maximizing honey

[cheezer32]

Wasn't quite sure but I think this is the right forum to post this.

Since I hear of so many people talk about maximizing hive populations before the honey flows I had an idea and wanted your guys input. It would be a lot more work but I think it may help.

For the commercial honey producers they know the general time the major nectar flows are, and based on a fact (I’ve heard at least) the one big hive will produce more honey than 2 small hives. Why don’t right before the flow you take 2 hives (say 2 deeps each) pull a deep off one box, only leave 2 frames worth of bees so in numbers it’s the size of a nuc but in brood/stores it has tons of room for a quick expansion. Pull a deep off of hive #2 (remove bees and store it for later) and combine 90% of hive #1 by just adding the 2 hive body on top, and throw two or 3 super right on top. You now have a hive twice the normal population at the start of a flow, while still have 2 queens producing bees to keep overall yard numbers up so that when the flow is over you can go back to 2, 2 deep hives?

Any thoughts? I know maybe to much work and ALOT of flaws I don’t see or understand having not been able to work with any commercial beekeeping so just my mind wondering. Thanks for any comments/additions that may make it better. Or explain why it wouldn’t/won't work.

[Tom G. Laury]

Because when the cherries all line up on your machine, you can't keep up with it. They fill the boxes faster than you can put them on. You become maximized!:)

[RayMarler]

10 days before the main honeyflow, take a two box stong hive and move the queen with a couple drawn frames in the bottom box with the rest of frames nectar or honey. Shake the bees off the rest of the frames into the box. give the shaken frames to another weaker hive in the yard. stack up supers on the box that has the shaken bees in it. This way, you'll have a box with actively laying queen with room to lay (the two frames, one needs to have open larva) with a very large work force with no brood to feed. They'll move the honey up out of box to give queen room to lay and start drawing wax out above and storing honey. when the nectar flow hits, should have little brood with large work force for lots of honey!

process is described by G. M. Doolittle in his book, A Year's Work In An Out-Apiary. Available at www.wicwas.com

[rainesridgefarm]

When the field force flies back to the old location you loose the workers you need for a crop. 10 days is not enough time to get them going really strong. Your are better off just feeding pollen sub and syrup to get them to build up. Most Commercial operations with 500 plus hives do not have the time to do this. At least i do not.

I have done something like this in one yard for comb honey but I combined 20 hives on pallets to 10 hives so the field force had no were else to go but next door.

[tecumseh]

maximizing honey production is EXTREMELY simple (as are almost all single objective criterion) ... just leave the hive no winter stores and the goal is accomplished.

[The Honey Householder]

Take all the honey thats what I say!!! I only worked 650 hives last year and produced a 165 lb APH (avg. per. hive). Sold it all wholesale for an avg. of $1.55 per lb.
DON'T LET THE BEES EAT ALL THE PROFIT!!!!

o/o Ron Householder

[terri lynn]

How do you keep the bees from starving if you take so much from their winter stores?
Terri

[Countryboy]

How do you keep the bees from starving if you take so much from their winter stores?
Terri

You don't. When maximizing honey production is your sole objective, you don't bother yourself with little details like winter survival.

Some beekeepers have been known to harvest all the honey in a hive, leaving nothing for the bees. The value of the extra honey is worth more now than the price of a package of bees next spring.

[terri lynn]

Ohhhh. I've gotten too attached to my bees. I fed them when they couldn't find forage this winter. Guess I won't be maximizing! If only my bees knew how spoiled they are!
Terri

[tecumseh]

bein' straight up with ya' terri lynn I do exactly as you descibe but then again my objective in keepin' bees is a bit broader than maximizing a honey crop. for some folks however... say in some location where the winter kill rate is almost 100% maximizing a honey crop as described above makes good sense.

[JohnK and Sheri]

I know few or no beeks that take all the honey and don't feed something back for winter survival, OR sell the bees to someone who will feed.
We leave any honey they put in the 1 1/2 story brood nest for them but everything in the supers we take, and then we feed back syrup for winter.
Sheri

[terri lynn]

Yeah, I guess if the winter kill rate was so high there wouldn't be much difference. I was sure thinking it was cruel thanks to the poor girls that worked so hard to be left to die, though! :cry: With all of the talk of the shortage of bees, I must say that shocked (and saddened) me a bit. Of course I'm the type that generally takes spiders outside rather than kill them, so I really hate the thought of something I've cared for dying, let alone by starvation.

Also, seems like it would still cost more to keep replacing because a 1st year package wouldn't make as much honey as a healthy established hive. I'd heard it really takes a year to be able to draw honey from a package. A few of my hives are so strong I really don't have to worry about them...they take care of any beetles, robbers and the winter fine on their own. The weaker hives I spend much more time with. I expect the strongest to have a great deal more honey as well, based on their strength.

Terri

[terri lynn]

I know few or no beeks that take all the honey and don't feed something back for winter survival, OR sell the bees to someone who will feed.
i

Sheri, that's what I was thinking...I wish I could buy those bees! I hadn't heard of letting them die before. Maybe I'm naive. I left mine honey and fed them as well.

Terri

[Michael Bush]

At $75 a package and the added work of installing and feeding them, I'd have to harvest a lot of extra honey...

[heaflaw]

But the methods of condensing lots of bees into a small space causes swarming which will weaken the hive later. How do you deal with that?

[PCM]

Back in the 60's there was a outfit in the Dakota's, I believe they contracted out to the large beekeepers, it was a assembly line deal, they would blow the bees out of the hive boxes with blowers into a limb shreder type of deal !

No bees flying around, just a pile of bees.

I saw them at a number of places in the Dakota's, when I was hauling cattle so it must have been a fairly large operation.

Any one know if this is still done ?

PCM

[terri lynn]

God, I sure hope not! That kinda contradicts the term "beekeeper".

[Tom G. Laury]

Of not overwintering bees is little understood by those who have not committed their livliehood to beekeeping. There are still outfits that do this as a practice. There is something valuable to learn. Nowadays few bees are killed, somebody with stars in their eyes comes out from Calif and tries to fill the deadouts before winter. The following spring the honey producer refills his culled sorted repaired equipment with packages from the same producer they have dealt with for generations. One family operating in Montana employs practically the whole town for weeks getting them all in. The consistency of new queens, ease of management, good locations, they make big crops! NO MITE TREATMENTS NECESSARY! These folks have been around the block a few times, believe you me!

[tecumseh]

pcm writes:
Any one know if this is still done ?

tecumseh:
as described by you I never noticed it done in that manner and frankly I cannot understand why such a time and resourse involved practice would be employed. when I was doin' the dirty deed (also in the Dakotas) you simply removed the lid after the first artic blast stopped the flow. the cold and the snow did the killin' for ya. afterward you would shake out the bees and stack boxes of whatever stores remained for next spring.

[JohnK and Sheri]

Yeah, I can't imagine anyone paying for a chipper. The folks up here would let the cold do it as well. A guy that we buy blow bees from now used to just shake the live bees out into the snow bank in early December or so; any that hadn't starved already, that is. I've also heard of cyanide gas being dusted into the entrance which killed them quickly but I think homeland security would visit anyone trying to buy it now:), and playing with that compound isn't something many would want to do.
Sheri

[Countryboy]

Back in the old days, they would burn a small pile of sulfur on a piece of paper or on leaves to fumigate the bees in a skep or bee gum.

[Jorn Johanesson]

I've also heard of cyanide gas being dusted into the entrance which killed them quickly

When I visited the Apimondia congress in Canada, we were invited by Tegart (I am not sure I spelled it correctly) to visit his overvintering bee yard in the Vancouver area. He has his production bees in Alberta and when the flow was over and he has produced the nuc's he needed for next years production he killed the hives off with cyanide (he told us that he has enough of that stuff for the rest of his life). After his wintering nuc's are transferred to the Vancouver area. Here are some pictures from one of his wintering apiaries.

http://www.apimo.dk/canada/S00DI002.JPG

http://www.apimo.dk/canada/S00DI001.JPG

Best regards Jorn

[The Honey Householder]

I was once a beekeeper too. Now I'm a honey producer and make a great living doing so.
I kill or discard of my bees in the fall and take all the honey. Most of my hive have about 6-8 pounds of bees in the fall. Way to much to feed!
Now for the bee economics:
I can buy a 2# package and 2-3 gals of syrup to get restart each spring for about $47. The 45-50 pound that you would feed the bees in the winter I sell @$1.55 lb. I just made $25, I ran 650 hive last year. That would give me a 16K bonus. Ofcourse this bonus is getting smaller each year with the cost of bees.
By beekeeping this way all my product is chemical and pesticide free. I produce over a ton of cosemtic grade beeswax. Which I sell for an avg. $7.50 lb.

I would like to find someone that is trying to increase in hives and sell my fall bees too. Look for the posting in Aug.:ot:

I'm a second generation honey producer (beekeeper), and have had to learn to do thing different to keep in business for this many years. I have a large family and I hope one day my boys will have a business to take over like I did. My dad tells of some great stories about beekeeping before the mites. Just make splits and bring in the honey, those were the good old days.

Always a pleasure talking bees,

o/o Ron Householder

[the buzz]

only problem here in canada, the bees are worth more sometimes than the honey, a nuc in spring is around 200$. Wish I could get them from the U.S ......

[Countryboy]

Now for the bee economics:
I can buy a 2# package and 2-3 gals of syrup to get restart each spring for about $47. The 45-50 pound that you would feed the bees in the winter I sell @$1.55 lb. I just made $25, I ran 650 hive last year. That would give me a 16K bonus.

But if you reduced your hives to nucs, they will consume much less honey. So you leave them 20 pounds of honey to overwinter on. That's $31 of honey at $1.55 a pound. Sell the other 25 pounds for $38.75. No need to buy the $47 package.

That's $85.75 a hive times 650 hives = that's a $55,737 bonus.

I'd take a $50K bonus over a $16K bonus anyday. But that's just me. It's your money.

(Granted, you may want to buy extra queens and make more than 650 nucs to compensate for overwinter losses, but if you have extra nucs in the spring, sell them to the bee clubs too.)

[Countryboy]

Or better yet, how about this fall I save you the hassle of gassing your bees? I'll take them off your hands and turn them into nucs, which I'll sell for $100 a pop next spring.

[The Honey Householder]

Now for the bee economics:
I can buy a 2# package and 2-3 gals of syrup to get restart each spring for about $47. The 45-50 pound that you would feed the bees in the winter I sell @$1.55 lb. I just made $25, I ran 650 hive last year. That would give me a 16K bonus.

But if you reduced your hives to nucs, they will consume much less honey. So you leave them 20 pounds of honey to overwinter on. That's $31 of honey at $1.55 a pound. Sell the other 25 pounds for $38.75. No need to buy the $47 package.

That's $85.75 a hive times 650 hives = that's a $55,737 bonus.

I'd take a $50K bonus over a $16K bonus anyday. But that's just me. It's your money.

(Granted, you may want to buy extra queens and make more than 650 nucs to compensate for overwinter losses, but if you have extra nucs in the spring, sell them to the bee clubs too.)

You forgot the cost of treating, requeening, and all the time to reducing the hives. So there goes your bonus. By the time fall comes around and I finish extracting over 50 some ton of honey that is the last thing I want to do.
If you are interest in buying fall bees, I'm always open for offers. I had a guy from SW Ohio that took a semi load to FL. last year.

Always a pleasure talking bees and learning something new,
Ron

[Countryboy]

I guess I'm a little confused. You made a comment in another thread to the effect that anyone shaking bees knows that bees are worth more than honey. Now in this thread, the honey is worth more than your bees. It just seems conflicting and contradictory to me.

You forgot the cost of treating, requeening, and all the time to reducing the hives. So there goes your bonus. By the time fall comes around and I finish extracting over 50 some ton of honey that is the last thing I want to do.

Allen Dick's business strategy comes to mind. He was not concerned with maximum production - he was concerned with maximum profitability. He also pointed out that there are going to be areas of lesser profits, and you need to concentrate on the areas of highest profit. (Don't sweat the small stuff, or waste energy on lower profit areas.) I don't know the ins and outs of your operation, but I can't help but wonder if you wouldn't be further ahead to produce a little less honey, and have the time to reduce your hives to nucs.

Why requeen anyways? The bees will do it on their own if there is a problem with the queen. (If your queen is still fine, you just wasted money on a new queen.) Why spend your own energy and money doing something the bees are going to do on their own?

Treating is another issue. With 650 hives, it's not so easy to go to small cell. I've heard you make comments about your family running many more hives 'before the mites'. Are varroa pressures the biggest need for treatments you have? If it were me in your shoes, I'd be giving a lot of thought about trying to integrate small cell into my hives.

The time involved is another factor. You mentioned selling packages to the local bee clubs. If there are some local beekeepers you trust, have you thought about telling them that you will let them have some of your surplus bees to turn into nucs, if they give you a percentage of the nucs they are able to overwinter? Any nucs you get in the spring are that many less packages you have to order. And you're sure to make some good friendships in the process. If I were closer, I'd be knocking on your door seeing if we could work out some kind of deal like that. (And I still might do that this fall.)

[Troy]

Down here in FL I can't get queens early enough in the spring to get colonies strong enough for the Orange Blossom Flow, which begins about mid March.

I need bees to start building up in Jan to be ready, so if I could get your fall culls in late Oct or early Nov, I'd only have to feed them for 2 or 3 months and they'll build up real nice by March.

If someone up North would blow all these bees into giant swarm boxes, I wonder if it would be feasible to ship it to FL?

Maybe even we here in FL could provide a service to the Northern beeks. Ship the hives south for the winter and I could tend them and in April or May I could send them back. I would get a honey crop in March and April, so most of the cost of my tending and feed would be defrayed by the spring honey flow.

Surely this would be no more expensive than storage and a new package in the spring.

Anybody want to give this a try?

[tecumseh]

countryboy writes:
He was not concerned with maximum production - he was concerned with maximum profitability. He also pointed out that there are going to be areas of lesser profits, and you need to concentrate on the areas of highest profit. (Don't sweat the small stuff, or waste energy on lower profit areas.) I don't know the ins and outs of your operation, but I can't help but wonder if you wouldn't be further ahead to produce a little less honey, and have the time to reduce your hives to nucs.

tecumseh:
once again maximizing a one criterion objective function is not so difficult but almost ALWAY lead the decision maker to either shooting himself or the companies stock holders in the foot. given the current economic climate no one should need to look very far to find an excellent example of how simple solutions leads (and almost always) to disaterous results. as a bit of an over the top example... if one were only concerned with maximizing profits EVERYONE would be selling crack cocaine down on the corner.

I have no idea who allen dick might be??? but he certainly could have learned one or two importants concepts laid down by Peter Drucker (the father of modern day management). mr dick's advice seems to run opposite to that of mr drucker.

the first portion of country boy's 'snipped' paragraph is ABSOLUTELY contrary to the advice given at the end of the same paragraph (essentially giving polar answer to a question).

I do hope courtryboy that you don't take me wrong here in that I am not attempting to throttle the conversation... discussing the ups and downs or various strategies of how to confront a problem always leads to better decision making as far as I can tell. such techniques as brainstorming (there are others) typically get you better prepared to handle the problems that can and will confront the individual in any enterprise or venture. although not valued everywhere thinking outside the box does represent potential value. without some conversation most folks will quite typically fall back into the rut of a reason 'that is how grandpa did it' as the primary reason why they do things in a particular way.

[daknoodle]

Is this not the entire reason why skep hives are not legal here in the US? To harvest, it required the culling of the entire hive. This seems like nothing more than a loop hole to what is technically illegal.

To cull a hive simply for the lack of desire to over winter and the potential profitability of the "extra" honey seems pointless and a bit exploitative. I am FAR from the PETA type, in fact I disdain tree huggers, however this seems a bit extreme and hard for me to fathom.

Heck if the problem is the cold winters, then let me know, I know of plenty of people with land where we can store hives in the south! Again, it just seems pointless and unnecessary. I'm sure the press would have a field day exploiting on the idea that beekeepers actually kill out bee colonies each winter. With how they took CCD and ran like wild fire with it, this would be icing on the cake for them.

[Dubhe]

Actually the laws prohibiting skeps are based on the inability to examine the comb for signs of disease, specifically foulbrood. There's no law against killing bees that I'm aware of. They are, after all, an exotic, non native species in these parts.

[daknoodle]

I stand corrected. I was always taught that it was due to the culling of the colonies.

However, I do see a great potential in profit on both sides if the colonies from the north were either sold or simply moved to the south for winter. I for one would love to use them to build up nucs to be sold in the spring.

Heck, if you are just going to kill them anyways, can I have them for free? :)

Doug

[honeyshack]

Let me first state I am from the north, Canada infact. I and alot of other beekeepers try to winter over our hives
That said:
There is one big, no two big problems with sending hives to the south from the north for over wintering.

1. the spread of small hive beetles
2. Africanized honey bees.

These are two potentials that the north would not want to see, and risk by sending hives south for the winter.
Another not so big reason is, and i am guessing, some states, like some provinces have restrictions on bee movement to certain parts of the country or in and out of their state.

If some beekeepers/honey producers chose to kill off their hives for the winter and start fresh each spring, who am i to judge. We all have to decide what is in our best interest for our business, maximizing the profit within the government laws. Wintering or not is subjective and personal preference.

[Countryboy]

as a bit of an over the top example... if one were only concerned with maximizing profits EVERYONE would be selling crack cocaine down on the corner.

You may gethigher short term profits, but you DON'T maximize profits by selling crack. You have to look at the long term picture to maximize profits too - and when you end up feeding your cellmate Bubba his cornflakes, that just doesn't seem very profitable.

I have no idea who allen dick might be??? but he certainly could have learned one or two importants concepts laid down by Peter Drucker (the father of modern day management). mr dick's advice seems to run opposite to that of mr drucker.

Allen Dick is a retired commercial beekeeper from Alberta Canada. www.honeybeeworld.com He posts here under the name allend. At one time he ran about 4500 hives. In my opinion, you have to know something about good management to be able to have a viable operation like that.

My management philosophy is based upon Ludwig von Mises. Drucker was interested in the behavior of people, while Mises was already teaching about it (praxeology). You have to allocate energy and resources where it is used most efficiently. (ideally)

I do hope courtryboy that you don't take me wrong here in that I am not attempting to throttle the conversation... discussing the ups and downs or various strategies of how to confront a problem always leads to better decision making as far as I can tell. such techniques as brainstorming (there are others) typically get you better prepared to handle the problems that can and will confront the individual in any enterprise or venture. although not valued everywhere thinking outside the box does represent potential value. without some conversation most folks will quite typically fall back into the rut of a reason 'that is how grandpa did it' as the primary reason why they do things in a particular way.

No offense taken. I welcome your input. I am a hobbiest who is working towards becoming a sideliner. I grew up in a rural area in a 13 acre minifarm, was in FFA in school, Grandpa had a couple hundred acres he farmed, etc but never got exposed to REAL farming back then. It wasn't until I was laid off at work and I began working for another farmer that I was exposed to profitable agriculture. That grain farmer ran about 4000 acres until he passed away, and he mentored me in many aspects of agriculture. Some farmers spend an extra $100 an acre on inputs, buying triple stack seed, and extra fertilizer, and spraying every chemical known, just to gain an extra 10 or 20 bushels in production. Yes, they produced more, but maximum production does not mean maximum profits. By keeping his input costs lower, Bill was able to have higher profits without having the highest production.
He also taught me that when you start running large operations, what seem like small inefficiencies in the beginning can become big inefficiencies as you grow and there are ALWAYS inefficiencies you can improve on.
Bill was always trying a new technique too, in small test plots, trying to find ways of improving. He didn't do things just because it was the way his dad and grandpa did.

[daknoodle]

There is one big, no two big problems with sending hives to the south from the north for over wintering.

1. the spread of small hive beetles
2. Africanized honey bees.


Though I'm not familiar with sending bees a crossed international lines, I would for one argue that the fear of AHB by those in the north is rather irrational. Though the spread of SHB I can understand as a concern, but still not a reason I would use for not sending hives down.

At the very least, why not allow someone else to take the hives you'd kill of anyways? Seems like a win-win to me.

I've been to south and central America where AHB is all they have. Its simply a matter of understanding what you are working with.

Also, just by sending a hive into AHB areas does not thus create an AHB colony. Its not a disease, its a genetic race. Most, if not all, regulations down here have been lifted anyways due to people realizing they have been dealing with it in all the wrong ways.

What I would offer though is to take the colonies off the hands of a northern beekeeper. I'd convert them into nucs and over winter down here. Split in the spring and away you go. If the northern beekeeper needs colonies, then send nucs up starting with the originals that got sent down, then send up colonies from splits as they have been tested for the genetics. Then I'd keep what ever else is not needed. I'd sell most and keep what I want. Kind of a second part to the operation. The first part, would be the northern beekeeper's operation and the second would be me, taking care of them over winter.

Doug

[kc in wv]

You don't. When maximizing honey production is your sole objective, you don't bother yourself with little details like winter survival.

Some beekeepers have been known to harvest all the honey in a hive, leaving nothing for the bees. The value of the extra honey is worth more now than the price of a package of bees next spring.

So how do you deal with the new pests you bring in with your package bee's? Tracheal mites, Varroa, AHB, Small Hive Beetle. What will be our next disaster that we cause by abusing nature.

[The Honey Householder]

~~~Exterminate your bees for the honey~~~
I'm a second generation comm. beekeeper. The mites were something we had to deal with for years. The way that I beekeeper was a very hard thing for my dad to deal with. He talks about the "Good Old Days Before The Mites". Those are some cool stories too, and maybe I'll tell of some of them one day. My family has been beekeeping for over 40 years and I've been in it for over 25 years of that.
About 10 years ago I had to make some changes in my business, so I could put food on the table for my kids. As this was a business and not a hobby for me. It was that or go work a job that I hated doing every day.
Before the mites we ran 1500 hives, and now I run 650-850. I take all the honey off in the fall and sell the honey to live on and run the business for the next year.
Last year I ran 650 hives and extracted over 50 ton.
I tried and keep bees over winter, but the bees that came through winter cost more then what they were worth. The treatments, feed, and the requeening cost me more then a package would have. I worked harder with the problem hives to get them to make my crop then I did with my package bees.
Now with the "No chemicals" and "No pesticides" label on my product does make a difference. My beeswax sells as a cosmetic grade at $7.50lb. Most of my honey sells to local beekeeper that keeps it local for health benefits and makes them more money too. I wholesale my honey for will over $3000 a ton.
My Dad was totally against this way of beekeeping 10 years ago. But go ahead and ask him today. This is the only way that he would do it with the mites. It's always great hearing the stories about beekeeping before the mites. Just make splits and harvest the honey, that was the days. With all the years of beekeeping, I feel that you always have to be learning. As of right now this the best way that I have found to work the bees.

Beekeeping is done differently as a hobbies, and should bee.

Some of you don't understand and ask if I am really a beekeeper. I would have to say I'm more a HONEY PRODUCER, only part time beekeeper.:applause:

o/o Ron Householder

[daknoodle]

Still the question remains. Would you be open to selling / giving away those colonies instead of simply destroying them?

[The Honey Householder]

I,m always open for offers. pm me your offer. :D
Thanks,
Ron

[Troy]

Seems logical to pay the same amount for the bees as the honey.

You said you wholesale your honey out for $3000 a ton.

If I was in the commercial end of the business, I'd offer you the same rate for the bees. Seems fair doesn't it? I mean you were going to destroy them, and get nothing.

WOW, what would I do with a ton of bees.

Can we ship a pallet sized screen enclosure full of bees? I wonder how much would that cost. Maybe I could even drive. This sounds like a good idea. We folks here in the south could build new nucs with all those bees, and sell them back up North in the spring.

[daknoodle]

I was more thinking the logic was, if they are going to destroy the colonies anyways, then why don't I take care of your "problem" and simply take them off your hands.

Figure out how much woodenware you'd need as replacement (though I suppose you'd want to keep the fully drawn frames, huh?). trade woodenware for bee hives and call it even. Just need a truck to haul it all back.

Doug

[dgl1948]

daknoodle, I have a couple of questions for you. How many hives are you running now? Are you prepared to look after 650 hives. Do you know how to look after 650 hives? Have you the equpment to look after them? It becomes a full time job, are you prepared for that?

[terri lynn]

I was once a beekeeper too. Now I'm a honey producer and make a great living doing so.
o/o Ron Householder

Aren't the (to be exterminated)bees the ones producing the honey? ;)

[terri lynn]

daknoodle, I have a couple of questions for you. How many hives are you running now? Are you prepared to look after 650 hives. Do you know how to look after 650 hives? Have you the equpment to look after them? It becomes a full time job, are you prepared for that?

I'm in his area... I could look after 10 or 15 hives :D. Seriously, though, it sure would be great if ya'll could work out something like that; I love a win-win situation. As much as I hate the thought of the bees being killed after all their work, who knows, maybe it's easier on them than a Canadian winter! Either way, Ron, you seem like a wonderful person, even when you're taking a little (Southern) heat!

Terri

[daknoodle]

daknoodle, I have a couple of questions for you. How many hives are you running now? Are you prepared to look after 650 hives. Do you know how to look after 650 hives? Have you the equpment to look after them? It becomes a full time job, are you prepared for that?

I'm more throwing out ideas and concepts at the moment. More to seed conversation and get thoughts provoked and such. However, I do know of a few people with a few thousand acres who are interested in having hives. And its something I might be interested in getting into at some point. No, not anything I am prepared to do right now, but still, something I'd consider in the long run.

Not to mention, I have a feeling we could find enough beekeepers down here who wouldn't mind taking a few here and there. I'm sure we could easily get space for 650 hives, as in the current case. I'd bet we could find space for even more if the opportunity arose.

Doug

[The Honey Householder]

How many comm. beekeepers are interested in blow bees.
I'll have over 800 hive this year, and looking to sell the bees in the fall.
Ron

[JohnK and Sheri]

Ron, we have been paying $9 a colony, blown into our equipment in late October. I am fairly certain you can find someone heading out west to take your bees. We would pay more than that but we have found that those that don't care for the bees in a manner to make it through winter have a higher mortality and need a bunch of TLC to make it to almonds, much less to next spring.

There was a time when we thought along the same lines as you, but quickly decided that rather than disgard the bees we started not just sending them to someone else down south, but taking them ourselves. The costs of all those packages to buy we felt was better spent making up our own losses in TX where we had more quality control. Instead of throwing our hands up in the air in resignation over mites, we learned to deal with them, medicating bees is WAY cheaper than replacing them, although it is just another pita. It is definitely easier in the south, it is that long cold winter that delivers the killing blows. And of course, when moving, the size of the operation makes a difference, the smaller quantities of bees we used to run did not justify a move so we had to grow. We now take our bees out to California and bring a profit from that side of the country as well as maximizing honey production with super strong bees for up north honey production, plus selling surplus bees as well.
You are correct, you should never stop learning. We learned to use the resource of our bees to the maximum and not throw away a good thing. At the very least I encourage all northern beeks who are tempted to follow a "grow and throw away" philosophy to ask around as you are doing/will do. There are many folks who value the commodity you are killing off and will pay you for them. I think you will get many responses to your fall ad.
Sheri


How many comm. beekeepers are interested in blow bees.
I'll have over 800 hive this year, and looking to sell the bees in the fall.
Ron

[daknoodle]

But Ron also gets the cosmetic grade wax. I think that is also something that he leans on for a good profit. To medicate would limit the amount of wax he could harvest for this purpose, correct?

What about bringing the colonies down south to be overwintered and then split / sold as nucs in the spring and then purchase new packages to go back north? Seems like an extra means of income. 650 hives split to 1300 nucs sold at $100 per nuc. (yes, I know, you'll have some losses, but work with me here.)

Though I'm still not sure about the desire to reuse old combs. Ron, how much do you rely on the used combs for the next year? (Not trying to dictate how one should run their operation, just playing with ideas that are running in my head.)

[Countryboy]

Though I'm still not sure about the desire to reuse old combs. Ron, how much do you rely on the used combs for the next year?

As he has said before, some of his brood combs are 100 years old. They are probably as strong as a brick, which is why he can spray corn syrup into them with a pressure sprayer. That's how he fills the frames with 'honey' that he shakes the packages into. (Personally, I don't see why he couldn't spray corn syrup into empty combs in the fall to be used as winter feed.)

Another factor to consider. Even if he kills the bees off, he can write them off as a loss. (If he values the bees in each hive at $100-$150, that's a heck of a write-off.) Of course, a local bee club might start a non-profit org that distributed bees to folks who wanted to try overwintering them, and he could 'donate' all his blow bees for a big write-off too.

Personally, if I were in his shoes, I'd be scared to death that I wouldn't be able to get bees early in the spring, or I'd have a very bad yielding year. It's harder to weather obstacles the more areas you are dependant upon others. (And he has said packages cost more and more each year, so his bonus is less every year. He sees the writing on the wall - he knows he is not sustainable for the long term.)

[JohnK and Sheri]

Bet Ron didn't foresee his operating procedures being analyzed in such detail, lol.
But this goes beyond his operation. His modus operandi is not uncommon, he is doing what it takes to make ends meet. It is different when one is trying to actually make a living at something. You can't take too many chances or experiment too much when it can mean taking food off the table. If you try something new you do it with only a small part of the operation and make darn sure it works for more than a couple years before going in too deep.

A couple points in response to comments made....
We sell our beeswax as cosmetic grade. We do not medicate any of the honey supers, and get our beeswax from the cappings only, so that is a non issue. If one were to retail one's own honey in a manner to take advantage of 'all natural' honey, then it might bring a premium, but we received $3000 a ton for our honey wholesale last year without any marketing hype. Ask the packers we sell to who put our honey through extensive testing the small packers can't afford how 'natural' our honey is.

As for writing the bees off, I don't think you can legally write off the bees you kill as a tax loss. (At least our accountant won't let us write off our winter losses:( )Not sure about the donation aspect, that just might work. ;)
The replacement bees are an expense.
Sheri

[The Honey Householder]

As a beekeeper you always are learning and you just hope it doesn't cost to much. Now at days you have less room for mistake, and believe me I've made some big ones over the years. I had bought queens from those that would not back there drone layers, that cost me 30k that year.:doh:
Those kind of mistakes make you thinks before trying new producers.:scratch: They have only been in the business for 20+ years, and you would think they would know what they are doing. :doh:
Like Sheri said: somethings you have to try a little at a time. I think thats what she was getting at.