No fun being a bee farmer

[biggles]

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.

 

[Nige.Coll]

sorry to hear you had a bad year.
whats gone wrong for you?

 

[Pete D]

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.

Probably fun but not a decent living to be had.
I admire you guys who do this, a lot of time, investment, hard work, equipment and commitment for precious all back unless we get an endless summer which has followed a previous good summer and a kind winter.

Good luck

 

[biggles]

sorry to hear you had a bad year.
whats gone wrong for you?

Keeping bees at farm and private houses is a pain. Just a couple of examples, 15 hives on a farm, he calls me to say he's going to spray, I get up a 4.30 am and drive 15 miles to them to shut them in. He calls at 9 to say he's running late but he will let them out. At 5.30 pm he opens them up! I get a call from one of his neighbors who keeps bees saying they were closed all day. I go over the next day to find only 10 survived but even these have masses of dead bees from over heating.
Another farmer sprayed oil seed rape without telling me 20 hives dead.
A private house who actively want wasps and cant understand the problem with wasps and bees.

Probably fun but not a decent living to be had.
I admire you guys who do this, a lot of time, investment, hard work, equipment and commitment for precious all back unless we get an endless summer which has followed a previous good summer and a kind winter.

Good luck

Not a living to be had I'm afraid but I knew that going into it. I was hoping to brake even but even that isn't easy and if you put the hours in I could have earn't more at Tesco stacking shelves.

Good fun in the summer being out side just going through hives.
Bad times moving them early in the morning in rain or finding hives knocked over etc.

Its been an experience but looking forward to just having ten or twenty at my house.

Sorry about this thread just a bit fed up with it all

 

[BKF Admin]

How many hives ?
How much honey this year ?
How long have you been full time ?

 

[alldigging]

What did your business plan have in it that didn't go as planned?

 

[pargyle]

How many hives ?
How much honey this year ?
How long have you been full time ?

Looking back over the previous posts from OP ... started from scratch in 2010
.. very rapid increase to 60 or so hives with a plan for at least a 100.

Credit to him for getting to that stage as a relative Newbie. It must have been very discouraging to have all those additional pressures as well as learning beekeeping on the fly.

There's inevitably a gap in any business which is very diifficult to bridge - the point where a profitable 'hobby' needs to grow to a business that will provide an income - the investment in both the time needed, the capital required and the burgeoning overhead becomes a huge burden for a 'one man band'.

The next stage of the business development almost always results in some very tight/lean years even when it's a product or a service that has predictable sales/cost of goods and overhead. You only have to look at the stats of UK new business failure rates ... the two/three year point failure rate is massive.

Beekeeping ? Well - there's only one thing that's predictable, it's UNPREDICTABLE !

I can well see why there are relatively few bee farmers in the UK ... reaching the size where you could be considered a bee farmer must be almost impossible with the last two winters and the intervening summers.

Very sorry for Biggles ... all that initial enthusiasm knocked out. Hope he continues with a few hives in a more pleasurable way.

 

[crazy_bull]

Keeping bees at farm and private houses is a pain. Just a couple of examples, 15 hives on a farm, he calls me to say he's going to spray, I get up a 4.30 am and drive 15 miles to them to shut them in. He calls at 9 to say he's running late but he will let them out. At 5.30 pm he opens them up! I get a call from one of his neighbors who keeps bees saying they were closed all day. I go over the next day to find only 10 survived but even these have masses of dead bees from over heating.
Another farmer sprayed oil seed rape without telling me 20 hives dead.
A private house who actively want wasps and cant understand the problem with wasps and bees.



Not a living to be had I'm afraid but I knew that going into it. I was hoping to brake even but even that isn't easy and if you put the hours in I could have earn't more at Tesco stacking shelves.

Good fun in the summer being out side just going through hives.
Bad times moving them early in the morning in rain or finding hives knocked over etc.

Its been an experience but looking forward to just having ten or twenty at my house.

Sorry about this thread just a bit fed up with it all

Wow seriously bad luck, apart from one unexplained poisoning of a small apiary that was out of OSR period. I have never had an issue with sprays on OSR, just leave them out and they're fine. It takes time to find the correct and most suitable sites, over the years when I've been desperate I've taken on sites that have proven to be troublesome (kids, nosey neighbours etc) I now have a selection of sites behind locked gates away from roads etc, with farmers that are sympathetic to my movements etc but it takes time to get that relationship.


C B

C B

 

[Skyhook]

Sorry about this thread just a bit fed up with it all

Don't be- I think most people on here will have a great deal of sympathy for you.

Your experiences of what worked and what didn't may prove helpful to other people, but I think Pargyle has pointed out one key factor- growing a hobby into a business is ALWAYS hard, and given the level of outlay required in hives etc, I suspect beekeeping may be one of the harder ones.


.

 

[enrico]

It benefits you to have lots of small apiaries spread out equal distance from your home. Edge of woodland, corners of fields etc. that way you have different and plentiful forage, you deal with a different apiary each day, you don't lose loads if spray damage occurs etc etc. I tried many years ago to run it as a business....never made a profit. I make more profit now just doing it for fun! Years ago farmers used to pay you to pollinate crops, that was where the profit came from.... Now it is all about the price of honey and if you get none then you are going bust quickly!
Chin up! Do it for the love of it and get a day job!
E

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Do it for the love of it and get a day job!
E

And some friendly neighbours! 10-12 hives in Tunbridge Wells sounds interesting... Good luck with it all whatever happens.

 

[Bee Bumble]

Sorry to hear of your problems biggles. We have had similar problems on a smaller scale and are now very choosy about where to put hives.

 

[sipa]

Stick with it, you have already made the investment and learnt by your mistakes.

Don't compound the loss by selling up.

 

[Tom Bick]

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.

Thats a shame biggles I have always followed your updated and bits of information regarding your adventure into beefarming from when you first mentioned it on the forum.

You have obviously given it a good go and if it feels right to stop no point in continuing. You are so right regarding earning more stacking shelves at the supermarket and at times thats how it is for all self employed and sole traders many hours worked for little or no return.

I wish you luck and hope you get a good return on your hives next year.

 

[peteinwilts]

I do not have as many as you. I peaked at 52 before our crappy August arrived.

I sympathise with you. The last couple of years have been harsh.
However, also being a newbie, I am still learning fast and believe once you have a number of hives, Rape seems more trouble than it is worth.
Constant monitoring, swarm overdrive, honey setting hard in frames, honey that (IMHO) is not really that great, just does not make it worth it. (small doses are ok)

I am still expanding, but my apiary's are surrounded by ancient hedgerows, a very large nature reserve and overgrown streams. when (if!) we have the weather, clover comes in fast. I choose to avoid the rape whenever I can.

I will never get as much as the hives that sit on rape, but there is less management allowing to keep more hives of (again, in my opinion!) good honey... swings and roundabouts. My best hive this year = 145lb (no rape!)

Although the honey is a nice side line, I can't imagine it as a full time wage.

Try a few static apiary's away from the rape and see what difference it makes.

 

[biggles]

Thanks all for the support really nice of you all. Not sure what got me so fed up today but now we,ve made up our minds it feels a lot better.
I do think its a shame there is very little help out there, other farmers seem to get paid for not growing things.
We're hoping to keep enough hives to still do the markets and a couple of the shops we supply but that might be tuff.

At the end of the day beekeeping is a great hobby but bloody hard to make a living from.

Thanks again

Oh and yes we have around 100 hives give or take a few the wasps have had.

 

[dpearce4]

How you going to sell all those hives and kit you will no longer need?

just wondering how you will make top price for them?

 

[Tdf]

you should decrease your numbers to 40-50, you should really be able to manage 80 hives around a 9-5 job once you have a bit more experience, then you could consider going fulltime

 

[biggles]

Going to just sell them off next spring as complete hives but doubt if we will get top money.

40 - 50 is too many here and I don't want to travel with them so happy with 20

 

[dpearce4]

Sent you a pm biggles with a suggestion.