GOING WITH THE FLOW: OUR FLOW HIVE STORY
Thinking back, I realize our Flow Hive actually preceded our bees by almost a year. I know it sounds strange to buy a bee hive so far in advance of even thinking about possibly, maybe, potentially keeping bees. But the ingenuity of the design was intriguing. And of course, the crowd-sourced funding video was worthy of Hollywood. We signed up immediately.
A year later, a hive box and six frames arrived embossed with this lovely, commemorative wood burning. (Love wood burning!)
So I hear you thinking... “What took you so long? How come you didn’t start with these fabulous frames last year?” The honest answer is: We we hoped to, wanted to, intended to. We just, it turned out, hadn’t planned to — or I should say hadn’t planned to precisely. When we tried the new Flow Frames in the horizontal Langstroth hives Davey had spent the winter building, they didn’t fit!
Unless, we (I say “we” but you know I mean Davey) wanted to build all new horizontal hives with new dimensions (we didn’t), the only way to use the Flow Frames would be in a stackable Flow Hive Box (like the one above). To perspective rooftop beekeepers, as we were then, stacking vertical hive boxes on a windy roof sounded dangerous. We went with conventional frames.
Fast forward a year. We now stack with aplomb — and a sturdy, wind-resistant restraining strap. In our first year of beekeeping, it didn’t take us long to discover rooftop stacking isn’t so dangerous after all, even if sometimes, it gets exciting.
So a few weeks ago, when swarm hive needed room to grow, we threw on a box with the Flow Frames. (Yes, Davey had to build a special hive box to stack with the StryoBoxes.) As you see, this box holds three Flow Frames (the ones in the middle) bookended by two conventional frames. Yesterday, we decided to see how the bees were doing with their new “Flows”.
And we discovered, not much. No surprise, really. We’d put this box on in the the dearth. But the bees are sealing up the gaps in the Flow frames — an important first step.
So for now we’re curious and optimistic. It’s taken us a while, but it’s good to have these frames in use. Will the bees fill them with honey? Will we get a harvest after the fall flow? Who knows. But it’s been a long time getting here and we’re glad to be on the journey.
Do you have any experience with Flow Frames? Any advice to share? We’d love to hear from you.
