well lets break it all down shall we.
round trip of 40 miles + petrol cost +vehical costs= 40p per mile i belive i get that from Mr Taxman so £16 per visit is the true costs not £6 for a gallon
the farm is actually an eastate and we are looking at well over 300H of OSR, plus after that field bean and after that flax so we are looking at BIG crops and BIG supers, but of low quality honey, there is no reason if a february build up was started and we properly sited half a dozen hives there we could not a very big return, i would even say half a super a week each easy if not a full super, we are looking at croping for two months so thats eight supers each at 25kg apiece times six so say ONE POINT TWO TONS OF HONEY!!!!
OK SO IT NEVER QUITE WORKS LIKE THAT BUT SOME TIMES WE DO GET CLOSE
the set up is the problem though, what we need to do is to reduce travel costs and beeks time
the stand for a start would want to knocked into the ground so it cant be blown or knocked over, all the hives should then be strapped or screwd down so they dont go over, we have alll found our best hive upside down when we have gone to inspect them so fix the lot down.
start the spring feed in february, big feed
this is the trick every one forgets at the start, what we do today has produced effects five weeks later
this kicks the queen into lay, let the hive stock up on brood
move the hives to the osr before flowering to make sure there ready for the whole crop and not just bits or the tail end
just as the hive explodes with new bees and new hatchings the flow starts perfect the hive then rapidly expands as the crop flow kicks in,
four supers on top of a hive is perfectly ok,
to save time with extracting a ton of honey i would extract supers as we go along, to keep on top of the honey flow
the next couple of problems is looking after distence hives, i found IP cameras worked well with a small car battery and gave me piece of mind great little things and now not too expencive.
sit around the rape a few bait hives just in case as osr and bees will always catch me out with a swarm, young queens help to prevent that
20 mile radius is to me perfect to do distance bee keeping if as like here you have a massive area to harvest,