The cost of wintering bees

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Vance G
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The cost of wintering bees

Unread post by Vance G »

The two commercial guys closest to me have radically different approaches to wintering their bees. One does not! A crew of Mexicans from California come in and shake his bees out of his equipment in late October after the bulk of the brood has emerged. He claims to receive a sum about half what he pays for his two pound packages he gets back the first week in April. The winter is spent mostly on vacation. No medication worries, no fall feeding worries, no transportation worries.

The other will be taking their bees to Southern California After the Christmas Holidays. There they will start bringing the winter clusters up to Almond pollination speed by pumping the feed, both protein and sugar into them to maximize bonuses for strength of his colonies. Then he pollinates fruit, and brings back strong colonies for honey production.

I don't know which one is making more money. Both appear to be doing well. Neither of those business models seem to be open to small timer me. I diligently feed my bees up to winter weight as required and this year a lot was required here this dry summer. To replace loss, I make splits in July into deeps divided into five frame nucs and add a second story and feed that full. I have nearly fifty dollars in each nuc for feed cost. I raised some queens and bought others and these nucs are certainly not free bees! Since they are all treated for mites and I provide dry sugar on top, the only ones I lose are from queen failure for the most part.

Now the dirty little secret! I could buy booming singles in California end of March for $125 in serviceable equipment. Yes trucking costs money but those are cheap bees! With the purchase of queens, those could be split in half and would be rip roaring double deeps ready for the main flow. Quality locations to expand into is the fly in the ointment. for expansion, but it appears to me that I could shake my bees into the snow every fall cheaper than wintering. I can remember gassing thousands of hives for similar economic reasons in North Dakota in the seventies.

I wonder how many hives a time could be smuggled across the border in a Chuckie Chicken truck?
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Biermann
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Re: The cost of wintering bees

Unread post by Biermann »

Hello Vance,

Interesting points and as you say, valid options for the larger, commercial guys, but for us it is the question between wintering our own stock or killing them in fall and restocking in spring with packages.

Now, as much as I have learned (and know from livestock breeding), their is an advantage in sticking to your own stock and multiplying for future uses with 'know' gene material. Also, the bee hive build-up goes much faster with a good wintered hive then a package restock. I feel it is advantages to go with what one knows then assuming that the bought product is better, most of the time it is not.

So, for me little beek, it is a no brainer, unless my queen and her girls die this winter and I am a restocker guy and have to deal with what I said earlier.

Also, the importation of problems (or movement of) would worry me, but if you are a commercial guy, it is about net $, = $ from (pollinating + honey sales etc.) - expenses. If that is good, why worries about the rest.

Cheers, Joerg
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Colino
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Re: The cost of wintering bees

Unread post by Colino »

Vance G wrote:Now the dirty little secret! I could buy booming singles in California end of March for $125 in serviceable equipment. Yes trucking costs money but those are cheap bees! With the purchase of queens, those could be split in half and would be rip roaring double deeps ready for the main flow. Quality locations to expand into is the fly in the ointment. for expansion, but it appears to me that I could shake my bees into the snow every fall cheaper than wintering. I can remember gassing thousands of hives for similar economic reasons in North Dakota in the seventies.

I wonder how many hives a time could be smuggled across the border in a Chuckie Chicken truck?
If I could buy $125 nucs, I wouldn't bother winterizing or fall feeding them. Around here I could be pulling honey supers into October because I wouldn't have to treat with Apivar in August. I'd throw a piece of 2" insulation on top of the inner cover and walk away. What makes it, makes it. That would let you know how many nucs you had to buy in the spring. The only problem I'd watch for is creating mite bombs but they could be handled with a few bucks for apivar in the spring.
Just thinking, $125 for a nuc, $30 for a queen and say $10 for shipping, $50 for comb and equipment. After the splitting you're looking at $108.50 for your nucs. If you could maybe pull in 100 lbs of honey off each and even at $2.50 bulk price honey that's $250 return a nuc or $141.50 profit. Of course these are optimal figures but you would have so much money Vance that you wouldn't talk to us anymore! :D
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Vance G
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Re: The cost of wintering bees

Unread post by Vance G »

Good pasture is already taken and more. We have a 3 mile radius law. That and I didn't do all I should have with sixty this summer.
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Colino
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Re: The cost of wintering bees

Unread post by Colino »

Vance G wrote:Good pasture is already taken and more. We have a 3 mile radius law. That and I didn't do all I should have with sixty this summer.
There's still lots of room up here but we can't get those bees across the line, even in a Chubby Chucks Chicken concession. We're just all lined up here waiting for the day when our government comes to it's senses then we'll come screaming across the border with bags of money to buy those cheap bees and make our fortunes. :mrgreen: I'll even trade up from my old 91 caravan to a 95. :D
Narcissism is easy because it's me or I, Empathy is hard because it's they or them.-Colino
Allen Dick
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Re: The cost of wintering bees

Unread post by Allen Dick »

If hive numbers are no concern, the best way to winter is simply stack every other hive on the neighbouring hive, put some insulation on top of the lid and leave them. That method guarantees a 50% loss going in, but almost 100% wintering success if the hives are reasonably strong and healthy.

In spring, combined hives, in contrast to hives that are not combined, tend to uniformly be strong enough to split.
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Colino
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Re: The cost of wintering bees

Unread post by Colino »

Allen Dick wrote:If hive numbers are no concern, the best way to winter is simply stack every other hive on the neighbouring hive, put some insulation on top of the lid and leave them. That method guarantees a 50% loss going in, but almost 100% wintering success if the hives are reasonably strong and healthy.

In spring, combined hives, in contrast to hives that are not combined, tend to uniformly be strong enough to split.
I can recognize a million dollar piece of information when I see it.
Narcissism is easy because it's me or I, Empathy is hard because it's they or them.-Colino
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Countryboy
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Re: The cost of wintering bees

Unread post by Countryboy »

There is a guy here in Ohio who runs his bees in singles with an excluder.

At the end of the season, he lets them starve out. (Or he shakes the bees into someone else's equipment.)

During winter, he cleans up the boxes, and sprays 2-3 gallons of syrup into the outer frames. (The middle 2 or 3 frames are empty comb.)

The last week of March, he dumps 2 pound packages into the boxes. By mid-May, he is splitting strong colonies to keep them from swarming.

His average for the past 5 or 7 years is about 125 pounds per hive.

He doesn't have to worry about treating for mites.
He doesn't have to deal with trying to equalize hives much in the spring. Most hives are fairly consistent.
The money he saves on not treating, and the value of the extra honey he gets is more than the price of new packages in the spring.

He does drive down to Georgia to get his packages in the spring. If I remember right, it is a 17 or 19 hour one way drive for him.
B. Farmer Honey
Central Ohio
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