit um the best time of year is spring but in in some places that have a a warmer climate like ours you can actually start a hive um almost most of the year round so it depends a little bit um whether you have that climate um if you if you have got the more subtropical climate there's a much longer season for you to start your hive if it if you've got a um cold winter and and then you'll need to um really be a bit more seasonal about it and be starting your hives in in the spring in the early summer and then working on getting them organised for the long winter when it comes when it comes to fall um catherine would like to know how much does the whole unit weigh when there's honey inside okay a hive any beehive is very heavy when it's full of honey honey weighs about three kilograms uh 1.5 or 1.4 kilograms per liter so in a hive like this in your flow super you can have almost 20 kilograms of honey which is heavy and then you've got the um the the rest of the materials of the hive as well adding weight to that so when you go to take your flow sucker off if you're um if you're not um strong or you don't have a good back then get some help to lift it off if it happens to be really full of honey when moving a hive certainly get some help if it's full of honey you'll need to strap that up nice and tight we've got videos showing you how to move a hive and you'll need to really get get one person under each side to lift that hive and move it okay one more question um scott says what is the best method of going from the brood box all alone with a new nuke to adding the flow frames after a new and weak colony has built up over the season should i just add the flow frames and let them consume the honey supplies that they built up or remove the honey frames and add fresh frames to draw out okay so it sounds like you're coming towards the end of your season and you're wondering how to overwinter your hive now there's a few different options here some people like to leave the flow super on over winter and let the bees eat the honey if if you're going to do that then you may need to remove the queen excluder over winter then putting it then you'll need to put it back again making sure the queen's down below by brushing all the bees downstairs when it comes to spring and that will allow the bees to consume that honey um and move up into your flow super without leaving the queen behind over the winter time um so if your bees have been weak and they haven't stored much honey then it could be a good idea now to start feeding them if if um if you don't think they're going to be able to store much honey before the winter comes we've got videos showing you how to make various different types of feeders to feed the bees and you can either choose to feed the bees at the store in your flow frames or to take the the flow super off and and put a uh either a half size box or a another a deep box full of frames for them to store honey for the winter thank you very much for watching so many great questions tune in again next week and we'll have something interesting to show you [Music] you

Channel: Flow Hive

Views: 29,258

Keywords: flowhive, flow hive, beekeeping, honeyflow, bee, honey, honeybee, bees, urban beekeeping, beekeeper, flow honey, savethebees

Id: VdLvvsXNBu4

Length: 68min 59sec (4139 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 07 2019