People are extremely excited about the new ‘Flow Hive’ beehive design, if the vast overfunding of the project’s IndieGoGo campaign is any indication. As of late February, the campaign has already raised 2,884% of its goal with over 30 days to go. Check out the details of this cool hive and you’ll understand why: it makes harvesting honey from beehives easier than ever.
Its creators call it “the most significant innovation in beekeeping since 1852,” with a design that enables beekeepers to harvest honey without opening the hive and disturbing the bees. You just turn on the tap and watch fresh, pure honey flow into your jars.
Normally, harvesting honey can be a bit of a challenge – you have to protect yourself from stings, sedate the bees, crack open the hive, lift heavy boxes, pull out the frames, brush the bees off the combs and transport the frames to a processing shed before you even get to the beeswax. Then there are the various processes to purify the honey before putting the frames back in.
With the Flow Hive, prefabricated combs drain honey directly to nozzles that open to the exterior of the hive. The end frames are clear so you can see your hive at a glance and watch them in action, and it’s easy to tell when your combs are full. You could potentially get 7 pounds of honey from a single frame, or 45 pounds per box. Gravity works to purify the honey so you don’t have to.

