The Flow Hive 2 Bee Hive unboxing, assembly, and my thoughts. Suggestions... Housing Honey Bees

okay so maybe you've already seen my videos regarding the flow hive and the flow has been improved there is a flow hive 2 and that's what this is in this box that we're opening here and just give you the first-person view of opening it up on what's inside they even want you to send your bee puns to flow hive Tom here's the gradual congratulations letter welcoming you to the flow hive group here is the much needed instruction manual here for your flow hive assembly everything's made in Australia and the wood that we're looking at here is Australian cedar so it's gonna be good-looking trust me let's pull away this paper all the paper that they included is compostable there's some good articles on there and recommend you read them if you have the time it's gonna take some time to put this together we're looking at the roof components here close up of the flow emblem that's nicely cut into it and all these wooden parts are pretty good-looking as far as I'm concerned as you know if you've been following my channel at all I've put together every kind of flow hives that they make and I've had great success with them I really enjoy it here's the Queen excluder that comes with it and of course all the components in the box that you need the flow frames themselves are in a separate box this is a close-up of the Queen excluder looks kind of open and I think this time for this small flow hive - I will be using it and these are the frames for your foundationless honeycomb if you like to do that I have racks of honeycomb in my be shed so it's ready to go I'm not going to use those here and this is the bottom board cover it's aluminum and there is a kind of blue tint plastic protection over it that you can have to peel the way that film this is what it looks like after you peel it away it's actually pretty rigid pretty good and I'm hoping that these openings are too small for bees to go through probably talk about that a little bit later but we definitely don't want bees going through the bottom there and I'll show you why this is a tray that goes in and these are all the components that come packed in the box in the tray they even include sandpaper this time if you an orbital sander and it has little velcro thing on it this is the type of sandpaper that goes on that and there's even a little tool here I'm gonna use my own tools but everything is included if you wanted to just use the tools that are in the box and these are all the seated components everything is fantastic the woodwork here absolutely looks flawless now this is the time before you start to put everything together if you're gonna personalize the box do it now pull these panels out and paint your designs on them I'm gonna do pyrography on this panel and here you go this is my little bee in flight so this is gonna be my brood box at the bottom and I burn this in with a Parag Rafi unit so this is actually engraved into the cedar with heat so I've enjoyed doing that I've probably done six of these on different boxes so far and I'm having a lot of fun personalizing my bee hives with pyrography so that's my be in flight I also did another one later oh yeah don't forget to sign your work and put the date on it that way I'm gonna be able to keep track of all this unit as many years down the line some people buy Heat brands to brand their bee boxes but you can get a pyrography kit a lot cheaper now these are the components for the base and they're all marked there are laser etched numbers and identifying names inside each of these panels so it really takes the guesswork out but don't skip over reading those instructions this is the level that goes into that removable vent on the back and of course you get the flow hive hat with the flow veil and I have these hanging in my garage and they're super convenient to hand out to people when you go to talk about your bees one of the differences for the flow hive to of course is the fact that we have two viewing panels one on each side for that honey super and then we're going to get into the instructions there is a roof alignment block there and again the sandpaper I mentioned and the little tool if you want to see other videos by honey flow calm themselves follow this website to honey flow comm slant assembly and you'll be able to see their guidelines I use exterior wood glue also when I put my components together this stuff holds up really well and it does not disco would work if you're gonna put a finish on the exterior of your beehives I recommend this Minwax indoor/outdoor helmsman spar urethane it's holding up really well I use it on all my pine boxes I personally am NOT going to put that on this flow hive - these are the metal components that are part of that adjustable support system they're really well made they're welded up looking at these weld nuts I'm not of course going to inspect them even though I have a background and non-destructive tests and inspection these things are really well-made it's heavy duty I was anxious to see it also notice that these bottom pads which are a black rubber they tilt in all directions so that you can also adapt to uneven ground as well as height adjustment so that's pretty cool the other thing I liked is the fact that these nuts are really long so I don't think you can get enough honey into a flow hive that would overwhelm those supports are nice and strong and of course these nice brass pull knobs that replace the old wooden ones that we had before that sometimes came out these are gonna do really well and every packet is marked now the roof unlike the previous versions that came out this one has a little notches built into it and you do not have to assemble the roof panels these two come in two pieces on each side and then you kind of hand align them and guests but the alignment grooves are already there so that guess work is gone and they go right on I recommend you glue them and screw them down and then what I do I flip them over and run the glue on the inside - these are the new thumb screws that go in that will hold your roof to your top box so it goes it overlays the inner cover and actually screws into and grips onto your honey super or if you're just using the deep box when you're starting out it'll do that now these are the windows they come with film on both sides of them and one side is tinted green don't forget to pull off the clear one on the other side you might have to fiddle with that a little while this is the interior view of one of the honey supers and of course they took the time to laser market so you don't make any mistakes so that was convenient and interesting to see that they did that you'll notice here I had these red corner clamps they make sure to hold all of my joints at a perfect 90 degree I'm gonna give you links in the video description of the tools that I show and use here I don't know how I ever get along without these aluminum corner blocks I use them for all of my wooden ware and it's called the can-do clamped it is just a different thing this is of wood and you don't have to guess about that 90 degrees and if you're gonna glue things up which I do now I glue it then I put the screws in you don't want that to be out of 90 degrees you really notice when you stack it up and this is of course my honey super I did another pyrography design this bee of course has resources and it's getting nectar and has the pollen on its hind legs so I thought that was appropriate to adorn my super so here it is all together this is not a super there's an access panel on each side we're showing that here and the nice windows on the inside and pretty similar to the previous versions of course this is the eighth frame six frame version eight frame Langstroth six frames of flow frames and again I'm just showing you you match them up six to six seven to seven and so on the guesswork is really gone I guess maybe in the past people had problems matching up the right components now in the past these shims that push your flow frames together we're made out of wood now it looks like it's a clear lucite these are nice and durable and of course won't take on moisture or expand or rod and here it is installed inside they're just shims that go to the sides and push the flow activated frames together and keep them nice and snug so that was an interesting bonus there I'm just showing you here that I clamp it up I use the corner clamps to keep the 90 and I use a bar clamp to draw them and close then I put the screws in I think part clamps you can get just about anywhere and I did use of course a power drill always verify your corners are 90s by putting that 90-degree square in there and they're perfect of course and these are the components that go with the support system so this is the bottom now they've done away with the traditional bottom landing board design and we're gonna show that in a minute again I'm just showing you how I clamped these up and I leave them sat for a couple hours till the glue takes and then I run the screws in and we're good to go and they even mark it like I said before base you know and so on always check double check just like measuring twice cutting once we're not cutting anything here I did not have to shape or modify anything all the parts went together absolutely perfectly these are laser-cut that's why the edges are black and here's that landing board the landing board is on the tilt you do have to hand hold it right up against it there but I lined it up with those end joints and that was pretty nice there's two screws that go in for it these are the metal rails that are inside one will support the tray that slides in and out and here's the back access to that the other supports that aluminum bottom board cover and here's that leveling indicator that's built in and of course the brass knob underneath and this is the vent that we can flip it over and open for more ventilation or we can remove it all together and I'll show you that later too but here's the tray the tray is nice and heavy-duty it's thick material this is where I'm hoping that my hygienic varroa resistant line of bees will be dropping dead and chewed up varroa and I'll pull the tray out of the back and I'll be able to look at that up close so hopefully we get some pretty decent macro video of that later this is showing the fit of that aluminum cover that's inside on the landing board so it should allow debris and as I've said before varroa hopefully will fall through this and it overlays that leading edge of the box really nice I was impressed by the fit the tolerances here are super tight and along the back to went nice and snug up against the back there so if you pull that vent off the back nothing's going to come in there and access your colony through the back there will be no sneak tax from wasps and hornets and things like that so really nice and the landing board matches the width of that base support and it tilts down so a rain water stuff gets shed these are the components I think this support adjustable stand system is optional but it comes with a lot of wood here and there two pieces for each corner and you screw them on put them together at this point those are cosmetic because all the structural support is coming from the metal itself and the threaded components of this are nice and strong I just can't see this being overwhelmed it is plenty stout for even a beehive that's loaded with honey so just showing you an interior view here of how it's connected and how its threaded through there very good job on this and of course these are gonna be sheltered pretty much from the weather we'll see how that goes so now we have it outside and I chose this stone bench that I made as a test thing to level it up and kind of show you how it's going to look now this is the side level and it is marked on the level when it's like that it is in the Tilted back position so that you could describe it extract honey so that's why I'm showing it this way if your hive is tilted front to back that does not impact the way your bees are gonna create comb I'm using the Acorn plastic frames here which I've been getting into over the last couple of years and I love these they're triple dipped with wax and my bees really go after them and draw out the comb right away we recently had a bear tear apart some hives and the wax plastic foundation held up the best of any of them the wooden foundation just gets torn apart so here it is with the bottom box and of course we put in that Queen excluder and you want to make sure and put that on I have demonstrated in past videos that if you don't put that excluder in there your queen can get up in there and will possibly lay eggs and develop brood in your flow frames and we don't want that so here it is now with the flow super on so we've got the support system we've got the brood box and now we've got the honey super with the flow frames installed and this is pretty tidy again system is much like the other flow heights that have come out the flow frames themselves are unchanged so they activate the same the components are interchangeable the adjustment screw here on the back so that you can slide it to the back to make sure that they're nice and snug there to eliminate B space and make sure that they all line up correctly I did not have to turn those screws again the box was pretty accurate here's my customizing on the front where the landing board is and of course should pull honey out from the back and the flow super there has the side panel access now we've got that nice thick inner cover and you have a plug that you can cover that up or you can remove it to allow ventilation for the bees to have access or you can put a feeder up there so again everything is improved materially the thicknesses are nice the fit is flawless the grain of the wood the cedar is fantastic I couldn't imagine better wood than this and keep in mind that you can put a finish on it but it's not required because this is cedar and cedar it's naturally weather resistant so we're gonna see how that goes and then there's that top retaining thumbscrew when you first screw these in they're kind of tight but of course you're cutting threads into that hole that's been pre-drilled and once you've done that a couple of times it's much easier I also recommend that once you find that little indentation on that upper box so you go ahead and drill a little hole to receive that up there so this is it it's all together it's complete and it's ready to go it's ready for bees so and this is what it would look like if you did not have the optional adjustment pace this is the adjustment base I recommend you get it though because now you can put your hive anywhere and see the level there it's right on center Center side-to-side is critical front to back not so critical that when you're going to extract honey it is nice to be able to tilt that just by adjusting the screws and I'm just going to show you how we access it turn the lock pull that panel out and of course his pal doubles now as the shelf for extracting honey so I'm just going to show you how those components work we're not going to actually extract honey because we don't even have bees in this hive yet but as of my posting of this video the bees are already inspecting it and we're good two primes warm season here I put a swarm commander in there and I'm expecting possibly a volunteer swarm to just move into this thing on their own we have lots of bees in the area so here's the sheltie included shelf supports again we're at the back of the hive and we have to remove that upper cover which is how you access it to put the actuator in which is just a stainless steel bar you pull the plug out and you put in your tube for extraction now this is my modified tube I got food grade 90 degree elbows and I've put them together to make my own method for removing the honey and I'm going to show you the tube by itself that comes with each float frame each tubes with each float frame so you have your own normally this would just come out and drip into an open jar I found that by adding the elbow and extending the tubes I can put it through a recap mason jar lid which is what these are I can put a link of course in the video description on that too but I use these on all my flow hives now and the reason I do that is because when I put these on a jar and I open up the pop top on that it is perfectly fit for the tubes that come out of your flow frames and then just put that in like this here and now you don't have to worry about any other bees or wasps or anything else getting into your honey and you can get as much as half a gallon from a frame from a flow frame so you want to ideally put if you're gonna walk away from it put a half gallon jug out there with a recap mason jar lid on it and just let it drain right in and you can go about your business and work on other hives and so on also when you're activating this I only put the bar halfway in and then I let the honey run out you can see other videos that show how this works and then once you see the diameter of that tube not being filled with honey as it's raining out you push it the rest of the way in and drain the rest of the honey and that prevents overflow and we have an early forwarder here that's already coming to inspect this hive again as of this morning I have lots of scouts checking this out so I might just luck out and have a bee colony move in I have lots of hives that are ready to swarm right now and I think they're gonna find the floor hype too to be a pretty favorable environment now you may want to go ahead and start with just your brute box and put the lid and then your cover on that and wait till your bees build up in my case here I'm moving this whole unit as is with the honey super on and I'm gonna put it right in my bee yard and we're gonna see how well the bees go to it and with the queen excluder and of course there's that varroa tray pulled out here so you can see how that works and I'm also showing you how I arrange my kit here this is just a fishing tackle box that I found and I find that it's a great way to organize the tools and stuff that you're gonna use for beekeeping so I of course have those brackets for the flow hive to kept in the top here I have spare parts I have queen cages I have mason jar lids everything that you might need to make sure that you have a one spot if you've ever dealt with swarms you might run around like a chicken with your head cut off getting all your stuff together I have it set up as a grab-and-go and of course I enjoyed customizing the box if you use pyrography and burn the wood even when it ages this is still gonna look good and it's also gonna reduce the chance that somebody's going to steal your hive if it's personalized and has your name all over it you're gonna keep your stuff I hope you enjoyed this presentation about the flow hive too and if you want to look into it there's a link in the description that shows I know people gonna ask what they sell for I rather than tell your prices I think I'm gonna give you the link and then you can look at all the stuff that they offer so have fun keeping bees I hope that your environment is going to support them this year and I hope that you found this video beneficial thanks for watching as always

Channel: Frederick Dunn

Views: 148,128

Rating: 4.9135137 out of 5

Keywords: Beekeeping, Beehive, FlowHive 2, Assembly, Review, Australia, Cedar, 8 frame, 6 frame, flow super, honey, removal, extraction, processing, reCap, Swarm Commander, Pierco, Acorn frames, Wax dipped, how to raise honeybees, Hive Stand, Adjustable, Self leveling, Pyrography, beginner, Innovation, Invention, Exterior Finish, corner clamp, clear, glue, construction, outside wood finish, Apiary, Beeyard, Backyard, HoneyFlow, #myflowhive and #flowhive

Id: UY2HStY1N9o

Length: 19min 41sec (1181 seconds)

Published: Tue May 29 2018