These things look really good.I don`t know that they are a good idea for joe public to get and they may not be a good thing for the bee population. I am not an apiarist at all but do know that all hives have to be registered etc.There are still alot of hands on things that need to be done eg checking for foulbrood,queen activity,swarming etc.if everyone thinks they can buy one chuck it down the backyard and run down once or twice a year with their jar to fill? will this be a good thing or just heaps of disaese ridden neglected hives? What does evryone think?
tweake,
Apr 9, 9:34am
its certainly interesting. not sure how well it would work with some of our sticky honeys or with ones that crystalline very quickly. the cost is a big factor, especially when you have to consider that if you get AFB you will have to burn them. you would have to buy a few of them to make the hive big enough otherwise you run into a few issues. it certainly will not be as easy as their videos make it look.
good thing or not is hard to say. bit of concern around them being the next fad and when the novelty wears off, they become neglected and potential disease problems.
junie2,
Apr 9, 9:42am
I'm not sure if they will actually flow in a cooler climate? Anyway, we don't find looking after one or two standard hives to be that onerous, so can't see us changing over.
griev,
Apr 11, 6:10am
Honey fill flow in our climate
With afb there are certain treatments that don't involve burning and flow hive is plastic so can be treated effectively, however burning the hive is simply the easiest and cost effective way to prevent spreading the disease further
Hopefully the processes in place will put a huge dent in afb,
You have identified the one drawback in flow hive for us in NZ
We must disturb the hive to check for disease so big deal in taking the honey frames off as they already are.
But hopefully one day we might get free of it, but also pigs might fly
skin1235,
Apr 11, 6:31am
obviously I'm not a beekeeper How do the bees know the cell is now empty and they can recycle the wax and refill the cell
+ someone could have posted a link, I had to google, and google doesn't like "flowmaster" and "beehives" together
you can do those methods if your method is approved, but i have yet to hear of anyone who has approval. for any hobbyist the setup to sterilize plastic gear will cost more than the what the rather expensive flow hives are worth.
les6,
Apr 11, 8:25am
I was thinking that all the greenys would rush out and get them,not realising that there are alot of must do things.I suppose the vaaroa mite is the obvious one,if they don`t keep up with that we know what will happen? We all know there are not as many bees around these days and more hives should be better.if they are not looked after they are just a source of infection for others?
tweake,
Apr 11, 10:24am
yes they can be. its actually illegal to abandon beehives. you either look after them or get rid of them. unfortunately to quite a few beginners they are just a box in the garden that is very easy to ignore until one day they are dead. it just gets left there until its in the way.
a few comments on TM auctions about people selling off dead hives who have no idea what it died of and in have removed the evidence. there has been a few caught selling afb hives and have been dealt with by the authorities.
cantabman1,
Apr 11, 7:35pm
A good friend had to destroy his hive this season due to the Varoa mite and foul brood.He has looked at this new system and says it is very expensive to set up.Also , whats to stop the bees stealing the honey and taking it back to the hive.
mm12345,
Apr 11, 9:12pm
Don't kid yourself that disease / AFB risk is made worse due to "hobby" beekeepers neglecting hives. Consider who might be more "financially incentivised" to not destroy hives, most hobby beekeepers belong to clubs who are anal about preventing possible cross-infection, most hobby beekeepers do not shift hives all over the country - they stay in one place. It's very unlikely that it was a hobby beekeeper who illegally imported the queen bee that introduced varroa to NZ. In any case there are (or were) wild bees everywhere, and those colonies are never inspected for disease, and don't have GPS coordinates for their location stored on a government database. Of course most commercial keepers are not rogues, but it only takes one idiot to kill the goose.
tweake,
Apr 12, 6:49am
the old hobbyist vers commercial beekeepers debate.
rumor through the grapevine has been saying some of the big crowds are having AFB issues. that can cause big problems very quickly.
but there is an awful lot of semi commercial crowds starting up. its the fastest growing size of beekeeping. the problem is not being a hobbyist but rather that they are new and don't do things correctly, make mistakes etc. typically their one or two hives don't make a big problem. but thats not the case with semi commercials. they often have big enough size and lack of skill/experience to cause big problems. then there the motive, they are to big to do it for fun, to small to do it as sole income. theres no real incentive for them to do things right.
btw most hobbyist are not club members. i think its about 70% registration rate ie 30% are unregistered. which is a vast improvement from previous years. which is good, shows they understand what the process is about.
tweake,
Feb 6, 8:46pm
sorry thats hive registration not club registration.
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