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How was your honey crop???

7K views 33 replies 30 participants last post by  Ian 
#1 ·
I'm curious to hear from other parts of the country how the honey crop was this year. I'm assuming most people are either done or almost done taking honey off and extracting for this year.

Since I asked, I'll go first: I had a pretty good year (almost 140 lb. average) taking everything into consideration. We had an unusually cool Summer in ND, which held back production, especially in August. All the other beekeepers I have talked to here did not do well, generally due to a combination of the weather and some significant Varroa problems. I wish I could claim some sort of brilliance on my part why mine did better, but I think I just got lucky. I've got mites, but apparently the infestation wasn't enough to hurt them this Summer. The bees were also in pretty good shape this Spring and I did feed them heavily.

Next???
 
#2 ·
About 120 lbs over three hives. One hive produced over half of it. All three started in May as single hive bodies that I bought in. Spring was rainy, summer was cool, fall/is beautiful.
 
#3 ·
Just over 7 gallons from 6 hives and like ScottS', most of it came from one hive. Everybody told me it would be the spring swarms that would give me the most money, but they were wrong. The hive I call "Apis Amazons" for obvious reasons was the major honey producer two years running.
 
#5 ·
I averaged 5 supers per hive. South Texas brush honey came in average, the huajillo bloom was excellent but rain shortened. I had a wet spring and summer produceing above average crops of mesquite and horsemint. Many area beekeepers are having mite problems. SHB has been reported in my area, but I haven't seen any yet. I lost 1/3 of my hives since Feb. due to mites. I just finished what fall splits we could make. Our fall bloom is looking good with bees building up well on broomweed and sage. White honey stayed about $1.30/$1.40
 
#7 ·
Michael, fortunately no hot bees in my bee yard. To the contrary, they're so gentle that I'm sure one day I'm going to be sorry for it. It's gotten to the point where I do quick checks in my shorts and T shirt. Just the other day, I was in one of the hives, had examined three frames, when it dawned on me--I should at least put on my veil! It really is amazing considering the fact that they're constantly being harassed by yellow jackets and lizards!
 
G
#9 ·
we only got 24 qts from our hives this year. we started on the last week of may with nucs. alot of the bee buds said we came out alright. the honey is a little wet this year. our club sales some at the state fair , after a little competition.i was so glad to see young keeper coming on top. DEANO
 
#10 ·
Down at The Topsfield Fair in MA, they have a nice building devoted entirely to beekeeping. ECBA puts on a good show with observation hives and candle making and of course they sell a club honey. They had a huge sign over the sales counter that said honey production was down because of the wet spring and summer. I noticed that there wasn't very much honey entered for ribbons
and they only had two observation hives going. I asked a club member and he said production in NE was off about a third.

I averaged 60 pounds from mine, which is just about what I got last year. Only difference in production I saw was this year's honey was light amber. I also noticed it's crystallizing quicker than normal.
 
#11 ·
We did o.k. Some of the nucs were late in building up but with the late bloom especially in the canola fields the nucs almost did better than some of my parent colonies! I averaged about 150 lbs a hive. A beekeeper that I keep in close contact with had a great year. Some of his hives he pulled a record of 15 full size supers off! That would be well over 500lbs a hive!!! Unbelievable! The canola bloomed from 3rd week of July to mid September. The farmers around here have never seen this before. It was a cool and wet summer here. The Manitoba average is 160 lbs most guys were all over the scale with 80lbs/hive to 300+/ hive.
 
#15 ·
Gregg, what a great post. Seeing the averages of people around the country tells us alot about Domestic supply. I too had a good year here in S. Colorado. Not quite as good as last year but very fair. I averaged about 110 lbs over 375 colonies. It is funny how the dinks really bring that average down.
 
#16 ·
Simplyhoney, boy can I relate. I ran about the same number of hives as you had this year, but if I'd take out the hives that only produced 1 super (or less,
), my average would be way up! This problem seems to be getting worse for me every year for the last 4-5 years, good hives produce well but an increasing number do little or nothing.

------------------
Gregg Stewart
 
#18 ·
Somewhat disapointing. 2nd year hives .I pulled of 30 lbs from two hives. The hives are 3 deeps each and came into spring packed with bees. I had a swarm in each hive. Caught one and recombined. But the even after the sarm the hives where packed with bees. My feeling is that where I am located the bees really have to travel for nectar, at last a few miles in one direction. After the main flow of Blackberries there is just not that much blooming. Specifically the last two years it has been abnormally dry in the summer. A guy aI know 12 miles away with the same set up gets 100 lbs each hive. He is located in the heart of the argicultual area for this vicinity.
 
#21 ·
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I too had a good year here in S. Colorado. Not quite as good as last year but very fair. I averaged about 110 lbs over 375 colonies.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Simplyhoney...my understanding is that if a fellow buys a load of supers with frames of drawn comb in them that the seller guarantees the same 110lb average from those supers during the next season. Did I get that right?
Got 'em all home. Remember the beautiful bumblebee that was crawling around? He or she rode the 175 miles back through the rain and popped out when I parked the trailer. Good trip.
 
#25 ·
Don't know if this will help any, I have no freakin idea what the per hive average was. I started the year with eighteen overwintered colonys, and ended this year with over sixty due to splits, swarm pickups, colony removals and rehiving gums.

After evening out the yard, leaving all hives with three and four mediums each, with the exception of the ones with deeps, (they have one deep and three mediums, I will remove the deep come spring) I extracted eighty gallons of honey.
 
#26 ·
I had four hives this season: two nucs and two overwintered colonies. The colonies spent the summer on two brood boxes with queen excluders. I had no frames built for the honey supers, so the bees had to do it.

The two nucs were installed at the end of June. They produced about40-45 pound each by mid-september.

One of the two overwintered colonies swarmed in mid-july, in spite of space (there was 2 honey supers on it, far from filled, since I already extarcted around 50 pounds July 10th and placed a new super on). Overall, that colony gave me 110 pounds.

The other one, wich had no problems, produced 225 pounds, all with undrawn frames in the honey supers.

I am quite happy with this, since it was my real first crop. The selling is going well too.

Hugo
 
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