How much honey per hive 2014?

[Grif]

How many pounds of honey per hive are people expecting this season?
I'm yet to extract, but interested what would be a rough average to expect from a decent disease free colony.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I have had 50Kg off my best colony and there are still three nearly full supers on it waiting to be capped.
However, yield depends on forage as well as strength of colony.
We still have balsam here so I'm leaving the rest of the supers on for now.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I've taken between 60 and 90 pounds off all my fully productive hives already, there's still more than that still to come off all those, I've now got younger colonies also bringing honey in and I'm expecting between 30 and 90 pounds off those (all going well that is)

PS - what's a kilo - is it a special kind of honey like manookie?

 

[Ely]

10 shallows 1 deep from two hives. Including springs harvest. Sorry, I didn't bother weighing anything this year.

 

[Jimmys Mum]

I've taken 7 supers from one hive already this season, headed up by one of Hivemakers buckfasts introduced last August none of my other hives have come close to that. Co-incidence? I suspect not!
My other production hives are averaging 70-90lb. I am lucky to have both OSR, copious lime trees and balsam very close by, with other good forage in between.

However I only took 12lb last year........

 

[REDWOOD]

Two nucs I bought this year are on their third and the other two productive colonies are on their 5th with hopefully some heather thrown in for good luck, and not to forget one swarm that has one super just in case and if there are any tax men watching I give all mine away

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I've taken between 60 and 90 pounds off all my fully productive hives already, there's still more than that still to come off all those, I've now got younger colonies also bringing honey in and I'm expecting between 30 and 90 pounds off those (all going well that is)

PS - what's a kilo - is it a special kind of honey like manookie?

Addendum - the figures quoted are per hive BTW

 

[Erichalfbee]

PS - what's a kilo - is it a special kind of honey like manookie?

I didn't write "kilo" I wrote Kg
It's a fathom or a chain or is that the length of a cricket pitch?....so confusing

 

[maddydog]

101Lbs split between 3 hives as a spring crop. Swarming fever means i now have 6 colonies so i pretty much miseed out on the summer flow but i reckon there should be another 100lbs to take off in sept.
I'm only a baby beek compared to a lot of the other posters though

 

[Headnavigator]

Oh gawd I hate these competitive threads. Let's just hope we all got enough honey for our needs, whatever they may be?

 

[gregior]

I'v averaged 75lbs per hive (i have 5 hives)

 

[Glenviewbee]

Oh gawd I hate these competitive threads. Let's just hope we all got enough honey for our needs, whatever they may be?

But maybe that's just because we won't be taking any off our 3 hives

 

[maddydog]

Oh gawd I hate these competitive threads. Let's just hope we all got enough honey for our needs, whatever they may be?

That's why i posted my more modest probable 30lbs a hive total so those of us who are newer beeks realise that 90lbs a hive is a target to aim for with knowledge, experience and a fair wind.

 

[masterBK]

25 colony yard average of 102 lbs per hive (40 % s OSR and 60% summer flow mostly lime with contributions from bramble and clover). As always some colonies have done exceptionally well with over 160 lbs of honey but others have collected less than 30lbs. The heather crop is still to come but have only taken six to the moors.

 

[Apple]

180 average for double brood + 1/2
Nil for the Nucs!

My sister betters this with her best Ferrari bees, but then has to feed the poor dears copious amounts of invert in the non flow times and over winter and Spring and the June gap or they tend to die out!


James

 

[sean-a]

Diddly squat !!

:-((

 

[Roola]

140lb

 

[Rahere]

Results just coming in, it looks as though a couple with 8 supers on may have produced 170-180lb each. One super gave over 30lb (weighed in at 42). Others we got wrong gave less, predictably - 30 each on average.
The difference lay in successful swarm management, in half the cases. The others were requeened for various reasons and that had its effect in the runup to peak flow: we might have done better to combine the weaker colonies as we ended up with too many unproductive ones. I'm starting to think there's a fixed-variable "cost" structure in the number of bees in a colony, below breakeven it struggles, above it zooms ahead. The trick is finding the breakeven point, 30-40 000 bees?

 

[drex]

How do you count your bees? I get what I get. As long as I have had an enjoyable summer, learnt something, and as a result improved my beekeeping, and go into winter with strong healthy colonies I am happy. I have had 2 good crops this year though.

 

[Davelin]

I didn't write "kilo" I wrote Kg
It's a fathom or a chain or is that the length of a cricket pitch?....so confusing

Correct SI nomenclature is kg, not Kg.