I haven't started one yet, but plan to have a market veggie garden/ greenhouse/ roadside stand (small truck farm) & maybe some fruit bearing plants. I plan on having a small farm, & would like to have a bee hive to help in pollination. I doubt I would need more then one hive.

Can anyone tell me how much honey & bee's wax I might get?

Thanks in advance from central Indiana.

animalfarms

-- animalfarms (jwlewis@indy.net), July 14, 2000

Answers

See if your local library can borrow of copy of Practical Beekeeping by Enoch Tompkins & Roger M. Griffith. It was published by Garden Way Publishing in Charolette, VT (05445) and may still be in print and available from them. Don't know if the Countryside Book Store carries it. You may be better off finding someone in your area who is a beekeeper and having them place a hive at your place for a portion of the honey.

-- Ken Scharabok (scharabo@aol.com), July 14, 2000.

It depends how many supras you add to your hive--fiquire 2 gallons of honey from each supra per year. I don't do much with the wax. I recommend at least 3 hives so if you have problems (like mites) or a weak hive than you'll still have bees. Join a local bee club--they are a fountain of information on your area and beekeeping.

-- Joel Rosen (Joel681@webtv.net), July 14, 2000.

I tend to agree with Ken's suggestion about finding a beekeeper to place a hive on your property. But be aware the going rate in your area for "out-placing" hives may not be much. There was quite a discussion about hive site rental in the Bee-L newsgroup a year or so ago. Several of the writers said they "pay" a quart per hive, and even that's more of a thank-you gesture than anything because so many people would pay to have the pollination service the guest bees provide.

Having just one hive is kinda like building a chicken coop for just one hen. You certainly can do it, but it may not be very economical or practical. Joel's right; start with two or three, and do find an area bee club.

Don't expect any surplus honey the first year, and then if you do get some, you'll think it's a bonus. Second-year hives -- depending on your area and on the weather and on your bees and how well you look after them -- ought to produce 30-35 pounds of honey, maybe more if you're lucky. That's an average, based on the entire U.S. A few might do 50 or 60 pounds or even more; others may not have any surplus at all beyond what the bees will need for winter food. (Note: One gallon of honey = 12 pounds.) As for wax, if you save all your cappings and any burr comb you've scraped during the year, you'll probably end up with no more than a pound or so per hive per year. The idea is to "stockpile" drawn comb in your supers so your bees won't have to expend the resources to make more comb the following year to store that year's crop. (With a top bar hive instead of a conventional Langstroth hive, you'd probably get far more wax, but considerably less honey.)

I'm not familiar with the "Practical Beekeeping" book Ken mentioned. A lot of more experienced beekeepers than I am seem to be recommending Diane Summataro's "Beekeeper's Handbook" for beginners. I know it's up-to-date on disease control and prevention. I love reading the old beekeeping books, but they're not much help keeping bees alive in these days of AFB and varroa mites.

As I just read somewhere recently, the plural of anecdote is not "data." These are just my opinions; your mileage may vary.

-- Rog (flanders@probe.net), July 17, 2000.

The main reason for having a bee hive would be for pollination. My profits would be in larger crops because of increased pollination. Any honey I'd get would be a bonus, but not expected.

I didn't think I'd get much wax if I tried for the most honey production. But I was wanting to get a few opinions of how much honey & wax I might expect (or a good guess).

Thanks for the help. Anyone else want to add something?

animalfarms

-- animalfarms (In) (jwleiws@indy.net), July 18, 2000.

Most of the other quilters that I know like beeswax to run their thread over to keep it from snarling. I also gave chunks to a carpenter to use in tongue and groove joints.

TMEN (I think) had plans for a solar wax separator - I have no idea what issue though. It used corrugated metal to help catch debris as the wax melted and ran down over the ridges. I just used cappings and put them and some water in a coffee can inside another pan of water, melting them over low heat and stirring and skimming the debris off. Don't use a good pan to put the cappings in - what we called "bee gum" is a major pain to get off of anything. We let the wax start to harden, then rolled it by hand into balls about the size of a walnut. Smelled great, looked "old-timey". Can't remember what we sold it for - wasn't much, probably not worth the work that went into it, but it was fun to do.

Pop used to take jars of honey to work with him (construction electrician). Mom or I would bake him up a batch of biscuts and he would offer the guys a biscut with honey at coffee break - then sell jars of honey out of the car trunk at the end of the day. We used honey jars the first year, then switched to canning jars - 1/2 pt and pt mostly. A wide mouth pt jar with a chunk of comb in it, filled in with extracted honey, was our best seller. When we sold it at the orchard, we'd fluff it up a bit with a square of calico or gingham tied with ribbon over the jar lid - don't know if it helped sales, but it looked good with the Indian corn and gourds, etc..

Gee, I miss my bees!! Still have all the equipment, except the extractor....hmmmm....

-- Polly (tigger@moultrie.com), July 18, 2000.