My First Flow Hive™

With some prompting from she who must be obeyed I finally purchased a flow hive, from Flow™ made famous by the enormously successful crowdfunding and the subsequent media, in particular “Australia Story” from the ABC and its sequel see: http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2016/s4534002.htm and http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-12/australian-story-flow-hive-family-talks-about-life-now/7828436 - accessed 10 December 2016. The story shows how Cedar Anderson and his father Stuart invented a new way to rob hives of honey, by essentially splitting the honey cell vertically – tearing each apart, allowing the honey to flow out into a trough and thus out of the hive to be collected.

Anyway – back to the story – sometime in October 2016 I purchased a flow hive, or rather a 7 Flow™ frames, and a super made of pine. I didn’t go for the cedar as I prefer to paint the hives and anyway I did not get it to show it off. The order was apparently delayed, but in any event it was as fast as most other on-line orders and within a week I had two boxes; a box of 7 frames (enough for a 10 frame Langstroth super) and a flat pack super. The on-line videos are very useful, and I would encourage anyone starting up a Flow Hive™ to look at these. The manual was good, except it failed to point out the sides have a back and front!

Under coat!

The first thing I did was undercoat and paint all pieces of wood – yes I do paint the inside of hives and I still have Pinus radiata supers that are >20 years old. If one looks after them, they last for a long time. The problem with painting the Flow Hive super was it was cut out with a laser cutter – which gives superior tolerance – the pieces were exact! The problem was there was not enough room for three coats of paint (1 primer, and 2 top coats), so I had to resize the dovetailed joints and sand the window covers a little. This was not much trouble – but better to have been done before painting.

The assembly was easy, except I did not notice the sides have a front and back. Because there is a window on the back of the super, to allow access to the flow frames, the left and right side at the bottom of the sides are tied together with a thin aluminium slat that sits in a recess – I put the back on the wrong end, so the recess was in the wrong place. But I noticed straightway and managed to pull the super apart (I had glued it) and reassemble it correctly. The company provides screws, which are adequate for the job – I add glue to stop water getting into the joints.

Side window to allow observation of the frames

I then placed the super on top of one of my hives – however it is perhaps not the strongest so think I will move it to another, as the bees have not really moved into the box (over 4 weeks). Plus this has been a very wet year in Adelaide and bee hives are perhaps not as strong as they could be. Using a queen excluder may also be a problem, something I usually don’t do – but recommended for the flow hive. For hobbyists, having a few brood in the centre frames is not really been a problem – just avoid these frames. So next week I will spin out the upper super of another triple and replace the super with the flow hive super – this hive is much stronger and much busier.

Nearly ready to go

Before putting it together I took a Flow Frame™ to work for a ‘show and tell’ which was interesting. I’m a pharmacologist/environ. toxicologist in a large health agency so it was surprising to find a couple of men who kept bees for a hobby along with someone else whose father had 40 hives plus one of my own staff also keeps bees. Everyone I talked to was genuinely interested and most had seen one of the media broadcasts – Australian Story mostly.

Is it all worthwhile? The hive is expensive – the transport was also rather expensive with the lot costing $700 delivered. I could have made the super – the company has plans on the Web, and I could have used a flat-pack super from a local supplier which costs about $30 – but putting in the windows would not have been as neat. Seven frames delivered cost $613 (December 2016 prices), so for the extra expense, unless you have the wood already, just buy the super as well.

For a beginner – it would save the cost of knives, boiler (if using a steam knife) and extractor – some of which can be found on-line but overall would cost more than the $700 I paid (note if starting from scratch you need to have a bottom box for the brood, bottom board and lid as well). Overall the Flow™ hive may be a very good place to start. You don’t need to learn how to remove frames, uncap and spin out the honey. So for a backyard beginner this hive is worth considering. Don’t forget that apiarists need to be registered in their respective state or territory.

Does it work? ... Watch this space!

Frames in box with a few bees

Back - final hive

Houseboat trip on the Murray River

Have you ever taken a house boat on the Murray River? My family and I have a number of times, the most recent, a couple of weeks ago (June 2016). It is a very relaxing and enjoyable way to be in the ‘bush’ but have the comforts of home. (No, I am not a travel agent nor affiliated with any house boat owners). I would highly recommend it to anyone.

Relaxed! Campfire and boat.

We went with three other couples – meeting at the Renmark Big Macs (not a food outlet I would normally publically announce I frequent – but it’s very easy to find in Renmark and convenient for groups to meet.) After a coffee, drafting a matrix of meals and shopping list, we headed for the local shopping mall and purchased food and drinks for five days, including ice. Individual couples either brought extra’s or purchased these themselves such as wine or nibbles. In regard meals each couple provided their own breakfast and lunch. However, in reality often we have communal breakfasts, if say, we all decide to have eggs and bacon, and lunch turns into a communal event. In our case one couple cooked egg pies for lunch on one of the days. On other days my wife and I made sandwiches while others made salads etc. Each couple cooked an even meal and on the last day we ate left-overs, which, because my brother was with us, who is an excellent cook, were turned into a lovely meal.

Cliffs along the Murray River

We headed north (yes the Murray goes north from Renmark, not east) and camped at various spots on the River. Being winter we could build camp fires at each night-stop and spend the evenings sitting around the fire (it did rain on one evening), which is very beautiful – with no traffic, flies, mosquitoes or any other noise, other than that of the bush. We could read, talk, play board games and in some cases browse the internet (Optus does not work, but Telstra and Videophone did – but who wants to ‘go bush’ and be connected?)

Some say it is expensive – it can be, but a few tips;

1. Choose off-peak season to travel. This is always cheaper – indeed more than half the peak season price,.
2. Discount promotions are often offered for low season – we purchased our trip nearly 18 months ago. The rules were that we could not hire the boat during peak season. Not having children at school this was not an issue, and June was convenient for everyone.
3. Bigger boats cost more, but you can take more people. We usually have a total of 4 – 6 couples which shares the expense. Our June trip cost about approximately $2400 including boat hire, diesel (for power), petrol and food shared amongst four couples, meaning we paid $300 each for five days. Other expenses included wine, extra nibbles and other alcoholic drinks that couples brought along to share, and of course the fuel cost from home to Renmark. 
4. Buy your ice and food at the local supermarket and bring to the boat. Some boat hirers will offer to ice and meat (and more) but these can have a large premium attached.
5. Don’t travel fast: most boats have a maximum throttle control to prevent overzealous high powered engine use, however, like the car, fuel use increases exponentially with speed. Ask the hire company what the most economic speed is. For our boat it was about 2100 RPM. And in any case why are you in a hurry?
6. Diesel is used usually to make electricity, which means if you are running a spa (yes, some house boats have spas) or an air conditioner (needed in summer) you will burn more fuel. This was our first winter trip, so we neither used the air conditioner (heating was by gas) nor did we have or want a spa.

Currently the Murray is flowing very slowly, and there are various obstacles in travelling too far – we went as far up stream as we could – a sand bar prevented any further travel. However, it was far enough for a five night trip and in any case, there were very few people on the river – so escaping into solitude was easy.

We always had pelicans visit.

Driving a house boat requires an unrestricted car driver’s licence, although in our case four of us had a boat licence. The boats are not too hard to drive, but takes a bit of getting use to making decisions sometime before they occur, because it takes a while for the boat to respond. Wind is probably the main hazard especially when mooring alongside the bank with trees. Some people have managed to severely damage their boat by running into trees while mooring – forgetting how tall the boat is and the fact over hanging trees can overhang the boat. (Being drunk is probably the most dangerous thing you can do – this is, for obvious reasons, illegal, and for this reason boat operators are regularly breathalysed by police). It is also tricky in high flows – knowing when to apply reverse, left or right power takes a bit of practice in order to moor square on, at the chosen spot, rather than some sand bar of up against a tree! In our case due to low flow, watching the depth gauge was paramount while moving.

All-in-all the trip was very relaxing and enjoyable. The boat was full of mod-cons and the beds were very comfortable: ours had a large fridge & freezer, gas range, oven (electric rather than gas, for some unknown reason), dish washer, two bathrooms/toilets, and two large out door table/chair sets – which we used around the camp fire, and a large living space. In the past we have taken kayaks, a boat (towed along beside), and children (who camped out on the banks in swags). What more could you want?