No fun being a bee farmer

[biggles]

Where are they. Every and any where we can put them but mainly in small holdings or houses with large gardens. A friend put an add in the local paper for places to put bees and got loads of replys he now has more places than hives. We stolen a couple of places off him.
How many, still not enough to make money and I really haven't counted but 100 or more. Not been trying to bread but with artificial swarms and a few swarms numbers have grown. Sometimes finding hive to put them in has been a problem.
We sold a few nucs and gave a lot of swarms away to start local people off this year.
What's different, Not putting them on farms. I think I started this thread after coming back from a farm where out of ten hives six were either dead or very low on numbers where they had been spraying a few days before. Also the wife gave up working and is doing a lot more with the bees. She's done really well selling the honey as well.
This might not go down well here but we also spend less time in each hive. I've looked through a lot of hives in the past few years and you get to know how they are by the way they act as you open them up. I don't look for queens, just a quick look to see if they are going to swarm,look for eggs, check for varroa/disease, add or remove supers and close them up. Some hives are open and closed in less than 60 secs other take a lot longer.
Thanks for the nice comments that kept us going.

 

[rolande]

How many, still not enough to make money.

gave a lot of swarms away to start local people off this year.

Not sure setting up other people (even if you were charging to do so) is a good long term strategy if you want to make money locally out of bees.

 

[biggles]

Not sure setting up other people (even if you were charging to do so) is a good long term strategy if you want to make money locally out of bees.

Not charging just a long term strategy for the survival of bees

 

[BeeJayBee]

Not charging just a long term strategy for the survival of bees

Giving bees away can devalue them. Charge something, even if it isn't very much, and perhaps they'll be looked after more carefully by their new owner. After all, you wouldn't expect a farmer to give away lambs for free.

 

[wightbees]

I have some questions if you don't mind me asking.
Is the honey sold wholesale or retail ?
Do you sale other bee related items ,hives frames ect ?
Do you breed and sale queens?
Just trying to get a idea of how you run your business if thats OK

 

[biggles]

When we give bees away we spend time with the new keepers. We've set 3 people up and running this year and their all doing well. Seeing them looking after bees is payment enough.
We don't sell queens, hives or kit as we don't have a shop and we don't manufacture bits. We do a few farmers markets and some shops sell our honey. We also sell from the farm here. If the year carries on as it is we will be wholesaling some. Fingers crossed.

 

[rolande]

When we give bees away we spend time with the new keepers. We've set 3 people up and running this year and their all doing well.

Encouraging other people to steal your forage and to tie up good apiary sites and honey outlets is fine except that you started this thread with the statement

Not made any money, spent a lot of time and effort. So now just agreed with the wife we're going to sell our hives off next year.

which seemed to suggest that you were, at least at one point, actually looking for financial return. I always find the urge to get other people keeping bees quite odd, personally I'd rather they didn't (not on my patch anyway).

 

[biggles]

Encouraging other people to steal your forage and to tie up good apiary sites and honey outlets is fine except that you started this thread with the statement



which seemed to suggest that you were, at least at one point, actually looking for financial return. I always find the urge to get other people keeping bees quite odd, personally I'd rather they didn't (not on my patch anyway).

Yes we would like to make some money and this year is already looking better.
Why don't you want others to keep bees and help? there's enough food in this area for the bees to forage and a very big market for honey. How can it effect what money I make. If I help 3 or 4 people a year and they have 1 or 2 hives its not going to effect our profit one bit, but will educate more people in the plight of the bee.
If I just wanted to make loads of money I would work in the city, however there's so much more to life than money.

Only 12% of the honey sold in the UK is from UK bees. So with your plan you better try and stop people in other countries keeping bees!

 

[rolande]

Why don't you want others to keep bees and help?

Why would you?

If I'd invested in setting up a carpet shop and was trying to get a financial return on that investment I wouldn't think that it would be a good idea to encourage others to open their own outlets in the same locality.

Only 12% of the honey sold in the UK is from UK bees. So with your plan you better try and stop people in other countries keeping bees!

Not at all, different thing altogether.

 

[Tdf]

Where are they. Every and any where we can put them but mainly in small holdings or houses with large gardens. A friend put an add in the local paper for places to put bees and got loads of replys he now has more places than hives. We stolen a couple of places off him.
How many, still not enough to make money and I really haven't counted but 100 or more. Not been trying to bread but with artificial swarms and a few swarms numbers have grown. Sometimes finding hive to put them in has been a problem.
We sold a few nucs and gave a lot of swarms away to start local people off this year.
What's different, Not putting them on farms. I think I started this thread after coming back from a farm where out of ten hives six were either dead or very low on numbers where they had been spraying a few days before. Also the wife gave up working and is doing a lot more with the bees. She's done really well selling the honey as well.
This might not go down well here but we also spend less time in each hive. I've looked through a lot of hives in the past few years and you get to know how they are by the way they act as you open them up. I don't look for queens, just a quick look to see if they are going to swarm,look for eggs, check for varroa/disease, add or remove supers and close them up. Some hives are open and closed in less than 60 secs other take a lot longer.
Thanks for the nice comments that kept us going.

how many hives do you keep at an apiary on average? Think this will hinder further expansion for you unless your getting 15-20 hives at a spot

 

[biggles]

Why would you?

If I'd invested in setting up a carpet shop and was trying to get a financial return on that investment I wouldn't think that it would be a good idea to encourage others to open their own outlets in the same locality.



Not at all, different thing altogether.

Its not a carpet shop so different thing altogether. The market for honey can cope with a lot more people selling it and bees need our help.

how many hives do you keep at an apiary on average? Think this will hinder further expansion for you unless your getting 15-20 hives at a spot

We only try and keep 12 in one place but some places have 20.

 

[alldigging]

Its not a carpet shop so different thing altogether. The market for honey can cope with a lot more people selling it and bees need our help.



We only try and keep 12 in one place but some places have 20.

I think the analogy intended is that there are only so many floors to carpet and if you set up enough carpet shops (even small ones) then there will not be enough floors within a sensible distance drive for you to run a business.

If you buy and extract honey from the other people then you might have some logic to a business plan.

 

[biggles]

I'm selling all the honey we get and we could sell more if we have it, so how can effect that?

Using the carpet analogy there's more floors than I can cope with

 

[Batcher]

OK. Could someone explain the need for 400 hives to make a living. The bee farmers site need you to have 40 hives to be a bee farmer (not saying you will make much cash with 40 though, if any)
From the yields I have read about 60-100 hives should show a return. Added to selling equipment, Queens and Nucs, I think there should be something in the kitty at the end of the season. Happy to see Biggles is carrying on. Good luck this year, mate.

 

[Erichalfbee]

OK
I think there should be something in the kitty at the end of the season.

But would it be a "living something"?
Add to that........after slogging your guts out over hot hives all summer you need to be somewhere hot and expensive all February
Yields were good last year and probably will be this but 2012 was abysmal.

 

[biggles]

OK. Could someone explain the need for 400 hives to make a living. The bee farmers site need you to have 40 hives to be a bee farmer (not saying you will make much cash with 40 though, if any)
From the yields I have read about 60-100 hives should show a return. Added to selling equipment, Queens and Nucs, I think there should be something in the kitty at the end of the season. Happy to see Biggles is carrying on. Good luck this year, mate.

Thanks
400 would be enough to sell honey and make a living. The Bee farmers brought the number down to attract more members, I think

 

[user 6228]

Thanks
400 would be enough to sell honey and make a living. The Bee farmers brought the number down to attract more members, I think

so would selling 100 nucs per year

 

[jimmybee]

Biggles do you think you'll have your out lay back by the end of the year?? as I'm a very long way off as this year I've jumped in the deep end, built an new work shop, made loads hives and collected and cut as much as I can I'm just short on the bee front at the moment.

 

[biggles]

Dont think we will quite brake even and at the end of this year we will have a lot of repairs on hives to do. We also built a shed that was falling down into a honey shed and spent a lot to get it up to hygiene standards. The cost of that will take a few years to get back.
Where about are you if your close you can have all my swarm calls.
Good luck in the adventure.

 

[jimmybee]

South staff's bit of a drive to kent, my work shop/ honey house is looking good costing an arm and a leg but I've got 100 hives built and waiting, bees are coming slow, got more sites than I need, but I've planned the jump and keeping me fingers crossed and working hard.