2014 Honey Yield Statistics

[toddbalsiger]

I thought I'd share some of my statistics regarding honey production, etc. You know, many of us probably have to respond to USDA requests for honey production, sales, producing hives, etc.

I kept really good records this year, by far the best except: honey producing hives. I know I sent 161 hives to almonds just last week. I know I lost about 12 -15 hives over the summer/fall/winter. I did make quite a few start ups, but many became honey producers. So I chose 160 for the number of honey producing hives. Again, this is the least accurate of the equation, but it affects honey yield dramatically. If I said I had 20 fewer honey producing hives, then my yield per hive would go up considerably.

Okay

Total 2014 Honey production for my operation: 5,556 pounds (very accurate). This is equivalent to 8.4 barrels (55 gallons per barrel) or 92.6 five gallon buckets.

Number of honey producing hives: 160

Yield per hive for NW Oregon: 34.7 pounds/hive

Incidentally, I sold all but 654.1 pounds of the honey produced in 2014 in the year 2014. This remaining honey (654.1 lbs.) is inventory carry over into 2015. About half of this is now sold.

The small inventory carry over from 2013 (263 pounds) plus all 2014 honey sold in 2014 (4902 pounds) was sold for an average price of $3.67/pound.

My honey sales are mostly bottled honey sold in wholesale case lots, the balance buckets.

I hope 2015 will be a good honey producing year! Maybe hive yield will go up. I will cross my fingers and hope I don't get hit by my nemesis: spray.

I know some report huge harvests on a few hives, etc. Yeah, I see that too on a few. I remember two hives in particular -- about three westerns full apiece. Then there are the laggards.

[parallelism]

That's an impressive yield, good job. That's just shy of $18,000 in honey alone.

Pics of your typical hive setup?

[toddbalsiger]

You have to remember that this is gross. There are a lot of costs (expenses) associated with beekeeping. In fact, for beekeeping (recalling from memory) last year's net/gross ratio was about 50 to 60%; for forestry its about 90% which is very high (ie, 90 cents of ever dollar is profit).

Typical hive?

Roughly 67% of my hives are a deep and a western, the balance double deeps. I am slowly converting to all western/deeps for transpertation reasons.

I have four different kinds of bottom boards: Pallet, standard, slatted rack, and screen. I think pallets are the worst to over winter on. For one, you cannot orient all the hives at the right slope and direction.

I'm heading towards having only standard bottom boards -- they're light, don't take up too much space, and work fine. Bill Kruger's slatted rack design works well. They're easy to place mouse guards in or close off entrances entirely which is real nice when moving hives. Their pitfall: palletizing bees in winter for almonds. Often hives with these bottom boards have lots of bees down within the bottom board which on one hand is great but problematic when transferring hives to pallets (e.g., it makes for a lot of angry bees during transfer and results in chilled, lost, dead bees and more work and fuss). For standard bottom boards, screened, etc. bees always move up. Plus there isn't space for them to hang out below and to get "caught" down there.

I use plywod lids mostly but add another rain barrier on top -- frequently a plastic lid. Most lids have a built in upper entrance / air vent. Good lids are critically important. I will submit that lids are of of the things that I have tinkered with a lot, and I am slowly, finally coming to a standard configuration. I use 3/4 plywood. I strap every single hive now and no longer use hive staples.

I don't use many inner covers but they work great.

Notice that I keep my single bottom board hives on pallets too. Plus generally I sandwitch two together (maybe more) for warmth and protection.

Here are some pics of a few hives: 1. House hive which stayed home with a Bill Kruger slatted rack bottom; 2. Typical winter configuration with standard bottom boards; and 3. Almonds.