Easy tap beehive, is this cool or what?

[JDWebb]

My version is foolproof. After the honeycombs are full, a klaxxon siren goes off giving the bees a 5 min warning. After that the walls close in and squish everything inside into extract the honey. Then the walls reopen, the bottom drops out the wax, and the bees are given an 'all clear' to return to the hive and the process starts over.

Who wants to bankroll this? :cross:

I can lend you some of my trained bees if you need, just make sure they don't get rough with the queen, they've been locked up in the coral as punishment for a while.

 

[sablesurfer]

Another novice (3rd yr) beekeeper here.. - I was skeptical too but I can also envision a few ways to go about something like this.

This looks like their method & patent.

WiFi harvesting? Interesting.

 

[sablesurfer]

My first thought on this, and I am NOT a beekeeper, is how do you not drain the entire hive? I would hope they only have these slider plates for part of the comb? It would be way to easy for people to just leave the spigot on and the whole hive starves in winter.

Am I thinking that through correctly?

 

[Brett_Bellmore]

Well, don't most hives have more than one comb? You do obviously have to leave enough honey in the hive to winter over the bees, (Unless you're going to feed them syrup, which is the bee equivalent of living on instant ramen.) and that's beekeeping 101.

 

[CanAusBrewer]

Saw this the other night on Compass on the ABC. They interviewed the Australian inventors and they demonstrated the product. It is indeed real and working

 

[TeeJo]

On another forum, I saw the number floated around of ~$600 for enough hardware to do a single super worth of frames.

Not gonna happen in my lifetime.

Until it is real, working, reliable, and most of all, affordable, it's just a novelty act.

TeeJo

 

[watermelon83]

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbMV9qYIXqM[/ame]

I know nothing about bees, just found the link interesting.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Well, don't most hives have more than one comb? You do obviously have to leave enough honey in the hive to winter over the bees, (Unless you're going to feed them syrup, which is the bee equivalent of living on instant ramen.) and that's beekeeping 101.

See video below for answer. It appears they have thought this through.

On another forum, I saw the number floated around of ~$600 for enough hardware to do a single super worth of frames.

Not gonna happen in my lifetime.

Until it is real, working, reliable, and most of all, affordable, it's just a novelty act.

TeeJo

$600 seem inexpensive to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbMV9qYIXqM

I know nothing about bees, just found the link interesting.

Amazing. And kudos to them.

 

[TeeJo]

$600 will normally buy you enough woodenware and bees to start 2 new complete colonies from scratch.

That is, 4 full depth supers (the boxes), enough frames to fill each of them (normally ten frames per super), foundation, top and bottom boards, all brand new at retail. Way way less than that for the woodenware if you are half handy with a table saw.

I tried out plastic frames with foundation built in this last year. Cost about 25 cents a frame more than buying wooden frames and installing the wax sheet foundation, so an extra $5 per hive. The bees seemed OK with them.

A package of bees (~3 pounds of worker bees, and a young bred queen) is near enough to $200 right now here.

Then you put your $600 box on top of that for the bees to maybe fill.

Buying nucleus hives from local producers, or splitting your own hives and producing your own queens, is far far cheaper too.

But that gives you a reference point as to what $600 is worth in beekeeping.

This is a hippy happiness idea being sold hard (and well, I might add) to the ignorant, many of whom already thought that all you did was walk up to the hive and the happy bees just gave you the honey for the asking.

You can send them money. I won't.

Most of the folks that are mooching for money at least promise the delivery of some goods or services. These guys just want the money. They promise to use it to develop their product so they might eventually sell it.

Hows about this. You all send me money so I can start a business to sell you stuff. What do you get for sending me money? A thank you, if you send enough. But I get your money.

That's what I see here.

TeeJo

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

$600 will normally buy you enough woodenware and bees to start 2 new complete colonies from scratch.

That is, 4 full depth supers (the boxes), enough frames to fill each of them (normally ten frames per super), foundation, top and bottom boards, all brand new at retail. Way way less than that for the woodenware if you are half handy with a table saw.

I tried out plastic frames with foundation built in this last year. Cost about 25 cents a frame more than buying wooden frames and installing the wax sheet foundation, so an extra $5 per hive. The bees seemed OK with them.

A package of bees (~3 pounds of worker bees, and a young bred queen) is near enough to $200 right now here.

Then you put your $600 box on top of that for the bees to maybe fill.

Buying nucleus hives from local producers, or splitting your own hives and producing your own queens, is far far cheaper too.

But that gives you a reference point as to what $600 is worth in beekeeping.

This is a hippy happiness idea being sold hard (and well, I might add) to the ignorant, many of whom already thought that all you did was walk up to the hive and the happy bees just gave you the honey for the asking.

You can send them money. I won't.

Most of the folks that are mooching for money at least promise the delivery of some goods or services. These guys just want the money. They promise to use it to develop their product so they might eventually sell it.

Hows about this. You all send me money so I can start a business to sell you stuff. What do you get for sending me money? A thank you, if you send enough. But I get your money.

That's what I see here.

TeeJo

Wow. Bee up your butt much?

I'm not saying they have figured it out but, it is possible that they have lucked onto a concept that people like you have just been too blind sided to believe is real. And for that, I sincerely hope this thing is legit.

Nope. Not a beekeeper. But, I do know what it takes to "produce" honey. Any adult who doesn't, is really just a dolt and probly oblivious to where half their food comes from.

I did not realize that the $600 was just for the "comb mechanism" alone. I had assumed that the $600 got you the entire hive, minus bees. If that were the case, I would say that $600 is inexpensive for this product if proven.

You go ahead and be the overt skeptic. I for one will root for the underdog.

 

[TeeJo]

Yeah, bee up my butt,sorta. And actual bees in my yard.

Been inundated with folks sending me this stuff each time they finally run across it on their social media.

Frankly, I don't want to hear about it until they get it to market. The campaign now is not that. The campaign now, is "Give us money so we don't have to come up with it out of our own pocket."

Aside from having a generally skeptic's opinion about the usefulness of the product, I have an even lower one of folks begging for money.

My opinion, based upon my actual experiences dealing with keeping bees, is that the sales pitch does not match the likely reality, esp. after the gear has been in the hive long enough to have been cycled at least once. Between having honey crystallizing in between the sections, variable, depending on the source of the nectar, and the bees natural propensity to glue stuff together or cover over any sharp edges or gaps that they cannot fit through, with propolis, also variable, depending on the bees themselves and the available resins, all I see here is a really expensive and hard to clean novelty that won't work after a very short period of time in use.

It looks like a good idea if you don't know any better. Like a lot of well marketed ideas.

TeeJo

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

... all I see here is a really expensive and hard to clean novelty that won't work after a very short period of time in use.

I see this too. However they claim to have researched the physical product.


So, is it the kickstarter campaign you have the bigger issue with? I don't this as begging. And no one is forced to hand over money.

I have contributed to a kickstarter campaign before with BioLite. However, their campaign was a bit more realistic in that they were asking for funding on a new product using proven technology and offering the actual product based on a tier contribution equal to retail pricing.

I do agree that if these guys are not at least offering a unit for the higher end contribution then it is a bit shorthanded.

But, again, you have to admit that kickstarter is an innovative solution however ridiculous it may seem. I can only hope that this flowhive follows the same lead.

 

[TeeJo]

What I see here is some pretty slick marketing of an idea instead of a product. Except that they want the donations, so that they can actually make the idea work. Eventually. Maybe.

Sorry, all, but it smells of snake oil and water carburetor sales tactics.

In the end, I see not much coming from it.

There are inexpensive and practical ways to keep bees, if a person does not wish to deal with Langstroth style equipment, and wishes to have them around. I would say that top bar hives are like to be about the most practical of those, and your extraction equipment need not be more complicated than a 5 gallon bucket and a strainer bag. Even WITH the amount of kumbaya hippie foolishness that is put forth by some of the proponents, the system is simple and inexpensive.

There is a LOT of general levels of ignorance about keeping bees out there. In my opinion, this marketing is simply taking advantage of that.

TeeJo

 

[ss4ivan]

Reminds me of an article on a Philips urban bee hive I saw a couple years ago.

http://www.design.philips.com/phili...gnportfolio/design_futures/urban_beehive.page

 

[Ztup]

I have no plans to keep bees, but if I did, I would probably give this a try. As for the indiegogo campaign, it appears you get everything except the bees for $600. Their delivery date estimate is 12/2015. In my past experience with these things, I would say that will not be met. You will in all likelyhood get your product in the end, but it will be late. Looks really cool. There is some risk in these campaigns, but not as much as people make it out to be.

 

[honeycon]

All the video I have seen simply don't have many bees flying around. For you non beekeeping mazers, a healthy colony of bees in mid-summer has 40,000 to 70,000+ bees in it. The hives shown look to be props. Honey bees sting. They are not all the gentle creatures you may think. Beekeeping is a fun challenge. Extracting the honey is the very least of the challenges. It is actually pretty easy. You can usually extract 60 to 100 pounds per hive. Some places a whole lot more. Draining that much into quart jars? No Way.

 

[honeycon]

I have now seen their website. It contains more information than the original video I watched. Their system has an adaption for larger scale production of honey. Just today several people asked me about the Flow Hive at our beekeepers Association new beekeepers class. I repeated to them that honey production is the least of your worries in keeping honey bees. The system has some apparent merits and I still wish then success. However please do not use this new invention to persuade you into becoming a beekeeper. It will only add to your dismay when your bees are still afflicted with the same issues they have had for some 2 decades in the USA.

 

[paperairplane]

Here's what this thing is for - you pump a bunch of corn syrup into the hives and draw off mass amounts of honey. It's not good for bees or beekeepers.

This 'breaks' the honey comb vertically to allow honey to drain. Then it close back up and the bees are supposed to uncap and refill with honey.

What I see is this being a good way to smash bees, increase robbing behavior and encourage the beekeeper to neglect normal hive maintenance.

A standard hive is about $300. Get a mentor and learn how to keep bees. They are not a toy or a gimmick. Bees are livestock and need care and work.

A real beekeeper is raising bees, the honey is a happy side effect.

 

[sablesurfer]

Supposedly this are ready to ship. Anyone order one? Anyone going to keep us up to date on stuff?

 

[Owly055]

This is pure snake oil........... anybody who's kept bees will instantly see through this scam. It's designed to sucker the ignorant into paying for a product that doesn't work and never can work..... Somebody please buy a copy.......... so we can put this scam to rest.

I don't keep bees these days, but once had 25 producing hives. Bees are easy to deal with if you use common sense. They can be very protective and ill tempered or they can be relaxed and easy going, depending on weather. If you handle them frequently and gently, you can do it without any protective gear on a warm summer day when they are busy bringing in nectar... I've done it many times.......... At other times you had better be suited up!! I once got 42 stings when capturing a swarm.........suited up and wearing coveralls with no clothes underneath due to the high temp...... I forgot about the slots for reaching into your pockets, and was in a position where I could not stop until the job was done......30' up in a tree....... it left me weak and nauseous for an hour or so..... as my girlfriend plucked stingers out of me.............. Needless to say, I didn't make that mistake again!!
Fear is a factor in working with bees......... If you are afraid, you give off pheromones that they can smell.......... That alone is enough to cause problems. I well remember taking a friend with me a couple of times who was deathly afraid of bees.......... He sat in the pickup quite a distance from the hives and got stung, while I opened them up lifting frames out carefully and returning them....... wearing a tee shirt and shorts with bees on my hands and arms and never getting stung. He was afraid........ I wasn't. Jim quit coming with me after the second episode.......... he got stung every time!

H.W.

 

[xandersaml]

They'll never automate home brewing. Picobrew, Braumeister and Brewie are just pipe dreams.

I have no clue about bees, and harvesting honey.
Still, I hope this thing works and revolutionizes honey gathering.