so happy Friday and welcome everyone to frequently asked questions episode 30
this is Friday August 16th when you start right off with how I won over my
contractor and now he wants to keep bees watch and listen so we're gonna do this
one first and then underneath here's where the bees will be able to drink the
surplus honey that trips down when we're through so I have to make sure that's
open and it is when we pull this cap off up here and this is how we activate it
and I need a tube out of that top drawer I mean or maybe you can pop it up
completely pull one of the drawers is there - bleh yeah give me the - let's
cut the it straight yeah straight one without any elbows on it okay and then
we take this tongue right here goes in the bottom and we seed it really well
stick it over here put the jar right under here and I'm gonna lower my shelf
just a little there we go just enough clearance we're gonna put
two of these in at a time just right through to time take the stress off that
top yoke there and we don't want to put them in all the way we're only gonna do
half to start
there were my cameras in the way there there you go
and now we do is we take the load off by doing the shoulders so we'll move them
both together and then we leave them in place and let the rest catch up now the
honey will start coming out that's right there and there is okay there we go
and how do you flowing out
we've got thunder in the distance and to show you how we're dressed for the bee
yard okay no it's because you know there's you don't have to wear a bee
suit you don't have to smoke them no spinning no extracting knowing capping
no smoker that's scary and this is real time and there's no
bees in it and for those who think that you're doing this without bees in the
front this is the activity in the front
and in real time we've been doing this for not even five minutes it's 85
degrees and this is half a quart jar that's already full
so the contractors were here working on my house after the storm damage we
received a long time ago and he's just wrapping it up and they had to of course
work around my B yard and I tried to explain to them that you can work safely
here the bees aren't bothered they're not coming after you why is that well
because we're in the middle of a nectar flow so goldenrod is coming on
everything is coming on we have of course white clover that's consistently
carried us through and most of this honey that you're looking at is white
clover honey it's very light there is some variance frame-by-frame and the
first frame that we showed the first hive that we showed in this video what's
from the Sask atrocities that we put in as a package this year they have done
extremely well we have four Flo supers on right now and we're putting the rest
on this week because the nectar flow has officially begun and guess what the
video that you're looking at here in the honey that's being taken off was done
last week and these frames are full again so normally if you had traditional
hives you would be adding honey supers on to them so that the bees have room to
expand and store the nectar and of course you hydrate it down and make
honey with the Flo supers you can remove frame by frame the fullest frames as we
demonstrated here note the one to the left there we would not harvest that but
the other frames that are fully wax capped are ready for harvest you don't
have to take them all take two or three and it gives your bees room to put
nectar so that the hive does not become honey bound so in this video I'm just
going to quickly address a bunch of questions that I get routinely I get the
same questions over and over there are some early myths about the Flo hives
that just continually circulate and I get these questions so often that today
I'm just gonna answer a bunch of them really fast for you one of the questions
they get a lot is notice this Flo super it does not have a queen excluder under
it that's because the box directly under this Flo super is a frame of capped
honey so that's on eBridge and the queen
generally will not cross it if you're new I suggest that you have your queen
excluder right under your float super just to make sure nothing gets into it
now I got distracted notice that jar filled all the way to
the top and that's because I was making a cool video of the box off to the left
there are the jar off to the left but it didn't flood over so we're gonna cap it
now you may have noticed in some of my prior videos and this is a question we
get all the time people say if they were taking honey off the back of their hive
the bees would be all over it and they would have a huge mess well the thing is
remember we have a nectar flow going on here so the bees are fat and happy if we
were doing this exact same thing later on the story might be different but for
right now they're flying freely in every direction I did not have to take
anything out of any of the jars so these jars are open but I am going to
show you how I do it if it is after the nectar flow and then the bees are
hunting for resources and are apt to get into your stuff now this is the footer
of the flow hive - and we have the flow hive - six frame in the flow hive -
seven frame and you adjust these feet to level your hive and also to tilt it back
just under three degrees and I'm showing my ranch here to remind me to tell you
that it's a three-quarter inch opening for those bolts that are built into the
legs super convenient I can reach them from behind or I can sit right in front
of the hive and adjust those until it tilts back of course it works best on a
warm day it's in the 80s today you can see these wax caps all the way to the
edges very nice nice and white the cells are full everything is great here and as
I mentioned before you're looking at honey that was capped a little over a
week ago and we drew it off and now they're full again and they're just
getting to the capping stage again so that's eight days sometimes I get
questions from people how many times can I harvest my flow hive every year that
is an impossible question to answer because it depends on where you live
what the resources are and of course as with any agriculture what's the weather
doing if it's pouring rain it's gonna hold you back
and we're getting into the bulk of our today the core Caesar this is the flow
hive here this is the one that has this Haskett razz bees in it how much honey
do you get out of each frame is another question I get you get over a half a
gallon per frame so we have a seven Frank live here but remember the two
outside frames were not full all the way but if you had a six frame you would
pull three gallons each time so in 11 days we are going to get six gallons
from one six frame flow hive and I like the seven frame flow house but the sixes
which are equal to the lengths rot eight box they make it through winter here
notice on this there is no Queen excellent underneath but I am telling
you if you look at that little silver strip across the back there that's where
you would see if your queen excluder is in place and I have that recommend that
you use it now these are the elbows that I use when the bees might get pesky who
might have Yellowjackets that are jumping into that honey you also have
these really oversized forceps that I got off of Amazon I'm gonna put these
down in link below also if you're at all interested in getting a fly of yourself
I'm gonna put a link to that that will save you $50 and earn me $50 towards the
flow hive myself now we're looking at the trough when you pull that button out
the bottom there see the propolis that sealed up there often people look
through that and these transparent windows and they say well it looks like
honey leaked into the bottom of your flow frames now it's propolis and wax
but you want to clear it now there is a little tongue on the tube that you put
in when you're draining off the honey from one of these that is designed to
poke a hole in that and here it is but you can also use your stainless steel
keys that open your flow frames to make sure that that's clear there's also this
little line that you notice that runs the circumference of that end and when
you push it in you want to push it in until it's flush to that line so that is
your depth line and then you're just gonna put that in twisted side to side
and you can see if you look through there that bottom opening becomes a weep
hole so that later when you pull you're to about the bees can drink any remnants
that are still dripping and here comes the honey so yes we had
to tip the box back we know that we get over half a gallon of honey per frame
the frames are all the same size whether you get the six of the seven and the
only difference is of course how many frames you get now why do I use two keys
I get that question a lot I don't like using just one key when you put one key
in and it goes right down the center you see that that plastic bridge there makes
a dramatic arc a little concerned about that
I don't want to stress that plastic over the years how long do they last
well I've got the original and it's still working so if I use two keys and
move them to the outside shoulders here I twist them together and it reduces the
amount of stress on the center of that cross piece so I'm just looking ahead I
just don't want that to break none of them have broken but that doesn't mean
they can't and here we are getting honey three jars at a time and I'm only
opening the frames 1/3 to 1/2 each time now because these are flow
hive tubes they have an aluminum grid in the bottom and they also have catch
trees so how much honey runs down these frames when you're extracting honey from
your flow high well it looked like it was about a quarter of a cup of honey
total so that's when I drained off all the frames from one of them so that was
the max now generally more honey runs off these frames the first time the air
cycled and every subsequent cycle less honey runs off and of course don't
forget to tilt it back now I made my own shelf but you can use these brackets
that come with the flow hive too and they go right under the screws of your
breadbox and it will support the shelf which is actually the cover for the back
of the flow super I don't use that and it's just because I'm using large jars
but if you'll also notice my intermediate medium honey super does not
have screws on it and I can't put those brackets on there you'll notice that
flow hive boxes are a little bit smaller dimensionally then the standard
Langstroth pots if you look at that right hand corner there you'll see that
it's a little set in so we don't have a hundred percent and physical
compatibility the outside dimensions and that's why I
use shop stands with rollers and I just put a shelf on it and I can adjust the
height here's the thing I've already closed the flow frame as if I'm done
with it and I put that little keeper in the top there and while it's closed you
want to leave your jars on and let it drip to the last drop if you take your
jars away too soon that bottom trough will fill up these are mice asket rats
bees brood box on the bottom medium honey super then the flow suit over
there with Winnie the Pooh on it and then there's the flow hive top there the
question comes about now is about venting Fred why don't you put top vents
in your hives anymore well I've decided I don't need them the flow hives are
well vented through the bottom here is a piece of aluminum screen stuck in there
so that I can have an entrance reducer but still vented and it's proven to be
more than enough so I stopped using top vents now here are the 90 degree food
grade elbows that I've used I put two flow tubes in them and I seal them
together with a hundred percent silicone and that lets me take them through a
recap mason jar lid so I'll put a link to that down in the video description as
well what does that do well nothing's gonna get into this jar well the hen is
running off so if you're gonna do this on several hives at once and you're
gonna walk away you're gonna do chores and things like that make sure your jars
big enough half gallon minimum if you're walking away and you can leave that lid
on with the 90 degree elbow with the tube in it and no bugs are gonna get
that at all and then you just come back later
close it off shut the mechanism and collect your honey now this is the
outside frame of the flow hive 2-6 frame and this shows all the wax cappings I
had questions this week about what about the color of the wax capping some of its
clear some of its white if the wax is capped is a wax capping on honey cells
this is very conspicuous sometimes it does look almost translucent sometimes
it does look white if it's really thick on there and these are the wax capping
it's on the outer most frame and this is the six frame flow how-to so it is full
to the hilt so actually we're extracting for the second time on this one today
what happens when you activate the frames do the wax
things getting disturbed no they don't so those who think that the bees are
squinched up every time you operate the flow supers that the bees are on top of
it they get their feet chopped off and everything else this is not true what
about the wax capping since they stay intact don't the bees just think there's
still honey in there and then you've robbed them and then when they go to get
it they don't have any know they know the honey's gone in fact what they do is
they grab the wax caps there and they vibrate it and the vibration returned if
it's dampened they know it's full of honey and if there's a vibration
resonance in there they know it's empty the end cap and they go after it do they
reuse the wax caps well sometimes they do and sometimes they don't they've
uncapped these cells once it been drained off and they've flown away with
the cats sometimes they reconstitute the wax
cappings and reuse portions of them right back on to those Flo super frames
so does it work yes it works as a Kilby's no it doesn't kill bees what
about the little particulates that come out in there aren't those bad no those
are pieces of propolis and wax totally safe to eat I don't worry about them you
can filter it but you don't have to how long will they last well might have
lasted since the beginning one so it's undetermined how long they're gonna last
they absolutely worked I use them I endorse them
thanks for watching and have a fantastic weekend with your bees