More Beekeeping Adventures

Published: 2023-08-17 11:02 PM

Category: Beekeeping | Tags: hobby, expansion, apiary, farming, permaculture

Beekeeping is rolling on this year. We took some time to spin out our modest harvest this year which yielded us nearly 50 pounds of wildflower honey. That's almost 4.5 gallons for our family, which should last a full year. We're very excited because we lost our hives last year and didn't expect to harvest anything this season. It really shows the benefit of maintaining frames with wax on them. Since the bees didn't have to build out comb from scratch, they were able to establish quickly and provide a honey crop for us.

I'm heading into the fall with three hives - two are quite strong and one still has a chance to toughen up before the season change. If they're still looking a little weak, I'll end up uniting it with one of the others to make it through winter and then do a split in the spring.

I got a call this week from a family friend who runs a ~15 acre farm south of us. He had a local beekeeper managing several hives on the farm as pollination service. In return, they paid a small rental fee and sold honey for him at the farm stand. According to the farm, they haven't been able to reach the keeper for almost two years. They've asked if I would be interested in taking over the management of the equipment moving forward.

This is a pretty big deal to me. The equipment is already in place, so I wouldn't have to invest too much in materials. There's always some maintenance and replacement to do, but it's not starting from scratch. There are about 8 living colonies right now with the potential to split those into 12 or 15 next season. They've been so neglectd, several of the boxes have been grown over by vines and weeds...so much that the bees have chewed through the boxes in places just to be able to get in and out.

Our little apiary at home gives us more than 50 pounds of honey annually. This would push us well into the hundreds of pounds of honey which means we can start selling almost immediately. I don't feel like I'm qualified enough to charge a rental, so I'm hoping we can work out an arrangement where they're willing to sell the honey with our farm sticker to build our own clientele as we try to expand. I'm planning on going over in the next couple of days to dig the hives out and see what's going on inside before making any long term commitment. But, on the face, this seems like a really good opportunity to not only get a lot more experience but also be able to expand much more quickly than we anticipated.

Meanwhile, the goldenrod will bloom and the bees will continue to gather and store away for the winter. Just a few more weeks before I close the boxes up for the last time in 2023 and wait til spring.