Cost of Increase (increasing costs !)

[Poly Hive]

Bucket of cold water.

Traditionally (yes dangerous word) the yield per colony over a ten year average is taken to be 40lbs.

If you explain that to your farmer instead of these massive figures then he may see that not buying nucs and going for the splits, possibly with bought in queens though, may be a more sensible way to go.

Though it may be too late as the hole is dug and the JCB is grunting down there.

PH

 

[boywonder]

Bucket of cold water.



Traditionally (yes dangerous word) the yield per colony over a ten year average is taken to be 40lbs.



If you explain that to your farmer instead of these massive figures then he may see that not buying nucs and going for the splits, possibly with bought in queens though, may be a more sensible way to go.



Though it may be too late as the hole is dug and the JCB is grunting down there.



PH

Lol. Fair points.

Just out of blind curiousity, and unrelated to farmers etc..... is that 40lb figure some kind of accepted benchmark ?

I ask only as I benchmark my crops off 80lb per colony. Any less being moderately disappointing, any more a bonus. All told, I reckon that's only 3-3.5 supers-worth, which in an average year, off two main flows / harvests, should be achievable ??

I appreciate that may vary wildly, depending on location etc... but an assumption of 40lb feels a little low ?



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[Poly Hive]

It's a long standing number, and it was the accepted number when I started out. Now whether it still is with the polys on the go and possibly better queens I can't say.

However it.s shall we say, a safe number. Then again it much depends on how you calculate things and this is where it gets tricky.

Some would say that you take the number of hives you put into Winter now, so let's say 10 for easy arithmetic. You take 800 pounds of honey from the surviving 8 that you had in Spring 2020. So that's 100 per colony? Actually no it's less as its 800 divided by 10 so it's 80 not 100 and so on.

Stats are what you want them to be. Ask any polly.....

PH

 

[For want of a better word]

madasafish, thanks for the candid opinions. If we must unpick the "commercial" side of this:



Nope - he will own the hives and the bees (we have agreed a nominal £x outlay per hive) - so he transfers me the money and I buy the fixed assets, so to speak.

I will then manage the hives for a fixed monthly fee over the 12 months of a beekeeping 'year' (which we have defined as May to April). That fee is calculated based on my time (both on site and off site, for maintenance, honey processing etc.) over the season at £x per hour, plus estimated cost of consumables (e.g. frames, foundation, feed, treatments, jars, labels), plus some contingency, divided over 12 months.

To that extent, it's a fixed fee arrangement.

Even if there is no honey crop, I still get paid my monthly fee.

I will jar the honey for him. He will get a saleable product for his fee.


Hire a solicitor to draw up an agreement with a massive get out of jail plan for yourself!
I have seen this type of deal go pearshaped when the farmer/landowner gets greedy.
also you both could come under this bit of leglislation, or parts of it

legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/30/contents/enacted

I know a few propper beefarmers and all of them say that the game is not worth the candle as long as cheap imports of bees ( for hobbyists) and cheap foreign honey is allowed to flood into the country.
Unless you have paid off your mortgage and have a large private income stream, and like to graft hard for long hours, consider another hobby!

 

[madasafish]

This year I started with 2 colonies and a nuc, and (unintentionally) finished with 5 colonies and 133 lb honey. You say you started with 3 colonies and finished with 6 plus 2 nucs. Not sure why you need to buy in any bees when you should be able to get the required number of colonies plus a good crop of honey by simply splitting your existing colonies at the right time?

My annual yield per hive (Lang jumbos so much larger):
2018 57lbs (great summer and about 20lbs left on each hive for winter)
2019 45lbs (rained continuously July August.Very little left)

 

[boywonder]

... you both could come under this bit of leglislation, or parts of it

legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/30/contents/enacted

OK - I get it !

 

[Murox]

There are several variables that will influence the quality and quantity of your honey crop. The health and ultimately the productivity of bees is affected by the amount, the quality and the diversity of available natural rich forage and your geographical position.
Even with very favourable conditions for bees its clear that to achieve your desired honey production figures some problems need to be solved.

 

[Poly Hive]

I used DuckDuck go to search this:

Uk average honey crop per hive.

I got.

BBKA 2018 30.8lbs

BBKA 2017 23.8 lbs

BBKA 2016 26 lbs

The average is given as 40 to 60 lb by the BBKA.

Please remember these are AVERAGES so your bumper crop is neither here nor there. My personal numbers are usually higher but not this year for sure. About the worst I have had TBH.

PH

 

[SWEET]

Out of interest, are these single or double brood units?, national or something else (or a mix).

 

[Walrus]

Out of interest, are these single or double brood units?, national or something else (or a mix).

If they are from the annual BBKA survey it will be average across all respondents to the survey. Some people don't respond and some people lie!

I think a useful exercise for somebody thinking commercially is to work out what revenue you need to break even. Then if you know roughly what you'll get from queens/nucs, you are left with the break-even honey crop. If that is a big number, you could be in trouble!

When I interviewed Mike Palmer he told me that a few years ago he needed 40lbs per hive to cover costs, but once he started raising queens and selling queens/nucs he had his costs covered even in a really bad honey year.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

The average is given as 40 to 60 lb by the BBKA.

PH

Yers..... as it seems that a large amount of their members 'do it for the bees, not the honey' (the stock answer to excuse ineptness and bad management) maybe not the best organisation to use as a benchmark for honey yield.

 

[Poly Hive]

I don't disagree but they are the ones who put figures out.

Can the BFA shed any light possibly?

Given the BBKA stats the 40lbs is not so far off the mark.

PH

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I don't disagree but they are the ones who put figures out.

Can the BFA shed any light possibly?

PH

They do have a figure, can't recall what it is now, but higher than the BBKA one

 

[Fusion_power]

, but once he started raising queens and selling queens/nucs he had his costs covered even in a really bad honey year.

Diversification of income is critical for a commercial operation. Hobbyists usually have a different source of income and don't rely on the honey crop. IMO, it is very difficult to produce good quality queens with fewer than 25 colonies of bees. I say this as a person with about 25 colonies of bees. Consider the time inputs with extra colonies to manage when more than just a crop of honey is desired. I'm running a business selling tomato and pepper plants which means available time in spring is severely limited.

Worth also noting that my bees are in an area that has historically produced 60 to 80 pounds of honey surplus per year. Given the price I can charge and the amount produced along with variation from year to year, I realistically only pay expenses with my beekeeping endeavors. Caveat emptor!

 

[drex]

Thank heavens I do not rely on my bees for an income. The sales pay for my hobby with a bit left over. It seems to me from the labour involved, and the current prices, if you want to make money, you put the emphasis on selling bees. After all, that is what Mike Palmer says ( see above). I wonder if I could be commercial and still get such joy from my bees?

 

[Jimmy]

They do have a figure, can't recall what it is now, but higher than the BBKA one

Both the BBKA and BFA surveys are self-reporting with no continuity of respondents between years, so comparison between years is interesting but not strictly valid.

 

[bingevader]

Yers..... as it seems that a large amount of their members 'do it for the bees, not the honey' (the stock answer to excuse ineptness and bad management) maybe not the best organisation to use as a benchmark for honey yield.

Oh, and it was all going so well!
If you had just left out the bit in brackets it would have been fine.
We extracted 18kg, (almost 40lbs!) from one super taken from one hive.
The rest we left for the bees.
Neither inept nor bad management, just a conscious decision.

 

[madasafish]

I don't disagree but they are the ones who put figures out.

Can the BFA shed any light possibly?

Given the BBKA stats the 40lbs is not so far off the mark.

PH

The BBKA say "divide total honey by the number of production hives"..

Given that, people may be tempted to cheat..

(my numbers above for yields are based on total hives.. if production hives, double them

 

[Poly Hive]

Really a better average is to divide the honey take by the number of colonies going into winter. but that could of course be rather depressing.

PH

 

[chipper]

Over 30 years my long term average is about the 50lb mark...
Most years 40 to 60 lbs range...
The worst year I still got 30lbs....Best year 100lbs...
Winter losses average at 10% ....
Range 2% to 25%...Spring honey OSR and Sycamore usually 30% of yield...
This is based on running 200 production colonies...and overwintering 50to 60nucs...
On average I feed 3000kgs syrup...
Yields are increasing now I use Danish Buckfast Queens...