How do I set the levels on my Flow Hive?

by Flow Hive 2 min read

Cedar explains how to ensure that your Flow Hive is at the correct slope for harvesting honey.


Video Transcription - from 02:48

The next thing to do is to set your levels up. If you've got our Flow Hive 2, then you'll notice there are levels in the bottom here. So if you have a look at that, you can see the bubbles in the middle, which is pretty good, actually. We can probably lift it up slightly on this side. Here's the leg kit that you can use to adjust the level and get the slope right. So we've got two directions. We've got sideways, which is this level and we've got forwards and back. Now, the reason why the honey harvesting level is important and why we went to the trouble of putting a level in the hive is we need a three-degree slope backwards. Otherwise, a lot of honey will spill out and into the hive. So sometimes you set it up in the beginning, but the earth sinks as the rains come and go, and you'll find even very experienced beekeepers, have the hive at the wrong slope when they go to harvest. So do check that, you do want a backward slope. If you have our Flow Hive Classic, then you might want to get your phone and get the level app on your phone, put it on top and just check that you've got a backward slope of three degrees or so to make sure the honey's gonna come out this way. Sideways level is good too, particularly for drawing natural comb.

So what I'm gonna do is pick up this side a bit and show you how to quickly do that, even if you don't have this spanner. So if you have a look at these leg bolts, they do have a point down here where you can put a spanner on it and turn it to adjust your hive. And you could just do that and it would raise the level of that corner. However, a quick and easy way to raise that side is you just lift up the hive a little bit. Now it's pretty heavy because it's full of honey, but what I'm gonna do is just lean it over. And then that allows me to screw that bolt. There we go. And I can do the same thing on this corner by just spinning it like that, grabbing the very bottom bit and spinning it. And that should have picked up our level and got it just perfect in here. Wow. Close enough. So that's a quick, easy way you can adjust the level of your hive if you don't have the spanner with you. Make sure you do get it right when you're harvesting honey, 



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