Bee Keeper checks on Bees in Flow Hive after long winter

This was the long awaited moment of opening the Flow Hive after a long winter. This was year one of owning bees and using a non conventional bee hive called a Flow Hive for this Bee Keeper. After hearing about multiple losses of Bees across Canada after winter, it was difficult to know what to expect. By the look of things, these bees have survived the winter well and already appear to be quite active.
The Flow Hive system was invented in Australia by Cedar Anderson and his father Stuart Anderson. These Flow Hives are very unique in that you can very easily extract honey through out the year.
Most beekeepers harvest honey 2-3 times per year/season. Honey is normally harvested between mid June until mid September. How often you harvest depends on your local climate and plant life. Poor weather conditions, disease and pests infiltrating your hives will also affect your harvesting schedule.
It is designed to make Bee keeping easy and although you still need to look after your bees, as the brood box stays the same and when it comes to taking care of bees, there’s so much to learn. Bees are fascinating creatures, and we rely on them for much of our food production via pollination of gardens and crops.
This world-first Flow Frame design has revolutionized the honey-extraction process. There is an artificial foundation from BPA- and BPS-free food grade plastic, manufactured in Australia, on which the bees build their comb. Plastic foundations in beehives is nothing new, but in a Flow Frame, the cells are almost complete. The bees simply fill the honey cells and cap them off. In order to extract some honey you insert a Flow Key and split the honey cells, gravity does the rest of the work, and the honey simply flows into the trough, through the tube and right into your jar.
You will also know when the honey is ready, thanks to the Flow Frames’ unique clear end-frame view and side observation window which lets you see inside, without taking off the lid and bothering the bees. You also don't have to worry about the bees getting squashed. It has been designed so that no bees get harmed when the mechanism is activated. There are little gaps so the bees can hang out safely while the honey flows out.