r/Beekeeping

Let's say you start with 50 hives:

• Worst case: 10 kg/hive = 500 kg × $25 = $12,500 gross
• Average case: 25 kg/hive = 1,250 kg × $25 = $31,250 gross
• Best case: 50 kg/hive = 2,500 kg × $25 = $62,500 gross

And that's gross revenue before labor, feed, equipment, transport, hive losses, extraction/bottling, packaging, land, maintenance, and taxes.

Now scale that to 400 hives. You need a huge amount of additional equipment, colonies, vehicles, extraction capacity, labor, etc., yet even at 25 kg/hive you're only at:

400 × 25 × $25 = $250,000 gross/year.

Am I missing something? Where does the actual profitability come from? Because after all the CAPEX and operating costs, this seems surprisingly thin.

And that's assuming a normal year. With a harsh climate, drought, poor flowering, extreme heat, disease, or other problems, you could suddenly end up producing far less honey while your costs remain largely the same.

Location: NA

Hi everyone I recently bought local raw honey from brooksville Florida. It was foraged from cabbage palm, mangrove and Brazilian pepper. I wanted to gift it to someone but it has a bitter taste to it and a thin line of white bubbles on top. I’ve never had raw honey before so I don’t know if this is normal or has the honey gone bad? Can someone help?

Hello all! I am VERY new to beekeeping. New as in, I haven’t even gotten bees 🐝 yet. 😂I have been doing tons of research and even received my hives…. But WHERE DO I GET MY BEES!? I am located in south Alabama. Very close to both Florida and Georgia as well. If I do a quick google search a million different options come up, which can be confusing. I want to get my bees from a reputable, humane, and reliable place. Open to all opinions, tips, and advice! Thanks 😊

Good morning,

A couple of weeks ago I posted a picture of our beehive. The bees were building their comb kinda weirdly. The general opinion was, that they are lacking wax, to smush down what they had built and add more wax to help them thrive. We did just that. They're thriving.

I'm saying They're thriving but I'm actually not 100% sure about that. When is it enough? Can they overflow/outgrow their beehive and then leave?

When we checked the beehive the other day it was FULL. Two boxes with 10 frames were completely filled out. We got stung a few times too, when we ipened the give which to me also is a sign that they are a little agitated and just too full in there. And I'm a bit worried that they will outgrow their hive now and then swarm, simply because they are too crowded in there.

So my questions are:

Do I give them a third box for breeding? If so, when does it stop? Do you add a fourth, a fifth and so on after that? That doesn't really seem practical... So is there a way to naturally tell them "Hey guys... it's fine now :)"?

My next, "logical" step would be to add the Honey boxes on top now. They filled out two boxes for breeding now. I'm thinking, that now is the time to add the honey frames with that meshy layer in between, to prevent the queen from laying eggs in the Comb that the worker bees will build and fill with honey. Will that slow them down too maybe?

We got a Nuc of 5 frames this year in May/beginning of June(can't 100% remember). I feel like they are generally doing great to have filled all that space with colony already. The beekeeper we bought the Nuc from told us, that we will probably struggle to keep them alive in this first year. I feel like I'm having the exact opposite of a problem now lol.

Plwase, please help, so that this endeavour doesn't fail in the first year :)

Location is Nova Scotia, Canada

There have been some questionable things happening in my hive. There were some weird things happening with the queen cells but no swarm, also I cannot locate the queen.

The bees have gone from beautifully curious and cute to stinging a lot. They’ve stung my husband a couple of times, and now stalk him through the entire acre we have to sting him, even when we haven’t been near the hive that day.

They have stung me 3 times in 72 hours. Once on my nose through the mesh of the hat.

It’s been a lot.

This is our first year beekeeping. And we’re now at month 5. In Quebec.

This is the first time I’ve been stung, and my husband’s third. He seems to get one a month.

Advice/information on what’s going on is welcome

My father in law has a pecan orchard in Chihuahua and I thought that setting up some bees would be a good idea there

Where exactly do I start researching everything we would need to know?

What questions should I be asking and finding answers for?

4th year beek in NE TN here. We had a mild-ish winter, a fitful spring, and summer has been great.

I have caucasians and know they are heavy on the propolis. The gals in this one hive and off the chain. It's the first time I've seen this behavior. The colony is 2nd year in fantastic health, requeened last spring, and the boxes are fairly new.

Every time I examine the hive (and this was before requeening) they completely covered the oval hole in the inner cover. It's a LOT of plug. I keep pulling it out so the boxes will have ventilation but they keep plugging it back up. I examine once every 10 or so days.

Any thoughts?

I just checked all the uncapped honey on my hives which are already 1/2 capped and was getting readings between 19-20%. Is there any reason not to pull it early and dry it myself vs letting the bees do their thing. Everyone in my area says we are in our dearth but I put my wet freshly extracted frames on the hives to clean up and they have already begun filling it in. So I assume we have some sort of flow going on. I live in st. Pete Florida for reference.

9b 2nd Year 11 Hives

I know yall said a 2strip dose would be hard on them. It was 68 degrees here on the coast. Had a high mite count on a couple and panicked. Now I’ve got dead bees everywhere. Tounges sticking out and writhing in pain. Feeling pretty defeated.
What are the odds I 86’d the queen as well? How long until I do a damage assessment inspection? Should I get on the list for new queens now?