(soft peaceful instrumental music)
Hi my name is Hilary
and my Flow Hive is in San Diego, California.
Yeah, when I started keeping bees,
I started noticing what's blooming, what are the bees on,
what are these other bees, these native bees
and then I started learning about
all the different flower names,
all the different native bee names,
I'm paying attention to the climate a lot more,
noticing the weather patterns a lot more,
I'm just way more in tune with everything that's going on
because I'm thinking about my bees all the time.
There's two kinds of people,
there's the people who just jump into it,
without understanding anything
and then they have to retroactively figure out
what they're doing
and then there's the people who go overboard researching
and take forever to get their bees and are very,
like worried parents almost.
It's like you want to be somewhere in the middle of that.
You don't want to wait forever to get your bees
'cause that's when you start learning,
but you do need to do a little research beforehand.
Well, I do think people need to know to listen to their bees
'cause I think a lot of the books kind of
gear you in a different direction
and they kind of put everything in
the beekeeper's perspective, they don't teach people
to think from the bees' perspective as much.
And also, just take everything that you read and hear
with a grain of salt because in the end,
it's really going to be your own journey.
You're going to find something that works for you,
you're going to fail, you're going to come back,
so you just have a good attitude
and try to learn from your mistakes.
Course, you want to try and do research,
you can get a mentor, that's great,
but you don't have to pick up a book
and follow everything that person says
or pick one mentor and listen to everything they say.
You really have this intuition when you're beekeeping
that you develop as you get further into it
and I think people don't listen to those voices
and that's when they do things wrong in their hives
and some people maybe don't hear that voice.
The more you learn about bees and how they live,
the more you can kind of foster hearing that voice.
The reaction that the Flow Hive got,
and I have to say I was among the people in the beginning
who thought this is like a hoax, what is this,
so actually seeing it in person and seeing it work,
and then you realise it's actually just
a really great invention and that it could be very useful
for harvesting the honey and so,
I think a lot of the sentiment that got attached
to the Flow Hive was really more about
the wave of new beekeepers that it brought on
and that's a source of frustration
for experienced beekeepers.
The people that I've met have been really engaged
and wanting to learn and they got Flow Hives
and they went out and got other kinds of hives
and it's sort of silly that a lot of the reaction to it,
I think it was more about the people
and less about the actual hive design.
Honey harvesting is such a pain
and it's a tremendous amount of work
and it makes a huge mess, it's very disruptive to the bees,
it's just, it's kind of a disaster, no matter what you do,
no matter how hard you plan, you just end up with,
you know, honey everywhere.
So, just actually just have it pour out
the side of the hive into a jar and skip all of that mess,
is amazing.
There's always just like adventure,
you never know what's going to happen,
I love that about what I do, that every day is an adventure,
the bees always surprise you.
You have to think on your feet,
you're doing problem solving,
you get to play in the dirt and be dirty and be sweaty
and not care how you look so much, and it's fun.
It takes a lot of weight off of life,
and if you go back to that happy place
of playing in the dirt with a bunch of insects,
and I think, not a lot of people get to do that.
People forget how that feels and even if you're a hobbyist
and you're only doing this once a month
for a couple of hours, it connects you,
it takes you back to that place,
it connects you more to the environment
and life in general and I think it makes people happy.
It's like a therapy.
I mean, if you ever listen to surfers talk about
catching waves and they're very, like, they go into the zen,
it's like a meditation for them,
that's like how I feel with bees.
I mean like all of us sitting down there right now,
playing with bees for an hour, with that swarm
and it's just like, that's like the most magical thing.
Here's the flow hive.
Lots of bees, lots of honey.
And we're just gonna take some for ourselves, not too much.
We're gonna leave them with some
but we're gonna take some.
And here's our setup.
We got our tube hooked up to just one of the flow frames
and it's all sealed and it's going into this bucket.
So, Janet is gonna turn the key.
Janet "Here we go"
And this will release the honey down the centre of the frame.
There it goes.
Our honey's already flowing.
So, it's draining really fast, it's a really warm day,
so we did this at the perfect time I think.
These are the awesome ladies that made the honey.