Topic: Bees - how much honey?

[blisters]

OH is thinking of going into beekeeping (only 2 hives - for the moment!) and wondered how much honey you could expect to harvest from each hive.

Any comments gratefully received.

[Robert_Brenchley]

It varies! I used to have a strain of totally ill-adapted hybrids which eventually dies out because the queens didn't mate reliably in our climate. They gave me loads of swarms and very little honey. Such bees are to be avoided! Last year I had one hive I split (so I wouldn't expect much from it), one which never built up enough to make honey (it happens) and one which gave me about 60 lb. The latter is probably about average. They're just beginning to store honey now, so we'll see what I get this year.

[tim]

Excuse the interruption, but did you hear yesterday that they are training bees as sniffer 'dogs'??

[Lady Cosmos]

Bees are used for training since years.
Have you ever heard of Pavlov  (dogs) This is the same idea
In Belgium they are training rats as bomb sniffing, In France they use pigs looking for those nice truffles.  the USA  has dolphins training for underwater risks.
And bees associate the smell of explosives with their food ( Pavlov)
Here in the Netherlands science is busy with training wasps, but I cannot remember to trace what exactly ???

[Lady Cosmos]

How much honey you will get per hive depends on many things.
How big is your hive? Are you talking about  a "3"' ,a 7" or a 10" size?
How much food supply is there in the direct distance?
It is essential to leave the bees with enough honey for their needs ( workers , winter)
A strong hive needs more honey than a weak hive to survive the winter.
A healthy hive has about 3 times as much honey as they need, so how often are all your hives 100%? ::).
But it is possible to get 3,5 kg honey at 1 honeycomb. If you work with a 10" hive you can get 30 kg a year.  :P
here in the Netherlands in the middle of the bulbfields that amount is "normal".
( as long as you don't had a summer like last year, when temperature even in october was very high) Than you loose a lot of bees, start with weaker hives et etc
 

[bennettsleg]

We've just sourced a local beekeeper for his jarred honey, he's got 8 hives and last year got about half a tonne of honey. And - get this - it's his "hobby".  Blimey!

[tim]

Continuing the interrupt - the thing I like about bees, My Lady, is that because of their 4 week life, they have to train them in minutes!!

[Lady Cosmos]

Bees ARE extremely clever, Mr T. Within seconds they know f.i. the direction to find their food.
And.... Bees, born in spring and summer, live up to 6 weeks.
Bees, born from August on, live up to 6 MONTHS.

But it is very very clever how they train them, I admit.  ;)

[Robert_Brenchley]

From what I've read, they feed bees on syrup with a bit of whatever they want them to find - it has to have a scent. Then they'll follow the scent assuming it leads to food. You can put a microtransmitter on a bee, and there's now radar available which can track individual bees; I'm not sure whether you have to stick anything on them, I've a feeling you do.

[blisters]

WOW!  Thanks everyone.

I never dreamt you could get that much honey.

Nor did I know that bees were so clever.

OH very impressed.