Wrapping Up 2012

[sqkcrk]

2012-11-08 04.19.21.jpg2012-11-08 04.20.23.jpg2012-11-08 04.20.50.jpg2012-11-08 04.21.42.jpg2012-11-08 04.22.04.jpg2012-11-08 04.30.04.jpg2012-11-08 04.30.46.jpg2012-11-08 04.31.46.jpg2012-11-08 04.41.45.jpg2012-11-08 04.49.00.jpg2012-11-08 04.51.16.jpg2012-11-08 04.53.34.jpg2012-11-08 04.31.46.jpg2012-11-08 04.56.36.jpgPhoto 1 are supers ready to go to SC in the Spring. Photo 2 are palletized hives ready to go South in a cpl wks. Photo 3 are pallets of honey supers wrapped and ready for Winter. Photo4, more hives ready for transport. Photo 5 The last of the 2012 crop brought home from extracting. Photo 6 and 7 unnetted. Photo 8 Where I store honey. Photo 9 Gotta take 6 buckets off of pallet to get them off of trailer. Photo 10 View from the Cab of the Bobcat. Photo 11 Bobcat, my most dependable employee doing his thing. Photo 12 First pallet of honey in the building. Photo 13 Before. Photo 14 After, but not put away. Still have to stack over 2 tons of honey.

[ralittlefield]

Neat pictures! Thanks for sharing.

[Hawkster]

would you consider this a good year for honey ?

[sqkcrk]

Short crop this year. About 45 lb average.

[jmgi]

Nice pictures Mark, my walk out basement looks like your honey storage area, buckets of honey stacked everywhere, really need to start selling some of this honey bank I have. Do you put your whole crop in buckets or do you use barrels also? What's your normal average? John

[Hawkster]

I think about the same here in Eastern Mass i am blaming the strange weather and the fact that I had a lot of swarms. hoping for a better year next year, pictures are great, thank you for sharing !

[Splatt]

Looks great!

[sqkcrk]

Nice pictures Mark, my walk out basement looks like your honey storage area, buckets of honey stacked everywhere, really need to start selling some of this honey bank I have. Do you put your whole crop in buckets or do you use barrels also? What's your normal average? John

I put everything in buckets so I can run it through my bottling tanks. Over the years I have sold almost 30,000 lbs in jars and buckets. I've cut back last year and this, so I won't be selling that much again. Not for a while anyway. Not closing any doors, perminently.

Normal average? Oh, around 60 lbs.

[papar]

nice looking setup. I need an employee like yours.

[Mbeck]

Good photos, it makes me miss home a little

[sqkcrk]

nice looking setup. I need an employee like yours.

lol

[AstroBee]

Nice photos. Its always cool to see how commercial guys do things.

How do you prepare and store the honey supers. I see they are stacked and wrapped with a tarp, but what's on the bottom? How are the protected from mice and moths?

Also, do you mind sharing why you've cut back on selling jars and buckets? I can appreciate that it must be an enormous amount of work to manage that number of bottles, but is there anything else?

[sqkcrk]

Suppers sit on wearhouse pallets. Mice Motels sometimes. I don't do anything for moths. Almost never any moth damage in my honey supers, no pollen for them to feed on.

I have about 25 outlets in the Adirondack as much as 80 miles away and since I didn't have enough honey of my own and no way to buy from others last year I cut back to only those stores closer to home and find I am doing okay by not servicing those stores. It seemed to me that I was spending what I made on fuel.

[jmgi]

I hope that's all your property in those pictures because it sure is sweet looking country. John

[sqkcrk]

Some of it.

[jmgi]

Mark, when you ran out of your own honey you mean to say there was nobody who had honey to sell you? I've never been in your position but I would have thought that finding beekeepers with honey to wholesale wouldn't be difficult. Then again, if the price isn't right you wouldn't want to buy anyways, so maybe that's what happened in your case I don't know. John

[sqkcrk]

John,
Last years crop was the lowest I have ever had, around 30 maybe 35 lbs per hive. The same was true for other beekeepers I usually deal with. Had I really wanted to spend the money I could have found some honey, maybe from Michael Palmer. But that would mean spending money I didn't have. Ain't no way I am taking a loan to buy honey to sell. I spent a ton of money a few years back to cover accounts and I haven't seen that money show back up in my savings account. Which tells me I should have cut back 4 years ago, rather than spending the money I did.

So, A. My usuall source of honey didn't have any for me. And, B. I didn't have the money. But I am doing alright and bills are getting paid. I ain't cryin'.

[Lburou]

Well organized set up Mark

Reading your words above made me think of that Kenny Rogers song about knowing when to hold 'em, when to fold 'em and when to walk away. Best of Luck to you.

[sqkcrk]

Well organized set up Mark

You are only seeing a small set of photos. You should see my office.

But thanks.

[bbrowncods]

You have to be organized with an operation that size or it will eat you up. Nice shots!