Time gentleman please...

[Johnnifer]

and Ladies too ;-)

As an interested lurker who is yet to connect with the local BKA and take the plunge proper I was wondering...

How much time would I need to invest as a beekeeper of one to three hives?

Winter vs Summer, evenings, mornings, mid week, weekends etc. Looking to assess if I'll have enough time before I go to far with this.

Johnniffer

 

[Murox]

Thats a loaded question Johnifer. I can tell you the length of a piece of string is twice its length from the middle to one end. All your time or as little as you want.
Potentially vertical hives are more "intensive" in time and labour than the horizontal cousin, and there are various systems and schools of thought as to the frequency of visits to your apiary.
I guess for around a third of the year you need do little or nothing for the bees. At the busy flow times you may need to visit every two weeks or thereabouts, but possibly more often depending on situation/circumstances. The rest of time might include thinking, making and repairing kit, going to meetings/lectures etc and pulling your hair out as the bees won't do what you want!
You will only get out what you are prepared to put in, beekeeping can be an all absorbing hobby or a way of life or your business, maybe all three .

 

[Saffabee]

I started with 1 and then had two by the end of that year and I spent 1 hour a week checking through them in the summer and 1 hour a week staring at nothing moving through the clear perspex crown board in the winter (you laugh but I guarantee you will do the same).

2nd year I spent 1 hour checking 2 boxes in the spring and then 3 hours checking 4 hives in the summer not sure why it took that long but there was more stuff to do and keeping notes took longer to do while I was inspecting. Extracting was a full day mostly cause i didn't know what i was doing and my wife nearly divorced me cause the kitchen looked like a honey bomb went off in it. I still spent 1 hour a week staring at nothing moving through the clear crown board in the winter.

3rd year up to 6 hives in the summer, about 3 hours every week to inspect starting from May till August, a day for extracting normally twice a year in May (if I am lucky) and August (the kitchen still looks like a honey bomb went off in it even though I know what i am doing now). I have to admit I still spend at least 30 min every week staring through the clear perspex crown boards at nothing moving inside or just stand beside them staring at 6 very still quiet boxes through most of the winter!

That is just the practical side of the hobby now if you include the amount of time I spend reading and looking at YouTube videos of bees or looking longingly through bee catalogues then I would say you might just have enough time to sleep and eat, if you have a family spend some quality time with them before you start keeping bees so you remember what they look like!

Have fun and enjoy and welcome to the wonderful world of beekeeping!!

 

[enrico]

Hi, winter is cleaning kit and getting ready for spring. As and when you want. Spring and summer and early autumn are at least once a week, about an hour per hive. No summer holidays. Watching your bees takes about six hours a day! Money? Lots of it. Never stops as you keep improving stuff. Buy best first time! Honey will never cover the outlay! Some years loads of honey, other years very little. You will get enough to keep your own family going though!
It is like most hobbies, if you like it you will get hooked.
E

 

[domino]

I managed just under 20 one Saturday a week. When I'm doing other stuff like queen rearing it goes up.

Beekeeping scales as a hobby very well, you just judge as you increase hives. From my experience more than 20 it becomes too much commitment for me.

 

[Eyeman]

10-20% of my beekeeping time involves inspecting the bees the rest of the time I'm moving kit from A to B then back to A again as well as constructing, deconstructing and planning something new!

 

[masterBK]

I have 25 colonies and spend no more than 3 minutes on inspection per hive every 9 days (all my queens are marked and wing clipped ) during the active season but if anything needs sorting out (artificial swarm, setting up nuclei etc this can take up to 15 minutes per hive). Too many beekeepers open up their colonies far too often for far too long when such exposure and disruption isn't necessary. Once bees are fed etc for winter by end of september I don't check them again til April apart from a december Oxalic treatment for Varroa and monthly checking their weight in February and March to identify any shortage of stores.

I would think a beginner with 3 hives needs to spend no more than 1 hour per week during the active season on their own bees but allow more time for looking through other hives with other beekeepers to get as much experience as possible in your first year or so. Extracting and bottling honey can take a bit of time if you do well.

 

[madasafish]

I have 25 colonies and spend no more than 3 minutes on inspection per hive every 9 days (all my queens are marked and wing clipped ) during the active season but if anything needs sorting out (artificial swarm, setting up nuclei etc this can take up to 15 minutes per hive). Too many beekeepers open up their colonies far too often for far too long when such exposure and disruption isn't necessary. Once bees are fed etc for winter by end of september I don't check them again til April apart from a december Oxalic treatment for Varroa and monthly checking their weight in February and March to identify any shortage of stores.

I would think a beginner with 3 hives needs to spend no more than 1 hour per week during the active season on their own bees but allow more time for looking through other hives with other beekeepers to get as much experience as possible in your first year or so. Extracting and bottling honey can take a bit of time if you do well.

well yes but a beginner takes longer to do things that an experienced beekeeper does quickly due to practise and knowledge of what they are looking at /for.

When I started in 2010, watching bees in spare time was fascinating..And inspections were fascinating and a learning process.And finding an unmarked queen was a challenge. And everything was new to me.. so a learnng process.

And having more than one hive as I did, just meant more - and I wrote lots of notes.

Now I do quick inspections, check for disease with a practised eye and can find unmarked queens reasonably quickly . But that is all learned expertise from 9 seasons of inspecting my own and Association Apiary hives. (and building much of my own kit being mean).

So I would say as follows: (for 1-3 hives)
In winter - with bees - about 2 hours in total Oct-March mainly Oxalic Acid in Dec?Jan and walk pasts to check for wind damage. And a quick weigh/heft to check bees still have stores
In spring - 30-40 mins/per hive per week March- April-May. If your hive swarms, add more time to catch/house.
In summer - June-July -Aug. Adding boxes for honey etc.. gradually reducing time on inspections as swarming less likely.
August - honey crop could be nil to several hours if you have lots.
Late Aug-Sept -October ..Very little apart from feeding..And varroa treatment. Done competently not much after early Sept

The more hives you have, the less time you can spend on each and you streamline what you do.

If you raise nucs add more time.And if you raise queens then it means working to a fixed schedule and can be very time consuming depending on how you do it and how many..

And if it's a hot summer like this year , you do as little as possible due to turkish baths in beesuits..

Beekeepers who go on holiday May/June without having a hive sitter for them face the risk of losing half their bees swarming and all their honey crop.

 

[Curly green fingers]

And that's the half of it!
I think the Turkish baths were made worse by having to where jeans and a jumper then suit because of my nice dark bee's gone a bit ginger!