Okay posted here in commercial to avoid upsetting some...
Recently Honey housholder mentioned he does away with his hives each year and takes all the honey....
This year the honey flow is so bad, my hives on scales are LOSING weight.....
that said. I am wondering how you clean out the hive, and when you decide its time??
my first thought was to off the queen and allow all the brood to hatch and the bees die off, but that seems to me to open the window to SHB and wax moths???
Dumping them seems to leave brood in the frames so???
I belive I will have to destroy at least half my hives to allow me to save any at all.....
And no feeding this long would not make sense from a monetary viewpoint.
Actually Brenda, I have never met the new guy....... I live about 180 miles from him, and since I am on the FAR edge of his teritory (IL is really housed) I completly understand.... I am sure some day He/She will pop in...
Thanks Sheri, you answered a critiacal question as to how the brood was handled........I had been pondering a sooner reduction, before any of the stores went negative. My thought was to confine the queen to a very small area....
My current thought is to not necassarly kill the hive but probably reduce it to 2-3 frames, Nucs if you will and allow a mojor die off of older bees.
Even pondering doing the splits earlier and useing the surplus bees for a super hive and the last bit of flow.....
I made a serious math error last year and feed a group of itialans over 200lbs of honey, for no reason. the hive now is no stronger or weaker than the new ones I started this spring.... I had assumed they would have a huge die off and not eat so musc missed that one ..
So far this year the nectar flow has been so bad there is no chance of any of the hives makeing it without 100% feed, so I am trying to plan ahead and cut down the sizes and conserve the reserves....
I also enjoyed a cpl of thoughts as to why feed 100 lbs of honey worth 3-400 to a buch of bees that are only worth 100.00....... it makes sense... when your going to off the queen and replace her in the spring, the gain may not be worth the loss.....
That said, thanks again for the input, No cyangas in my future, but I definatly appreciate teh information.
Why are you feeding honey to the bees and not sugar? :doh: I can sell 200 lbs of honey for 1000 bucks wholesale!! I can buy 200 lbs of sugar for $95.20. Yeah, I would call that a serious math error.
If I sold my honey at your farmers market I could probably get the same price as you. I bet you are not talking about 55 gallon drums full, especially not by the truck load.
Hmmmm then your wholesaler is a fool..... he can drive anywhere in the midwest and beat that price by at least half..... some real specialty honeys may be that high, but when 99@ of retail honey is in the 3-4lb price range you can't pay much more than that and be around more than a year....
Anyone who is going to let their hive die off this fall contact me.
I will gladly pick up the bees if there are sufficient quantities to make the drive for.
I think ten hives would be the minimum.
If you have 25 or more I am very interested.
I am in SE Missouri
Ernie Wells wells.ernie@gmail.com
573-429-0222
You think there is a chance he sells a specialty honey?
Around here, an 8 oz Ross Round wholesales for $3.50. A 12 oz cut comb sells for $5.00 wholesale. A plain 16 ounce bottle wholesales for $3.50 too. And we aren't even into the specialty honeys yet. You can get premiums if you don't use chemicals in your hive, or have them on certified organic farms.
You may not be able to wholesale semi loads for $5 a pound, but a good marketer could move 1000 pounds at $5 a pound.
Hmmmm then your wholesaler is a fool
And depending on the retail price that wholesaler gets - that wholesaler may be a genius.
Why don't you do a combine of your weak hives with your strong? Then come spring, just split and buy a queen?
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