[honeyshack]

Uhh HELLO, if you have 500 colonies and 10% of the excluders don't work you will have 50 colonies w/ brood above the excluder. If you have a hive that has an excluder in it and it swarms, the newly mated queen often goes to the top of the hive.

225 colonies, two colonies with brood above the excluder. Both times moved the brood to the brood chamber. Not hard to do when you know what you are looking for when pulling honey....and that woudl be, bees that do not want to leave the boxes no matter what you do. And make sure your hives are strong enough to use and excluder.

 

[honeyshack]

<snip>I've had some hives produce 12-14 mediums already this year.(yes almost a barrel from one hive.)!

Almost a barrell...WOW! i have to ask though what size your barrels are. Ours are 45 gal drums which hold 600-630 pounds of honey...net.

 

[jmgi]

HH,

When you say some hives have given 12-14 medium supers of honey, are these hives from the 2 pound packages you started this year, or are they overwintered hives? (I didn't think you overwintered any) John

 

[sqkcrk]

225 colonies, two colonies with brood above the excluder. Both times moved the brood to the brood chamber.

Yeah, which supports my experience. thank you.

 

[sqkcrk]

a few of my hives will get around 300lbs of honey this year.

Are you saying that you have individual hives that you will extract 300 lbs of honey from? That is incredible. How do you do it?

 

[The Honey Householder]

John,
Yes from a 2 lb package. I produce most of my comb honey from splits from my 2 lb package hives.

 

[The Honey Householder]

I use 55 gal. net 660 and I said almost a barrel. say 600 lbs. I call them my super queens.

 

[The Honey Householder]

Mike, the question I was try to answer is how do I extract all the honey without extracting brood.
I run all my hives for just 6 months and then shake and sell them in the fall. By running them in single deeps the bees put 90-95% of the honey above the queen excluder. I do not extract any of the brood frames. The little bit of honey that is left in the brood boxes and clean up and gotten ready for the new bees in the spring.
So NO I don't get all of the honey but atless 90% of it.

 

[honeyshack]

Stink...thats fantastic!

 

[honeyshack]

Are you saying that you have individual hives that you will extract 300 lbs of honey from? That is incredible. How do you do it?

I have done it. But it takes the perfect storm here to do it. The summers have to be dang hot and dang dry. Here our main crops for honey is alfalfa and clover. The alfalfa is for seed, and there are a fair many producers in our area and alfalfa loves heat. So, on hot years if we have the boxes we can do it.

 

[queenking]

just took 85lbs of honey from one hive. took about 140lbs from the same hive earlyer in the year and goldenrod is just now starting to flow in. i can smell it when i go out to my bee yard.

 

[sqkcrk]

What part of Wolcott, NY do you live in?

As far as that goes, I have never heard of anyone in the whole state of NY during the last 20 years making 300 lbs of honey on beehives since the 1950s or 60s.

I do know a guy who says that he gets 150 to 180 lbs of honey from his hives, which he intensively manages by raising frames of brood above an excluder and replacing that frame of brood w/ drawn comb every 8 or 10 days. Is that what our friend from Wolcott is doing?

 

[sqkcrk]

just took 85lbs of honey from one hive.

How are you managing your hives? Are you weighing this hoey after extracting or are you estimating how much honey you are getting by how many boxes of a certain size you have taken from a hive? I really want to know how you do what you are saying you have done.

 

[jmgi]

Yeah, its mind boggling to me how much production some beeks get from a hive. In the case of Honey Householder, he starts out every year with 2 pound packages, he runs just a single deep brood chamber with an excluder over it, then piles on the supers. I can see how most of the honey ends up above the excluder, because the queen needs the whole deep for brood and some pollen stores, but what is a stumbling block to me is how you can keep a colony with a real good queen from swarming in that setup. Another thing, I always thought that getting that kind of production requires lots of brood, surely more than one deep worth, it just amazes me to no end. John

 

[Mike Snodgrass]

Yeah, its mind boggling to me how much production some beeks get from a hive.

Location, Location, Location!!!! What bothers me, unless your in Nebraska type prarie and can actually see the 6000-8000 acres your bees will forage in, how do you know what the forage around you will offer? I know beeks here that got far less than me and many who got far more, and they dont live more than 10 miles away! Plenty of farm and undeveloped around me but few roads..i need an airplane to see my potential bee forage!

 

[Ian]

Never seem to know what to expect from my hives. They usually bring me a harvest yielding about the same every year, but it seems they do it differently every year. I just cant predict these little guys.
I work in averages. I expect certain things to happen, when I manipulate the hive a certain way, within an expected limit. If the hive performs outside that limit, I manipulate it again bringing it back a bit or ahead a bit. I expect a certain amount of swarming, and I expect my splits and packages to produce less than my wintered hives.

BUT a real funny thing happened to me this year.
I bought packages this year. Made up three extra yards. Two of my package yards produced about what I expected, the third is tailing honey like you would nt believe. I have three other yards within that area, and they are producing normally. But this package yard has produced 7 boxes on average over two pulls, plugged full of honey! Plugged full because they had caught me by surprise within two supering rounds.
My boxes coming in average 35 lbs of honey, these were much heavier and constantly full, so I am guessing 40-45 lbs per box. That particular yard has yielded 350 lbs of honey per hive. The rest of my operation is running 150 right now. Not done the season yet.

Who Knows!

 

[Ian]

>>To get 200+ lbs./hive I believe the perfect storm must take place, location, weather

Not really, Just acres over acres of nectar dripping flowers

Ever open feed your hives? Notice they just keep bringing in the nectar if its avaliable. If their nest is full , they store up. If up is full, they just keep going further up.
What I am saying is, if the nectar is there, they will bring it in

 

[hossein yeganehrad]

Hi, i'm a beekeeper in vancouver aria and Alberta , i have my 2500hive in 2 pollination and i manange other 3500 hive, then by end of jully i go for honey production in Alberta , two box of bees with 10fram brood 100lb in 2 weeks is normal, in 2004 i had 150lb per hive in 3 weeks,
but for alberta beekeeper 150lb is low production i know beekeepers have 250lb per hive or more , last year i had 100lb , but i move to alberta jully 20 , honey flow start by jully first and stop IN 6 TO 8 weeks,

 

[Michael Bush]

Put them in the middle of 8,000 acres of sweet clover....

 

[Michael Palmer]

As far as that goes, I have never heard of anyone in the whole state of NY during the last 20 years making 300 lbs of honey on beehives since the 1950s or 60s.

I have Mark, most recently in 2005. Great year with 135 lb average and a total of 58T. I've also had wintered nucs build up on comb and produce 300 lbs.