Original Flow Hive vs Chinese Copy Auto-flow (and much more info)

I did a head-to-head real life comparison between the Original Flow Hive and the Chinese version in my bee yard this spring. I found the bees filled 2 Original Australian Flows and 2 Chinese Auto-flows. I found no difference in bee acceptance and ease of use in extracting. From my experience, the Chinese version did the same job as well as the Flow for around 1/5th the cost.

I have, also, included a lot of hard-learned info on using the Flow frames that I hope can save you a lot of time and trouble. I used the old rob and extract method for getting honey for many, many years. What a mess and, here in Texas, it's always scorching hot. Now that I've used flow technology, I'll never go back to that old rob and extract. Whew! What a relief to be done with that.

One argument that I've seen a few times against using the Chinese frames is that they are made with toxic plastic and that we would be poisoned by the honey from them. First, the frames have been boldly advertised as food-safe and BPA-free for years. If they these claims were truly false, they would have been identified as such by both the FDA and the FTC long ago. Second, the idea that Chinese companies would go to the huge expense and trouble to manufacture and ship a food storage item that could be easily discovered as toxic would be really, really hard to believe. The world is literally awash with very cheap food-safe plastic. Third, the bees coat the cells with wax before they store the honey in them. The honey never sits in the plastic, anyway.

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Easy-to-Build portable bee vac:    • Видео  

Here is a video of how to convert a standard deep super to a Flow super:    • Modifying a 10 frame Langstroth Box t...