![]() ![]() Depending on when the frame was filled and the flowers your bees were exploring at that time of year, its honey might taste totally different. Since the Flow Hive makes it easier to harvest one frame at a time, it also lets you get a taste of the nuances within each frame. With a conventional setup, most beekeepers will also need to combine hive frames during extraction, mixing their honey together to cut down on processing time. One 2017 study out of the University of Queensland proved they're onto something honey from the Flow Hive contained cleaner, fresher, and more floral characteristics than conventional honey.Īnderson suspects that this rich flavor is thanks to the fact that Flow Hive honey doesn't come in contact with any metals during the extraction phase. Through the years, Flow Hive users have reported that their honey tastes more flavorful than any other honey they've tried. "When those two things align, you get an amazing amount of honey production," he notes, saying that it's not uncommon to see hives fill every two weeks during harvest season. Keeping a close eye on your hive and planting plenty of pollinator-friendly flowers in your yard will increase your chance of multiple successful harvests. The health of your colony and the amount of food they have access to will affect how quickly bees can refill the frames with fresh honey. "We were absolutely shocked," adds Paul, remembering that the family anticipated filling two small jars and quickly had to run inside to get more when the honey just kept on flowing.Īs for how often you can harvest your frames, Anderson says it depends on a few factors. "Last year, we got 9 liters out of our first harvest, and we started later in the season, so that was pretty cool," Blythe says. And typically, each frame will contain around 2 to 3 liters of honey. Hardison notes that each county also has its own rules about beekeeping, so you'll need to look into those before setting up any system.Įach Flow Hive contains six to seven frames that you can extract honey from. "Somebody who has had that experience already is just a great resource." When getting started, "Find someone else who keeps bees because you're going to have a ton of questions," advises Mika Hardison, the founder of The Herban Bee and a beekeeper who is familiar with the Flow Hive but chooses to use a conventional setup. If you have bees, you now have 20,000 to 30,000 pets to take responsibility for."Īfter a successful first harvest season, the Mackies are now very involved in their local beekeeping network, which they often turn to for guidance and assistance. Excited by the idea of harvesting their own honey, they realized just how much there was to learn about keeping bees before they could get to that step.Īs Paul put it to mbg, "If you buy a puppy, you want to learn how to keep the puppy alive. This is something that Paul Mackie and his daughter, Blythe, quickly figured out when they purchased their first Flow Hive a year and a half ago. You can sit there with your family filling up jars of honey in a way that wasn't possible before."Ī word of caution to those who are brand-new to beekeeping: It's a commitment-even with the Flow Hive! Anderson is quick to note that his invention requires just as much knowledge to run as a conventional hive. "I think what's happened is it has created a whole new experience for backyard beekeepers. ![]() "The home beekeeping community is amazingly passionate about Flow Hive," says Anderson. The Flow Hive broke crowdfunding records when it first launched in 2015, and it now has 75,000 users in over 130 countries around the world. The result is the Flow Hive, which allows beekeepers to simply twist a handle and watch honey flow directly out, no centrifuge or disassembly required. From there, Anderson and his father, Stuart, set out on a decades-long process to reinvent the beehive to simplify its extraction process. Can't we just tap the honey straight out of the hive and leave the bees be?" Anderson tells mbg on a call from his home in Australia. ![]() ![]() "I sat there one day and went, hang on, there must be a better way. It's a time-consuming process that requires some patience. From there, you sieve and filter your honey and put the frame back where you found it. To get honey out of a conventional beehive, you need to remove one of the hive's frames at a time, brush off the bees, and carry the frame to a device called a centrifuge, which extracts honey from the honeycombs. Cedar Anderson had the idea for the Flow Hive in his 20s, after years of keeping bees and extracting honey the old-fashioned way. ![]()
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