Welcome to the garden of our bees.
I am Julia, Julia Poggenburg,
and we are here in the beautiful Düsseldorf.
My name is Markus Dawidowski, I live in Düsseldorf.
I've only been a beekeeper for two months,
so a completely new, new beginner.
I saw the Flow Hive
in the Kickstarter[Indiegogo]campaign. and back then I thought,
Yeah, that's exactly what I want.
The system is simple so unique.
One has just less intervention to the colony, to the bees.
and it doesn't bother them as much.
One collects honey much easier, you need much less equipment,
so it simply appealed to me, very much.
It's just exactly how
I imagine environmentally conscious beekeeping and honey extraction.
We got the Flow Hive,
I think it was April or March,
we had already ordered it, because we were taking a parallel course
and then, at home,
we painted it nicely and added some more branding onto it,
to show that this is our Hive.
And we were, of course excited when we actually received
a complete colony as a gift
from the club that we have joined.
And all of a sudden this large amount of bees was inside the Flow Hive
and we saw once how well the bees have adopted that.
because I was a little bit skeptical, I was thinking,
"is it's actually going to work out?"
and they closed the gaps
and they just put their honey into it
and we were able to complete the first harvest two and a half weeks ago!
and the honey that came out,
I could literally see it through the hole,
how it dripped down,
it tastes really good, its was really tasty honey!
Yes, yes!!!
and look at this,
Yes, yes, the first honey!!!
Running?
it runs, that's awesome!
Every time I come here, it's a new moment,
which is very fascinating for me,
I keep seeing things. new stuff about the bees,
I'm learning something new about the bees.
and what the bees can achieve
or how they deal with nature and it's just wonderful.
Every time I come here, there is something new and fantastic,
which I can experience and see.
I never stop learning, always discovering something new.
Whoever stops learning only has death coming up
so it's just really important.
Yes, we have a really awesome beekeeping mentor,
who is there for us, who we can always ask questions
and who is really conveniently standing by our side,
and when we say
- Hey we want to go to the bees
and we have a question could you please somehow
help and support us, can you come join us,
we call and he says, - Of course I will, when?
And it's such a big support for us, a real relief,
because suddenly getting an entire colony
and being responsible for it,
that's when we were skeptical and thought,
"OK. How are we going to do that?"
and because we simply knew that our beekeeping mentor was always there for us,
we have always someone at hand or someone else from
the club, this reassured us and just helped us relax.
because we knew,
OK, we don't have to do everything alone.
For anyone who thinks about starting to keep bees,
it's the easiest, just do it, many have far too many concerns,
that it would be too much work, or
that you'd be afraid, it's just not like that
just look for a club, and join the club,
and then you just do it
and even if you find out for yourself,
through the course or whatever, that this isn't something for you,
then just try supporting any local beekeeper.