![]() You have no idea that this video will go viral and become so popular with the public. ![]() You and your dad are beekeepers and you’ve spent 10 years working on this invention and you are ready to go live with it, but you don’t want to release too many details about how it works for fear of copycats. You have a family member make a catchy promotional video that shows off your invention. In response to this, I would ask that the reader imagine themselves in the shoes of the inventors for a moment. They complain that it was deliberately misleading. Many blame the original teaser video for attracting so many potential lazy beekeepers. Again, I would like to point out that this is a complaint about the beekeeper and not the Flow Hive. Another point of contention with Flow Hive opponents is that these unmanaged hives will sicken the hives of responsible beekeepers nearby. ![]() Likely the colony will die before it ever fills a honey or Flow super. I also think it is rare that this type of beekeeper will progress far enough with a colony to the point where they will fill a Flow Hive. The Flow Hive does make it easier for them to rob honey without understanding what they are doing, but I find that these kinds of beekeepers will harvest honey when they should not no matter what style hive they use. People who get a hive don’t bother to learn much about what they are doing and never perform inspections, but still may rob honey when they feel like it.Īs someone who has been teaching a high volume of new beekeepers for the past 5 years, I have found that these types of beekeepers existed before the Flow Hive and they will continue to exist afterwards. The most common argument I hear against the Flow Hive is that it creates or promotes “lazy beekeeping” practices. I suspect this colored their opinions and this is one reason I waited over a year to share mine. In nearly all of them the writer’s irritation is clear and they openly complain about the number of inquiries they have had about the hive. Just take a look at the articles that have come out against it. The frustration among beekeepers was paramount and it coalesced into a stubborn hatred of anything Flow Hive. ![]() We were flooded with constant questions and many of those questions were based on misconceptions about what beekeeping involves. So, when the Flow Hive was released and brought with it a boom of new and naive beekeeping hopefuls it’s no wonder it overwhelmed so many of the experienced beekeepers. It takes incredible patience to accept and mentor new beekeepers. For experienced beekeepers, this process is sometimes hard to watch. They make mistakes, they lose hives and then they either learn from it or they quit beekeeping altogether. The new Flow Hive beekeepers are similar to all new beekeepers. The majority of the complaints I have heard about the Flow Hive are not about the invention, but about new beekeepers who might use it. For good or bad, the Flow Hive inspired a wave of new beekeepers and with that comes a lot of ignorance and mistakes. During the past year, I have organized two local beekeeping meetings with presentations by the inventors, participated in their “Meet the Beekeeper” film series and was hired to write several educational articles for the Flow Hive blog. I am not being paid to write this article. ![]() I put them to use in the spring, but had not harvested honey until just last week. In the fall of 2015, the company sent me a complete Flow Hive kit and an additional Flow Super at no cost. I teach hundreds of new beekeepers each year, many of which have Flow Hives. I decided to keep an open mind, mostly for the sake of my current and future students. When the news of the Flow Hive invention first broke, I was a skeptic, like many others. I have been keeping between 20 and 80 hives for the past seven years. Beekeepers are infamous for our diverse and contrasting opinions, but the controversy over the Flow Hive is so extreme that it cannot even be mentioned without sparking a civil war among beekeepers. So, is the Flow Hive what its opponents claim it to be: an evil invention designed to enslave bees for honey? Read on to get my take.īefore I go any further, I want to be up front about my experiences with beekeeping and the Flow Hive because I have noticed many of the articles written on this subject have been written by people who are either new to beekeeping or people who have never used the Flow Hive. The drama surrounding the Flow Hive is unending and riddled with misinformation. ![]()
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