For the two of you out there who do not know, the Flow Hive is an ingenious invention which was successfully crowd funded  with over $12 million pledged to the project. Furthermore, the technology is Aussie grown, with Cedar Anderson and his small team going through years of careful development in the laid back surrounds of Byron Bay.

I have no problem with the Flow Hive

The Flow Hive is very clever. It makes the process of harvesting honey a lot quicker and more accessible to people from many backgrounds, including those with mobility and strength issues which prevent lifting supers, and working from above a hive. The Flow Hive team themselves seem to preach a “natural-lite” beekeeping style, emphasising the importance of letting bees form their own comb, and limiting the use of pesticides and chemicals inside of the hive. They have also started to release a series of videos which look very promising and (are so far) simple and easy to follow. Overall, I have no real issue with the Flow Hive, or its inventors. Conversely, I find that the Flow Hive has captured the imaginations of the public (internationally) and anything which brings bees and beekeeping into the public eye I find are usually beneficial to the bees.

My problem is with the attitude of new beekeepers

I certainly do not want to be the one to kill any new beekeeper’s enthusiasm, but I feel that I need to conduct a few reality checks to save some heartache and disappointment later down the line. I will briefly write about some of the realities which beekeeping rookies may have overlooked (or ignored) when deciding to start beekeeping with a Flow Hive.

Harvesting honey is only a small percentage of beekeeping

The Flow Hive is a Langstroth-esque hive system, and the only true innovation is the honey harvesting mechanism. It essentially removes the need to physically remove the frames or supers from the hive in order to extract the honey from frames. This process is a very long and difficult process, usually requiring a few pieces of special equipment and plenty of space, and replacing all of that with the turn of a key is outstanding. The problem is that taking honey forms only a small part of the responsibilities of a beekeeper, and the Flow Hive does not make any leaps of bounds to change these other tasks for the better.

The problem of the Farmer

The analogy I would use is that of a farmer. Even if you totally revolutionise how a farmer harvests his crop, and make harvesting a whole field as simple as turning a key, the harsh reality is that if the farmer has not put in the ground work for the rest of the year, there will not be much of a crop to harvest. Ploughing a field, sowing seed at the correct times, irrigation, pest and disease management, feeding or fertilising, disaster mitigation, monitoring local and international markets, the list goes on and on. Beekeepers face parallel problems, even if they are the smallest hobby beekeeper, or the largest commercial apiary, there are multiple responsibilities and problems which require year long attention to ensure that the bees are healthy and productive.

“Key tips for new players”

I have signed up (followed, liked, subscribed, etc) to many Flow Hive communities, and have noticed something across all of them: there are a lot of new beekeepeers buying the Flow. Of course, this could be biased, as people who may be looking to join a “Flow Hive Community” are more likely to be new beekeepers looking for help starting out (in my opinion), but majority of the content posted to these groups gives the impression that there is a lot of fresh blood in the Flow Hive fraternity. This, in isolation, is not a cause for alarm, but if you do not have a full appreciation of what a beekeeper does, the “turn a key for fresh honey” simplicity can easily disappear under the many other jobs an apriarist needs to do (regardless of how many hives they own).

Robbing bees in their first season

The most alarming practice I have seen very quickly spread online is people posting about how they are harvesting honey from bees which (mere weeks ago) were transferred from a nucleus hive or swarm into the Flow. This is completely different to a beekeeper who has added the Flow Hive on top of a well established hive for many reasons, but mainly it has to do with the fact that the colony is well and truly self sufficient and relatively predictable in the eyes of the beekeeper. If you cannot answer the questions “How much honey did your bees need to get through the last Winter?” it is highly inadvisable to take honey from them. The main exception to this rule is if the hive has filled an entire super with honey (in addition to an entire super for their brood), you may get away with robbing honey from a third super. The other exception is that in milder climates, if you have a very keen eye for local flora and can predict when a honey flow will end, you may get away with robbing a hive early in the season. But if you are a budding hobbyist, who cannot (yet) spot these things, every frame of honey you take is an increased risk. Just clarify that I am not referring to those who are taking a couple of teaspoons of honey to share with their family, I am talking about those who are emptying their flow frames seemingly just because they can.

“Why isn’t this a problem in other types of hive?” I hear you ask. This is a good question, with multiple layers of correct answers. My honest, abbreviated answer is that in a traditional Langstroth hive, the difficulty of (the process of) harvesting the honey makes the risk of starving the bees not worth the effort. In the case of the Flow Hive, all you have to do to potentially starve the bees to death is turn a key. I understand that it is highly tempting to want an instant return on your Flow Hive purchase, but the fundamental principles of most beekeeping practices rely on patience and waiting. I would put it to you, the reader, that resisting the urge to take everything from the bees is ultimately what makes you a beekeeper, versus a “honey hunter” of bygone eras.

Pest and disease management

Probably the biggest thing that the Flow Hive doesn’t fix is pest management. Certainly, the creators of the hive have included mesh floors with the capacity to host Small Hive Beetle and Varroa traps, but these have existed in many different forms prior to the Flow’s invention. The biggest thing that shocks new beekeepers who have just laid down a princely sum for their marvel of modern beekeeping is when I tell them that if their hive contracts American Foul Brood, they would likely have to burn all of the components of their hive to ash. Obviously, with the Flow having plastic components, it is not ACTUALLY recommended that you burn the hive, but you would likely have to either very carefully discard the entire hive, or pay for a very complex hive irradiation procedure which (the inventors say) you are only able to do twice before destroying the Flow Hive frames.

That is all just from ONE honeybee disease. I personally have to check small hive beetle traps weekly to monitor their effectiveness, ensure that I have not left too much empty comb in the hive at any one time (to prevent wax moth and Small Hive Beetle growth), monitor the hive and limit burr comb (where it interferes with the traps and functions of the hive), inspect the brood for signs of disease, adjust hive entrance size according to the season, manage local fauna which attempts to interfere with the hive, etc etc. Majority of the times that I have lost a hive, it has been because I have failed to do one or a few of the practices above. Sometimes you can just be unlucky, but in my experience losses due purely to “bad luck” are extremely rare.

General/Routine Hive Inspection

The one thing that the Flow Hive does (which I really like, and isn’t common in other Langstroth systems) is use observation windows in its design. This allows a beekeeper to regularly observe the health of (parts of) a colony without the very invasive and disruptive procedure of fully opening a hive. However, to say that the observation windows totally replaces your obligation to inspect your hive’s brood is (in my humble opinion) misleading. Sometimes, the only way to identify that sometime is not right in your hive is to physically inspect the frames. There are many other systems of beekeeping which do not require internal inspections, but those systems are usually based on different fundamental principles to the Langstroth system, and therefore should not immediately be used to justify inaction by the beekeeper. I have written on the topic of how opening your hive kills its productivity, but ultimately if you want to be able to be able to fully understand the status of your hive (including any potential looming health problems), you will need to fire up the smoker (or equivalent) and get in up to your elbows in bees.

Feeding

I personally do not feed my bees unless they are on the brink of starvation. I am not a commercial beekeeper, and I do not live in a harsh climate, so feeding is usually a last resort for me. However, if you are in an area that requires feeding, it is likely that you will have to spend a lot of time and effort mixing sugar solutions, loading it into devices, and monitoring the effects of the feed on the colony. Again, there are many Langstroth based solutions for feeding your hive, but the Flow Hive doesn’t seem to have any intrinsic function which makes feeding easier.

Splitting and Swarm Management

Swarm management is an important part of being a beekeeper. Even if you are an apiarist who believes in minimal interference with the bees, at some point you will likely have to deal with a swarm which has come from your hive. Neighbours usually do not appreciate having their yards full of bees, and the bees tend to pick the most inconvenient times to swarm, and those who have done nothing to prepare for swarms may find themselves with a complaint lodged against them. There are countless methods to control swarms, including requeening, adding supers, replacing frames, or splitting the hive. If you are a person who believes that the bees know what they are doing, and leave them to swarm, you may have to set up bait hives and/or put your number on a local registry for swarm collection. Keep it in mind, even if you literally do nothing, you hive will eventually swarm, and losing a swarm of roughly half of your bees at the wrong time can be devastating to hive productivity and long term health. The Flow Hive doesn’t really add any features which make swarm management easier than any other hive type. I have had discussions with other beekeepers about whether having supers which must house dedicated honey Flow frames can actually make swarm management slightly more awkward, but only time will truly tell.

Conclusion

Again, I do not write this article to shame anyone, or to try to make beekeeping sound like some impossible feat. The Flow Hive is a very intriguing concept, and I have no doubt that it will make life easier for thousands of people. I am also very limited on my hands on experience with the product, and I do not want you to think my word is gospel when it comes to Flow Hive techniques. What I want everyone to understand is that the Flow Hive is not the silver bullet some people are marketing it as, it only really does ONE thing different; harvesting honey. What I also want people to understand is that bees are not perfect creatures, and storing honey is their insurance policy for when times get tough. Make sure that you are being a responsible landlord by providing a hospitable home, and only taking what the bees can afford to lose.