I've been doing a lot of optimization this year, both by force and by need as I've gone from ~15 colonies on one site to 40 colonies on 2-3. I've been working a (very) full time job whilst trying to increase colony count and do a market once a fortnight, which means what little time I have needs to be used as best as possible. My findings are:
- Creating processes are key to efficiency, they don't need to be written down (it helps) but they do need to be understood, followed, and periodically reviewed for improvements.
- Invest in good equipment that will scale with you and stop "making do", 9/10 you'll squirm at the expense but then wonder why you didn't do it sooner.
- Schedule, plan and track your tasks; having a big whiteboard calendar hung up somewhere is very very useful both for planning what to do as well as reminding you what you've done.
- Try to predict problems before they become problems, it's not easy but you'll start seeing patterns.
- Be comfortable with changing how you work and trying new things, being dogmatic can lead to a huge amount of wasted time and money.
- Understand where you can spend money to save time, a good example is pre-waxed/premade frames. I switched at quite a large expense but I'll never go back now, the frames are significantly more sturdy and far easier to re-use.
- Look for blockers you keep hitting, note them down, then spend an hour or so going through them one by one (preferably with someone else) to see if they can be mitigated.
Overall I've found that time is the one commodity that can't be replaced, "freeing up" time by making processes more efficient lets you get to those other beekeeping jobs (the Infinite Job, never ending!) before they get bad, meaning they take less time and subsequently free up more time!
For specific things that have ended up saving me time, the big ones are:
- Buying a bigger, better spinner, uncapper and large settling tanks. Costly but I'd never go back!
- Planning out what equipment I need for a site visit ahead of time
- Storing a basic set of equipment at each site (hive tools, a spare full hive + 1 or 2 nucs depending on the season), huge time saver!!
- Switching to wood pellets for smoker fuel, smoulders for hours and never had one go out on me
- Built a super sack truck and some super dollies to make moving/transporting significantly easier/faster
- Changed how I harvested supers from the bash and brush method to clearer boards for a week and a makita blower (massive time save)
- Bought an instavap, can dose a whole site in <30 mins, 100% would recommend
- Switched to wired pre-waxed frames bought in bulk, will never make a frame again!
- Bought a HQ Jarring machine, pricy but wish I'd done it sooner, can do 2-300 jars in an hour solo no bother.
