Flow hive is a cool idea, but its expensive, and a lot of people bought it because they thought it automated beekeeping whilst in reality the majority of the work in keeping a hive is maintenance, inspections, etc.

Wouldn't this reduce maintenance?

And wouldn't it attract more amateurs who might not have kept bees?

(and won't the price come down?)

I did not own hives myself, but I did help my grandfather maintain his. This flow hive reeks of marketing and bullshit.

I do not see how this would be so much more beneficial to bees, you would still have to perform inspection. Harvesting the honey is, IMO, not that disturbing to bees and replacing wax combs with plastic? Yeesh!

Maybe someone more in the know can comment on this, but this just looks very bad to me.