Wendell and I have finally received our Flow-Hive beehive on the last day of December. We had ordered it in March 2015 during the media acclaimed fund raising campaign of a father and son from Byron Bay (Australia) for a revolutionary beehive. We then attended a day-long training at the Illawarra beekeepers association (blog article here).
So this is it! A big box, the first one of two. It contains the base, the brood box, the queen extruder, the super and a roof. The second parcel which should arrive in the coming days contains the famous Flow-hive frames to be placed in the super. These frames are very special: split in two, they allow the honey comb to crack and let the honey flow through a tap. We love the idea.
So this is our “Flow-hive beehive opening”.
I’m not going to lie here… Wendell is the assembly guy in our relationship. I was just looking and taking a few photos to remember the start of this fantastic adventure. He found it easy to read the instructions but declared: “there are some people out there who are going to stuff it up”.
A little while later, a brood box was ready to fill with frames, then a super, ready to welcome the Flow-hive frames.
Lucky Wendell had a little assistant to help pass the screws.
Finally the roof was assembled! You can imagine the smell coming from the freshly cut wood. A delight!
And here it is! All assembled. Can you see the pretty little window on the side? And the landing strip in front of the long door?
The beehive seems very sturdy, quite pretty and well designed.
Now the big question for us is: how do we protect it from our subtropical climate? Should we treat it against parasites? Should we paint it with an organic paint like my parents just did for their beehives?
And of course there is the question of the position in our garden. Where will it be easy to access for the bees but not in the way of our family life? Where will it have enough sun to be warm and dry enough.
To be continued…
NOTE: this post is not sponsored
MORE INFO:
The Illawarra Beekeepers Association Inc’s website
Bee course calendar
Amateur Beekeepers Association of New South Wales
Save our bees Australia
I am so very excited to follow your blogs about the Flow Hive. My very best advice is for you to join a local bee group. Don’t forget to register your hive. As the majority of your bees will be female, be prepared to talk to them and pass on all the gossip to them. There are so many of us traditional beekeepers who seriously hope this new invention will help save the world’s bees. Please take lots of photos or short videos and then add text with your usual stylish prose. Thank you for sharing your Flow Hive with us.
Hi Louisa!
Thank you for your message.
We are so very excited about this whole adventure. We have subscribed to our local beekeeping association and will register our beehive as soon as it is complete, in a few days.
I will document the journey as much as I can :)
hi! thanks for your peacefull hive for the nice creature . hony hive. how i can buye one of them.
i had 2 colony which 1 of them missed during winter . so i wante to know more about your hive (flo) also about the price of that.
Rasht . north of Iran
thank you .
Hi Rasht!
Thanks for your comment. These hives are fantastic. They’re made in Australia. You can order them online from all over the world through their website >> http://www.honeyflow.com/
I would love to visit Iran one day!