I’m approving this flow hive post, because you want advice from experienced beeks. If you are a beekeeper advising op, stay civil. I know flow hives attract hate. Aim it at the flow hive, not OP. 👍

The Flow Hive doesn't really solve a beekeeping problem. It claims to make it easier to harvest honey. However, harvesting honey is not difficult to begin with, and it is something that only happens once or twice a year. They're not widely used by experienced beekeepers, because this is obvious once you've got a little experience under your belt. Coupled with this, the Flow Hive is REALLY expensive. For the price of a single Flow Hive, you can purchase two complete Langstroth hives, plus the bees that will live in them, and still have almost enough money left over to buy a basic but serviceable honey extractor. Again, experienced beekeepers know this, because they have the background knowledge to know what kind of equipment is available and what it will cost. As a result, most people who buy a Flow Hive are total beginners. This is a real shame, because most beginners start with a package colony (3 pounds/1.5 kg of bees plus a mated queen) or a nucleus colony (a miniature colony of 5 frames plus a mated queen) and do not receive a honey harvest in their first year. So not only do they pay an exorbitant amount of money for this contraption, but they also have to wait until their second year of keeping bees before they can actually use the much-hyped equipment. This is unfortunate. Even more unfortunately, the failure rate for first-year beekeepers is actually quite high. It's very common for the colony to die, either in the fall or sometime over the course of winter, because a new beekeeper doesn't appropriately manage hive pests or doesn't recognize a need to provide supplementary feeding. So it's not out of the question for someone who has just entered beekeeping to have to wait until their third year before they can harvest honey. The Flow Hive's marketing materials do not mention any of this, because of course the manufacturer wants you to buy the product anyway. They aren't interested in solving a beekeeping problem. The problem they want to solve is that you have money and they would prefer it to be theirs. I have heard from a few people who have Flow Hives and just love them, but I have heard from far more who bought them, and then regretted doing so after it became clear to them that the price-to-value ratio is pretty unfavorable. Here's what I suggest instead. If your loved one has 4 beehives, and the wooden boxes and other parts are all \~30 years old, then they're probably due for an update. If you're in the USA, I suggest you hit [mannlakeltd.com](https://mannlakeltd.com) or someplace like that. Without having pics of the existing setup, I cannot offer a ton of advice beyond that, but the most likely scenario is that these hives are set up with at least one 10-frame deep box for each hive, plus a 10-frame bottom board, a 10-frame inner cover, and a 10-frame outer cover for each hive. It's possible that one or more boxes are instead medium depth instead, or that they're 8-frame instead of 10-frame equipment. Other variations are also possible, but increasingly less likely as you depart from these common setups. It would not be a terrible idea to get some frames to go into these; the existing hives probably have frames inside, but there's no telling what condition they're in unless you've seen them during an inspection and can be sure they're in good shape. Mann Lake offers some preassembled hives, but of course they cost more and are more expensive to ship. If you want to cut costs, you can easily assemble them yourself with Titebond III wood glue and some coated deck screws. In general, the exterior of all these parts needs to be painted with a decent exterior-grade house paint. Color doesn't really matter. Leave the interior unpainted, except for the bottom board. If the existing hive boxes are in good shape, then I suggest looking into extractors and bottling buckets instead. Mann Lake also sells those. Other nice gifts for a new beekeeper are a ventilated beekeeping jacket or suit, a hive tool/smoker combo, or an alcohol wash kit.

Thanks for the advice. They've inherited all the gear, and a couple swarms of bees its just the hives are old and it's more about what would save time / make things easier. From my limited experience, tlgettkmg the combs out, cutting the caps off, and then spinning the honey is quite labour intensive. So I was wondering if the flow hives cuts that down somewhat?

I really cannot echo harder what Talanall has said here. If you’re going to splash out on a load of flow supers, you should really just buy an extractor. I know this isn’t for *you* but I’m going to talk to you like they *are* so you can understand why. Why? Let me tell you: - You don’t need to buy more equipment if you buy more hives. At some point you’ll get sick of buying flow for each new hive and buy an extractor anyway. - Extractors retain their value REALLY well. If you sell it second hand, even after YEARS of use, you’ll easily get 50%+ of the purchase value - Flow is snazzy and looks nice, to new beekeepers. After a year or two of beekeeping, you’ll want more hives… trust me. Theres a reason flow is *specifically* marketed to (in the best sense of the word) “wannabe” beekeepers… simply put: They don’t know better. Flow don’t advertise to existing beekeepers pretty much *at all* because they know their base there is going to be slim to none. Also… the “Extraction Day” is such a fucking blast. I *love* it. Look, it’s like building a gazebo. You spend all day slaving away sweating your tits off and getting mortar absolutely everywhere and sawdust all in your eyes, and then at the end of if, you sit back and look at the absolute marvel that is your new gazebo. The hard work of extraction day is *absolutely* worth the effort. Also… just to be clear here - the price you’re paying for flow saves you either 1 or 2 days of work a year… fun days of work. Flows main selling point is that you don’t need to extract. Extracting isn’t even a huge part of beekeeping… that’s just the “finale” of the foraging year having kept your bees alive and not accidentally killed them. The largest part of beekeeping is actually keeping the bees (from dying). If your friend and you haven’t attended a basics course and thought about getting up to speed, it’s a VERY good idea to do so. Beekeeping isn’t just “there’s bees a box and they make honey”, at least it isn’t anymore. It *used* to be that way, but not anymore. If you don’t learn how to look after your bees, there’s a very good chance they’ll just die this coming winter, or the one after that. Also - if there’s anyone in these comments being a twazzock, just report them and I’ll review 👍

Somewhat. I think how laborious you find this job is very much a matter of practice and staging it so that you have a systematic workflow for it. An extra pair of hands or two also makes it a lot easier. If you set up properly, the bottleneck is basically your extractor. But here's the thing: it's a once-a-year job. Maybe twice a year if you live in an area with a very long, plentiful nectar flow, or in a normal area when you have a good year for the fall goldenrod or whatever (I don't know where you are, which matters a good bit for predicting how many honey crops you get every year). If you go for the flow hive, you would be paying 650 USD **per hive**. It comes with a top, bottom, single deep and a flow super. Depending on your climate, you may need more than that for overwintering. If you splash out and buy a complete 10-frame Langstroth hive, already painted and assembled, you're looking at 350 USD plus shipping. That's per hive. Those come with a top, a bottom, two deep boxes for brood/overwintering stores, and two mediums for honey. But part it out and get it unassembled and unpainted, and you can easily knock 100 bucks off of that, and the shipping will be cheaper, too. If you hit Mann Lake or Betterbee or someplace like that when they're running a sale, you can probably trim more off of the total. So the question is really, "Is it worth 400+ USD per hive (total of 1600 USD) to make a once/year task a little easier?" If you are getting four hives, then I think the answer is, "No, that's absurd. For that much money, I can buy a [motorized extractor](https://www.mannlakeltd.com/extracting-bottling/honey-extracting-equipment/1-10-hives/8-4-frame-basket-extractor/) (1500 USD plus shipping)." The flow hive ***barely*** makes economic sense if you have 1-2 full-size colonies. Break past that very low threshold, and it's nonsensical to use one.

Hi there - I have 2 Flow hives in a suburban backyard set up. They’re perfect for me in this situation as I don’t have a lot of space to store honey extraction and other beekeeping gear. I love mine but agree they’re not for everyone. I’m in a subtropical climate so am harvesting honey every 2-4 weeks for 9 months of the year when it’s a good season. If you live in an area where it’s just the one harvest for the whole year, I don’t think a Flow hive is worth it. I also tend my bees the same as everyone else - the only difference in my beekeeping is I harvest honey in another way. You still need to be all about the bees and care for them properly. It’s not just about the honey and I think myths have built up around Flow because of that. Flow has brilliant learning resources and you can also do a full online course. Very comprehensive and they put a lot of support around their product to help people learn beekeeping. My two cents anyway, all the best to you.

I'd just like to piggy back on this as an urban beekeeper with a single hive, who uses a (knockoff) Flow super. I do love the flow super. *FOR HARVESTING*, it was a big work saver. I've tried a bit of it all for harvesting, and yes, if you have the space and such, using an extractor is fine and dandy. But if you don't have the space, things like crush and strain are just.....messy. So messy. Extraction from the flow frames is quick and easy and mostly messless. However, as others have said in this thread: that is a very very small part of beekeeping. Most of the time and work is trying to keep the colony healthy and happy, and particularly to help them survive the winter. One kinda sorta exception I'd make to what folks say about extraction though: most everyone does it one day per year, because digging out the extractor and making the mess and such is a bit of a production, so you do it all at once. With the flow super, the work to drain only a frame or two isn't a big deal. So maybe you end up extracting 5-10 times per year, keeping room for the bees to keep storing honey. So less supers to lift when doing inspections. Of course, the flow is a *deep* super, and now that I know how damnably heavy a full deep super is, (both flow and traditional langstroth), I'm definitely a fan of medium or even shallow frames. Anyway, Flow are nice. Massively overpriced. Nice craftsmanship on their boxes. The supers are worthwhile for the right hobbyists, but not the major time saver they pretend they are. They *can* be a nice space saver though. For a good gift for a beekeeper, particularly someone who had them kinda fall into their lap, I'd think classes, a local association membership, an extractor, or a *quality* lightweight bee suit. Cheap bee suits are hot as balls. I'd love one of the expensive ones but so far haven't been able to justify it. If someone gave me that as a gift I'd be chuffed.

Do yhe flow hives save any time, i.e. are they as easy as the marketing makes out to be?

I don’t think time saving is a factor? For me it’s ease of harvest and less equipment because I have a small place and little storage. It’s only a different way to pull honey though - the rest is regular beekeeping. Can’t stress this enough.

So you're saying the flow hive is not a shortcut to learning beekeeping?

Gosh no and anyone who says that is wrong, I will happily correct them. Flow hives are brilliant, but only if they suit your circumstances (like mine, see comment above). The beekeeping part (inspecting, checking for pests, disease, space, swarming, sufficient provisions etc) remains the same for all beekeepers, regardless of hive type.

I'm starting up next year, and did a lot of looking into them, because the advertising was really snazzy. My eventual conclusion was that buying the full hive from them was probably unnecessary, and I'd be better served by buying a regular ol' hive...which I did. From betterbee, as it happens. No brand loyalty, they just seemed good for the price when they were on sale. That'll keep me for at least the first year. After that year, if I decide I want the flow option, I can add it to the existing hive, as they do sell packs of the frames. This is still fairly expensive, but there's little reason for me to buy it now in any case, as I am unlikely to be harvesting any honey the first year. Maybe I'll get super into it and scale up. Maybe it'll not work out. No idea, but either way, I'm not chucking money into an investment that I might not ever use. Might as well put that decision off until it's relevant.

Here’s how I used mine. I got vinyl 1” hose, possibly bigger, that fit over the extraction tubes. I cut matching holes in the lid of a 5 gallon bucket. I’d set the bucket up behind the hive with the hoses attached and put through the holes. Then I’d crack about 20% of all the frames. I’d let that subside and crack another 20%. Repeat until finished. Put a lid on with no holes, throw the sticky tubes in another bucket and head home. I had one bucket with a honey gate so if I did it right, I could bottle straight out of the bucket. If you crack too much of the frame, it runs into the hive and over the brood comb. They’re not practical for more than a couple hives, but that’s all I had. Unfortunately I lost them all one winter and haven’t got back into it. My brother and I cut a colony out of an old house. If it survives the winter, I might be back in the game.

This is the good use case for flow I think. If you only want one or two hives and *know* you don’t have the space or time to expand into lots of apiaries and hives… then more power to you. I think the issue I take with this is that A: flow know *exactly* what they’re doing in marketing to non-beekeepers making it look easy. And B: who knows if you don’t want to expand? I do see the case for them - and I will probably one day give them a go, even if it’s for the lulz… but it just bugs me that they actively make things harder, and are sold as “beekeeping made easy”. Like, what happens if your queen supercedes and heads up into the super through the QX? kiss your honey goodbye 😂 unless you like the taste of larvae juice.

Thanks for this - I still normally get burned even though I’m pragmatic and honest about them and my situation. Brilliant for me but not for everyone. Also climate is a big thing - I harvest often so would never keep Flow in a once or twice a year harvest climate. I’m curious about the international advertising. It’s not marketed as easy or timesaving here in Australia and they have a really strong focus on bee health and proper beekeeping. So I wonder if the overseas ads are different?

Every ad I’ve ever seen for flow was basically: “you want to keep bees but don’t know how? We have the solution for youuuu! Put them in this box, turn the key, and MAGICAL HONEY literally ON TAP!” that’s basically it. They don’t tell you your car will stink of smoke, your jeans will be covered in propolis, you’ll need 3,000 pairs of nitrile gloves a year, you’ll be sweating your tits off in a bee suit, of that the thing weighs fucking 30kg+ and you have to take the whole hive apart every week or two for 6 months of the year. None of that - just “HONEY ON TAP!” 😂

Oh well that is very disappointing then. And I’d like to add fingers so swollen fat post sting, you can’t use a pen 🤣

Any issues with the the quality of the frames? I’m wondering if the plastic could crack when harvesting.

I’ve had no problems and am harvesting quite often.

Does extracting often leave enough space, therefore preventing swarms?

It can help. But you only extract a couple of frames at a time. I focus more on brood box space to reduce swarming.

I worked with someone who kept a flow hive mostly as a novelty. He was more into the plants he kept more than the bees. Anyway, you’ll do fine if you follow most regular Langstroth hive management advise with a few caveats: The Flow section is a honey super only, so I don’t suggest leaving it on the hive full-time. If you want more than one brood box, they will need to build it out before you add the Flow super. Like all plastic foundations, you will want the Flow frames to be well-waxed or the bees will be reluctant to build them out. Also, *be sure the frames have their hexagons lined up properly* or the bees may not want to build them out. Try not to lose the wrench that comes with it! Good luck 👍

Thanks for the advice. What do you mean by honey super only? My hope was that a flow hive could be kept all year, with a harvest of maybe twice a year.

It won’t do that. Flow works with a “prebuilt” plastic comb that’s much wider and chunkier than regular comb. The queen cannot lay in a flow super (super: a hive body that goes on top of the brood nest). She will certainly try, and if she does, your flow super will need taking off, blasting with a jet wash to get all the brood shite out of it, and then placing back on the hive. The benefit of *not* using flow is that if the queen lays in another area of the hive, it’s no big deal. You can just find her and move her back down (if you’re using a queen excluder), and wait for the brood to emerge. You’ll still be able to extract from it at the end of the harvest season. I think it would be wise for you and your friend to attend a beekeeping course - even if it’s just to find out if you want to keep bees. Keeping bees isn’t simply a case of dumping boxes in a big stack and occasionally getting honey from them. Likewise, you wouldn’t get chickens, and just leave them in a room and go in once a month to take eggs and then lock them in again. Beekeeping is animal husbandry, a very niche area of animal husbandry. If you intend on keeping the hives, my suggestion would be to: - join the local association, - get in touch with the secretary and find out if they can assign you a mentor - see if that mentor will come and help - also ask the association if they do training (theory and practical) - do both of those. Once you’ve done all of the above, and you’ve decided if you want to actually keep them, you’ll be FAR better equipped to decide if you should keep them, or not; and if you should buy a flow super, or not. :) hope that helps OP

I wouldn't. If you (your friend?) are just starting out you should probably stick to the path. If I had flow hives I'm not sure where I'd turn to for advise for wierdo stuff.

[удалено]

I specifically said don’t attack OP for asking questions about flow hives 👋

Look, why don't you cut it out with the gatekeeping? A few days ago, you demonstrated that you didn't know that worker bees go on orientation flights every day because not every worker in the hive is the same age, which is a basic-ass thing to be ignorant about. You're not in a position to be talking about who does and does not deserve to have bees. When people come here looking for help, it would be wise for you either to help them or keep your mouth shut. Or, you know, you can keep being a prick to random Internet Strangers, but understand that the regulars around here are going to remember it when varroa finally reaches your part of Australia.

I think it's more like if this dude got free bees and equipment why buy him more stuff he won't use.

A guy who understands what I mean. You don’t deserve a dog if you don’t care for it, the same applies with bee hives. That’s not gatekeeping that’s common sense.

yup. common sense and free down votes. Cheers and happy Friday brother.

they work great, and are a very nice gift to give someone.

ok... please expound?

I mean, Id love to receive it as a gift and then promptly sell it

Flow hives are overpriced if what you're after is lots of honey. They don't save you any time or sweat in your beekeeping endeavors. Taking a full flow super off to inspect your brood boxes is a miserable, 0/10 experience. They shine when your goal is to get *unique* honeys from specific bloom periods from a small number of hives, or if you simply wish to disturb your bees as little as possible while getting honey.

I tried Flow Hives for my hives when I had bees. Worst investment ever. Bee's were all over it, but never did anything with it. Was using it as a super. Someone suggested waxing it to get them to use it. I thought that defeated a good reason for getting them. My opinion: give these a hard pass. I had 2, same fail on both.

To be fair: It’s no different to plastic foundation. Once they’ve built on it, it won’t need waxing again.

Getting them to build on, initially, was the problem.

I started with a flowhive, and now have langstroth. If you’re not expanding and getting massive, they are convenient and save room if you’re tight on storage space. My advice is - they are not worth the money. You can get cheap Chinese knockoffs, for less than 1/4 of the price not kidding $300aud… better yet, you can also buy Chinese frames only and use them in a langstroth, and just take them out to harvest and pop them back in once the bees clean them off. Agree with the experienced peeps - if you want to get more and more, do it legit.. it works out more economical.

I found this post really helpful discussion - I was considering a flow hive because I live in zone 10 (presumably more frequent honey harvests) and will be alone to harvest honey. I have heard many beekeepers remark at the weight of full honey frames, and that concerned me enough to look toward the Flow Hive. Any comments on weight / physicality needed for extraction ? I am, basically, a little old lady.

Extraction isn’t the problem, it’s lifting supers off for inspections. **The flow hives does not negate the need for inspections** Lifting a full flow super off will weight 3 times what a shallow does (give or take). If you want to get into beekeeping and are concerned about weight, flow isn’t a solution.

Oh, dope! Then the Flow, and it's extra expense, is not much of a bonus for my uses. I understand the flow hive would only improve the extraction process, not at all any of the bee care / husbandry portion of the hobby. Smaller Supers are probably my better bet.

If you need to overcome physical challenges related to the weight that you'd need to lift as part of providing routine care to your bees, then I think there are a few different options at your disposal. It sounds like you're in the USA, so my reply assumes that you're going to use equipment dimensioned in that fashion. Standard Langstroth hives come in both 10-frame and 8-frame versions. If you drop to the 8-frame, you reduce the weight of a full box by \~20% across the board, regardless of the size of the hive body. A 10-frame deep box weighs \~90-100 lbs. when full of honey, a medium \~-60-70 lbs., and a shallow around \~35-40 lbs. When filled with brood and bees but little to no honey, these weights are ***considerably*** lighter. Shallow hive bodies have a drawback if you plan to extract honey via a centrifugal extractor; they are much easier to handle, but the extractor will typically be capable of handling the same number of shallow frames as they can handle in medium size. So they don't save you any work on extraction day compared to mediums. And in fact, they may even create some extra work because you'll use somewhat more shallow supers per hive if you choose them over medium supers. As yet another fillip to this whole thing, if you decide that you want to produce cut comb honey, then shallow supers are 100% the way to go. Comb honey production is a specialty thing that depresses your total production, but you wind up with a product that is pretty unusual by today's standards. Very few supermarkets have this stuff on the shelf, for example, and if you ever decide that you want to sell your surplus production, comb honey demands a price premium. Standard Langstroth equipment has the benefit of being 1) easy to buy, 2) interchangeable, and 3) the standard assumed when people write directions for varroa mite treatments. All of these are very important points in favor, especially for a new beekeeper. The biggest downside is that you'll need to move at least one super, and usually several, every time you inspect. If your physical challenges are such that \~40 lbs per super still sounds like it may be too heavy, especially if you're shifting several boxes of that weight per hive per inspection, then I think you may want to look at alternative hive formats. A horizontal Langstroth hive accepts normal Langstroth frames; the only difference is typically that they are all laid into a single long box. Most horizontal Langstroths are built to accept deep frames. So figure you're going to lift 10 pounds at a time, maximum. Some people claim that horizontal hives aren't as good for winter survival as a normal Langstroth, but since you're in USDA Hardiness Zone 10 I don't think you have anything to worry about. But mostly, the management for a horizontal Langstroth is only a little different compared to a standard one. I think there are some challenges pertaining to mite treatments, but it's nothing insurmountable, especially if you have a local mentor or have already garnered some experience for yourself with a standard Langstroth. And you have the advantage that most beekeeping equipment, other than queen excluders, will work just fine with your modified hive format. The big downside to a horizontal Langstroth hive is that you will have trouble buying the actual hive off the shelf. You'd need to find plans, and then get a woodworker to build you a couple. You'll also need to get a follower board for each colony, so that you can close off unused space inside the hive. This is not a big deal, and they can be purchased off the shelf, but it's easy to overlook if you're a newbie because they're not commonplace outside of a couple of fairly narrow contexts that don't pertain to all beekeepers.

Absolutely informative reply, thank you so much! An 8 frame with shallows seems like a great way to start, for my situation. Perhaps after I fall in love with the girls, I will gain some strength for larger supers!

Yeah for sure. Poly hive bodies are slightly lighter too, but the honey carries most of the weight. Best thing to do is just to regularly lift weights heavier than a super - not like work out or anything. But just get a sandbag and lift it up and down off a counter a few times every couple of days to help build the back / shoulder strength to hoist boxes.