[mdisraeli]

Anything where you can turn a batch job into a constant stream is going to be of major appeal to large scale industrial production. Pretty much a perfect example of a disruptive invention!

Looking for how industrial manufacture of honey works, I found this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctIqmhTo7E4

This method would do away with uncapping 'super' frames and centrifuging them. You could just plumb in the frames, and add control motors to rotate which frame is released.

As others have pointed out, however, there are risks to this method. It does make over-harvest more likely, and could lead to fewer inspections of the bees for parasites and other issues. This is where industrial scale operations actually would cope very well - the entire system turns into chemical engineering, leaving bee keepers to focus on the (productive) welfare of the bees. It could even allow for integrated analysis of the honey, opening up greater control and closer control of harvest levels.

[tehchromic]

It's much more practical for thousands of hives to be gathered by truck and the honey to be processed out of them by automated machinery, than for someone to walk around tapping some expensive contraption sitting on each hive, into mason jars. I don't see how a machine like this could ever be practical for a large scale commercial beekeeper. This device is intended for the backyard keeper, who has time to fiddle with it.

[MikeTV]

They offhandedly mention pneumatic control (look for "beeks" on the indiegogo page). Think milking pipeline, but for honey.

[ghshephard]

Not to get too off topic, but I think the Flow Hive would be more properly categorized as a sustaining innovation, than a disruption. That isn't to underplay its importance - this could be massive in the Honey Industry - it's just not really "Disruptive" in the academic/Clayton Christensen sense.