# How many???



## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

Hi AZB
Bees are all we do for income. Honey, pollination, sell a few nukes in spring, plus I sell beeswax and candles on Ebay and honey at our little retail store here at the farm. We are running about 1800 hives this year.
We have overwintered in TX, making splits, sometimes selling a few queens, until the last couple years. We now send everything out to almonds in CA, bring them back to Wisconsin for honey production.
Almost all of our bee contacts are full time commercial outfits. One of the reasons I love this forum is the different perspective I get from the hobbyists/sideliners. They often take the time to do indepth research, and have the time to expirement and micro-manage that us commercial outfits don't have.
That said, I too would be interested in who amongst us are full time commercial beekeeps.
Sheri


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## AstroZomBEE (Aug 1, 2006)

I am a migratory beekeeper, we, me and my brother, as well as 10 integral employees run between 6 and 7 thousand hives. We are from Central Pennsylvania, but our family has been migrating to dade city,florida with the bees for over 40 years.

We Do the following pollinations:
Almonds -CA
Tomatoes in south FL.
Apples in VA, Pa, and NY.
Blueberries in Maine
next year we are starting in NJ
Cranberries in WI
and Pumpkins/squash in MI and OH
By that time it is right about now
and it's about time to get the bees out 
of Ohio/michigan stripped down to brood boxes and sent to Florida to make splits on the pepperbush flow..
We don't normally make a point to make too much honey. We do make a point of makeing a few hundred boxes of comb honey a year. And sometimes we keep a couple hundred hives out of the nuccing schedule to make orange blossom.

When we are in the height of our nuccing season, we sell a good many queen cells that we produce.

We also have a packaging operation as a sideline. but we sell most of our that is made by the truckload.

Well that was my pollination season in a nutshell. And a quick view of what we do. I would be happy to answer any questions about our methods. If anyone is interested.

Aaron

btw Sheri this was the first year we did cranberries in WI, and our bees made a nice surplus of honey. Is this normal?? I am not exactly sure where are bees were out there. Our bees were brokered there.


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

Hi Aaron
Are we the only two commercial operators on this board?  C'mon folks, don't be shy.....

6-7000 hives makes us look little, wish WE had 10 employees, ha, would make life SO much easier.

Cranberries can be a tough crop, most folks don't count on much honey at all, sometimes make a little. A surplus isn't normal, bees can starve in cranberries. One usually needs to put them down in the middle of big bogs or the bees fly right over them to get something else. 
We don't go into cranberries because usually they will make more honey during that time frame than they make in pollination fees. Plus we are too busy trying to make up numbers and get everything situated to take on a night job too, lol, but who knows what the future will hold. Most of the cranberries are south of us by a couple hours, if they were closer we might think of taking the smaller hives in. We have certainly had growers begging. One grower from farther up north of us was having to go out to MN looking, was getting desperate......

I'm curious Aaron, do you have trouble with the bees getting too heavy at some locations? Do you put supers on anywhere they might make a bit? Do you strip them and send the supers back to FL to extract? I would think it would make trucking a bit of a headache. When we went to TX, sometimes if they sit too long before bringing them back up here they can get a little heavy.
Do you do your own trucking?
(You said to ask questions....







)
Sheri


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## Nick Noyes (Apr 28, 2005)

I work for a commercial bee outfit. We run about 6,000 hives.
Pollinate almonds,apples ,cherries,pears,plums,carrots and sometimes various other crops.
We produce most of our honey ND but do produce some in Idaho also.
We also have a small retail store in Idaho that we sell honey,candles and other bee related products.
Nick


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## AstroZomBEE (Aug 1, 2006)

Although i said we don't set out to makes crops of honey we don't turn it down when it can be made over and above on our pollination jobs. We set our honey supers up dependant on where the bees are going. Certain Regions of Michigan always make a good crop so we put on 3 shallows, 5 11/16 inch boxes. We always allow for a honey crop just in case, most crops the bees have 2 shallows on top of the Deep,9 5/8 inch boxes, brood box. Most of our pollinations make just enough honey to survive plus a little nmore soe we send the bees as Story and a half as we call it, A deep brood, excluder, and one shallow on top. This saves a a lot of shipping, when we have to double up on honey supers loading trucks to the right heigth can be tricky. Some places we know won't make any honey, so we leave a shallow box of honey on them and send them. We like the shallow honey supers because it allows for more versatility in this way. Also they only way about 50lb when they are jammed full. Also on they can be extracted with ease on my cowan, twin verticle extracting system i have in Pennsylvania. Just for note, we excluder everything. Espicially now with the damage the shb can do to a frame of brood accidentally left in a skid of honey. Also to note, we only use two size of supers the 9 5/8 inch boxes and 5 11/16 inch boxes.

I have full extracting facilities here in Pennsylvania and Florida. So it depends where my work force is. Normally i pull all the honey here in pennsylvania and extract before sending to florida. However if it is a late crop and most of my employees already headed south. I will let the honey on and let them deal with it down there.

We do most of our own trucking, except for the long hauls to and from Maine, California, Wisconisin, and Florida, We hire to commercial truck drivers. Although all pollination jobs to OH/MI from PA was all done in house. And yes they can get heavy in Ohio, michigan. I have a stretched out 10-Wheeler that can gros 72,900 that i use to shuttle the bees. My sister inlaw will stay out in Ohio/MI for a few days gathering in the hives and i will do most of the over the road hauling due to the capacity of my 10 wheeler. I have gotten my share of overweight tickets in the past. It didn't used to be a problem. There used to be an exemption in the federal fleet safety manual for migratory beekeepers and weight limits. But i guess the goverment wanted the extra revenue instead giving us an exemption to drive heavy.

ask away, answering questions makes me feel more important  


Aaron

[ August 20, 2006, 10:15 AM: Message edited by: AstroZomBEE ]


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

Aaron,
It is always interesting seeing how others do the same things. If it is the same, it validates the way we already do it. If it is different, well, maybe that way would be an improvement on our operation. And sometimes it is irrelevent for whatever reason, but still interesting. 

>>>There used to be an exemption in the federal fleet safety manual for migratory beekeepers and weight limits. But i guess the goverment wanted the extra revenue instead giving us an exemption to drive heavy.<<<
That exemption would be nice, wasn't aware of it. My husband always says "Farmers are exempt" when I remind him of any particular rules of the road he might be in noncompliance of. Maybe he remembers this exemption? Nah I think he's just being a smart-a$$, lol.

Nick, You "work for a commercial outfit.......have a small retail store". Would this be The Honey Store by chance? Would this be Noyes Apiaries, by chance?
Sheri


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## admiral_d (Jul 29, 2002)

Since youall are asking questions of commercial beeks, I would like to ask a few questions...

Did you all start from scratch, ie 2-3 hives and grow them or didja get so many [ie 50 or so] and went commerical?

How do you find farmers who need beek services or do you go thru brokers all the time? Where do you find brokers?


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

I will speak for ourselves and most of the commercial operators we know. In the case of 90% of them it was, is, a multi-generation family business. Grandpa or dad built it up from a few hives to many and just kept expanding. In some cases, long term hired men took over an operation or part of it, when the owner retired.
In our case my husband started with about 300 in 1980 of his own, after working with an older brother for some years. Within a few years had enough to quit his day job, round 500 back then. We now run about 1800. 50 is no where near enough to make a living off of, unless maybe you totally concentrated on retailing value-added bee products. I suppose it depends on what you consider making a living.....

We mostly produce honey. It is easy to find farmers who let us use their land for honey production, we just knock on the door of a likely looking spot. And we have many who ask us to place a yard on their land. As for the pollination, we go through a broker as we only take bees into almonds. We do have farmers calling and asking for pollination services, you can get your name out there by joining bee organizations in your state and registering with the dept of Ag. Bee supply outlets have referred folks to us.
We found our broker through word of mouth. Networking with other beeks is the best way to get info, stay on top of changing conditions and get answers when you need them. This forum is excellent. Going to the national, regional, state and local bee organization meetings can't hurt. 
Sheri


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## Gregg (Dec 22, 2003)

Although I'm not "commercial" (I have a full-time job other than keeping bees), is it OK if I chime in here?

admiral_d, I am about the only beek I know in ND of my size (535 hives) or larger that is a "1st generation" beekeeper. Everyone else, that I know of at least, has been in the family for at least a couple of generations. I started in 1992 with a couple of hives and gradually built up over the years.

AZB, like previously said, not commercial, but I do have enough $ (and time) invested that it's nice to get some kind of income back. 535 hives this year for honey in ND, will top out at around 600 next year (about as many as I can handle on my own on a part-time basis; basically a one-man band with some family help at extracting time). Bees go to CA around the end of October for the Winter and pollinate almonds out there, and come back in mid to late April.


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

I'm a first generation beekeeper too. Running about 1500, plus some queen rearing, mostly for ourselves. We usually sell some nucs. We pollinate highbush blueberries, raspberries cranberries on the coast of BC. We've done some pollination of hybrid canola in southern Alberta. We produce some honey after pollination in NE Alberta. Unfortunately we get there kinda late, but the bees are better for it. I'd like to pollinate almonds.

Jean-Marc


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## Sundance (Sep 9, 2004)

Gregg,based on your size, what could one
expect for income from 500 colonies?


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## pahvantpiper (Apr 25, 2006)

I really appreciate/enjoy listening to you commercial guys and gals. I wish they had a forum that catered to the commercial beek on beesource but I imagine there aren't the numbers to justify it.

Anyway, I hope to be full time commercial in another year or two. I only have 200 hives at present but with the purchase of 500 hives in the spring of 2007 and making two rounds of nucs from everything that can handle it I plan to be up well over a thousand by next year. With all the splitting I'll be doing I probably won't make much honey the next year or two but for the present I will be building up for almonds.

My main problem is knowledge. I've read almost non-stop these last couple of years but most of what I read is geared toward the hobbiest. Financially I think I can handle the growth I'm planning but I just wish I knew more about bees on a commercial scale. I talk to a couple local commercial guys as much as possible who have kept bees forever - they're 3rd or 4th generation and that helps but they do things the exact same way their grandpa did, even have the same honey house. 

I am at present in the dairy business. Dairying has been in our family for 4 generations. With my dad and brothers we milk about 3,500 cows in two large modern dairy facilities. We, however, do things TOTALLY DIFFERENT than my grandpa did or even my dad for that matter when he was a little younger.

My question is, are there modern honey houses and ways of keeping bees or do most commercial guys do things just the way their parents and grandparents did them? I would love to visit some "modern" extracting/beekeeping facilities and get ideas, just haven't found any in my state.

Here's what I plan to do:
Feed hfcs and pollen/pollen substitute
Use EFFICIENT extracting equipment like Cowen
Set-up honey house so it's easy to keep clean and then keep it clean
Use all stainless steel in extracting
Learn to make my own queens
Rotate out old combs and frames and keep boxes painted.

I guess I could go on and on but this is already too long - sorry. These are just a few things I plan on doing that other commercial beekeepers in my area/state (that I know) don't seem to do. They are wonderful, wonderful people and I really appreciate their help. I just wonder if their's a better way of doing things than they did 50 or 75 years ago...may bee not? Any ideas?

Rob


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## Sundance (Sep 9, 2004)

Rob........ And I thought I was crazy for
getting 30 my first year and 110 the second!
I'm on my way to 500.

Good luck but be cautious. Have you considered
hiring a experienced beekeeper??

Things can get crazy in a hurry as numbers
increase.


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## Sundance (Sep 9, 2004)

There really haven't been alot of inovative,
large scale changes in beekeeping I can see.
I do door work for a few big (6,000 colony)
operations and they all use top of the line
extraction equipment.


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

Sounds like you are on the right track Rob. I would suggest a road trip to visit some modern honey houses. Try too see places that process large volumes of honey, they need to be effecient. If you've got the financial backing build the honey house first, then get the hives to match it. Trouble is people get more hives always. 1 hive is too many and a thousand is not enough.

If the family has figured out how to milk 3500 on a daily basis, then running bees on a commercial basis should be "easy". 

I suppose that you drink daily, but only to get drunk (he he).

Jean-Marc


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## SweetBettyBees (Jun 19, 2006)

Sundance, what is "door work"?

Does beekeeping become commercial once you make more than you spend in a year?


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## Sundance (Sep 9, 2004)

I sell, service, and install overhead garage
doors and openers. As well as loading dock
seals, etc.


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

>>>Does beekeeping become commercial once you make more than you spend in a year?<<<
If that was the criteria, that would eliminate about 90% of us in some years, lol.
I think the definition would be more like not having anything else to fall back on. 
My husband always says "It takes a strong back and a weak mind to be a beekeeper"  
Sheri


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## Gregg (Dec 22, 2003)

Bruce, don't know that I can give you a good answer, too many variables.

However, in an "average" year (if that ever occurs) figure 100 lbs. of honey per hive times current market price of bulk honey ($.78 was what I got last year, minus $.01 for the NHB of course); try to figure out how many hives you can actually get PAID for pollinating almonds in CA (very difficult after last year) and figure $125 per hive. After that (and where it gets very difficult), try to figure out what your expenses will be for an "average" year: queens, feed, trucking, fuel & maintenace on own truck(s), repairs, utilities, medications (if any), supplies, advertising, etc., etc. You get the picture, I think.


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## Brian Suchan (Apr 6, 2005)

FUll time job & run 550 colonies of mine & my dads bees. No pollination here we overwinter in NE neb & raise pretty decent honey crops. 3/4 of bees are migratory & dad started 25+ years ago. 

I take most of the winter off from the bees with the exception of a little buisy work & make the most of it & go snowmobiling as much as possible.


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## AstroZomBEE (Aug 1, 2006)

A few statements. To give my answers on a few of the previous questions.

I am a third Generation Beekeeper. My Grandfather, Merle P Fisher. Started keeping bees in the 30's went migratory in the 50's. I think you can figure the rest out......
I believe one of my grandfather's old citrus locatons is now famous. I think they call it Disneyworld, or one of its subsidies.....Just kidding but he did keep bees in that area.
















Any new customers i get are through ads we run in various national agriculture periodicals. In the beginning we mainly just did NorthEast apple pollination and Maine Blueberries.
We rarely use brokers. We normally negotiate strait with the farmer. We hire out any over the road semi trucking and send an employee with 6 wheeler and Bobcat to unload and spread bees.

As far as bee technology goes i would agree that most techniques today are similar to the way my grandfather did with some improvements. I know my rendering process still uses mainly the same pieces my pap used, actually i think one is from my pap. The wax presses. But i added a water wax seperator and streamline it so i get 500-800 punds a day out in stead of the two hundred he used too. The natural gas fired boiler beats his wood fired boiler hands down.

As far as the extractiong goes i like cowen although i have noticed on my system that my uncapper does not like shotty frames. It will chew them up and spitem out in a pulp. Which ins't normally a problem for this operation.And you have to know that cowen insided and out, need to know by the sounds it makes to determine what is wrong with it. We have a gunnes in Florida which is dummy proof any 12 year old could run it though it takes some of the automation out of it, having to lift every frame off of it into the extractor.

I hope someone gets a little enjoyment or use out of my ramblings.

If anyone wants me to elaborate on any point i may have made just gimme a say so and i will post more


Aaron


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

>I hope someone gets a little enjoyment or use out of my ramblings.

Well Aaron, I'm enjoying your ramblings. Large migratory beekeeping operations facinate me and I'm sure others here also, it's nice to have someone willing to talk about it.

One thing I have to wonder about is how you manage to keep track of so many hives in the first place? You probably don't even think in terms of hives, yards perhaps.


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## AstroZomBEE (Aug 1, 2006)

Well i don't know, we just do. I was trying to think of some grand way to explain but i came up blank.


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

>i came up blank.

Fair enough


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## Sundance (Sep 9, 2004)

I have talked with a few of the bigger 
operations (6000 plus) and they all
had a large detailed area map with the
yards stick pinned out.

All weren't even sure exactly how many
hives they had within 50 or so....

I have been looking into bar codes and
have wondered why the bigger outfits 
do not use a bar code system. Easy,
fast, and cheap now.


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

Rob said "..purchase of 500 hives,...two rounds of nucs....I probably won't make much honey the next year or two... "
I hope you have a small army to help, you have bit off a bunch. Is your extra equipment ready? You better have honey supers just in case, bet you WILL make honey.
As for the honey house, figure what you think you will need then double the size, triple might be better. 
Have you visited Cowen Manufacturing yet? Not sure how far you are from Parowan,UT but the trip might give you some ideas and they might be able to point you in the direction of state of the art honey houses. Nice folks there.

As for your wishlist of things to do, I don't think most beeks in your area neglect these things out of choice but lack of time, especially, and money. You will know all about this come spring when you have to split 500 hives..twice?.. before they hit the bushes.  
Beekeeping is a very labor intensive business. Some things just cannot be automated. And everything needs doing at once, it usually seems.
Wishing you the best on your ambitious plan.

Brian..I am curious. If you are not in pollination and winter in NE, yet 3/4 of your bees are migratory, do you fset down on various honey crops in NE? If not, where do you migrate to?

All yous in the Dakotas....I've been hearing nightmare tales of close to total crop failure this year. Is it as bad as they are saying? 

Sheri


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## Kieck (Dec 2, 2005)

I'm not commercial, and likely never will be, but I probably live closer to one of the big 'keepers than anyone else on this board. Richard Adee lives about 10 miles from me, and runs (an estimate from a couple months ago) roughly 90,000 hives. His operation uses a lot of maps and computer records to keep track of the hives, but they do tend to talk about them in terms of "yards" rather than "hives." During the summer, his yards are scattered over South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota, primarily.

Adee is a first/second generation beekeeper. His father was a door-to-door salesman, and ended up with a few hives when Richard was in high school. As part of a class assignment, Richard drew up a plan for a commercial beekeeping operation. (Talk about a high school assignment paying off, huh?  )

I can't say much about the honey crops of others here in the Dakotas -- farther west, they've had awfully dry conditions. On the eastern edge of South Dakota, it's been dry for most of the summer, but we had a wet year last year, and the honey crop looks good for me. If it finishes the way I expect yet, I'll get about 200 pounds per hive average off my hives.


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## pahvantpiper (Apr 25, 2006)

Sheri,
Yes, I have visited Cowen manufacturing - only an hour and a half down the interstate. They are great people to talk to/work with.

Yes, I do have help with all there is to do with the splitting and building - it's going to be a buisy winter and spring.

Do most of you commercial beeks use one tons with a flat bed or something bigger when going to your yards to pull honey, add supers, move hives, etc?


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## keqwow (Jun 7, 2006)

I would like to hear what equipment you commercial guys are using and how you got it. For you guys that have over 500 hives....did you buy all of your woodenware new...or make your own....or buy used and torch to sterilize??? What are you using for trucks to pick up supers? I can only assume plastic foundation is a must???? I've been fortunate enough to be able to use a nice Cowen setup for extracting this summer where I've been working, and I can't see why anyone would use anything else. The horizontal layout for the radial extractor works so nicely for loading frames in 30 at a time...I can't imagine loading 60 frames individually by hand in a vertical setup. Keep the chat going...I love hearing the ramblings of you commercial guys and I look forward to hearing more about the questions I posted above.

[ August 22, 2006, 09:32 AM: Message edited by: keqwow ]


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## Nick Noyes (Apr 28, 2005)

Sheri, yes I work for Noyes Apiaries. Do you know my parents?

Pahvantpiper, did you call me about a month ago about some doubles we have for sale? You are welcome to come see our facility's. We run a Cowan 120 and a melter (no spinner). The one in Idaho is not as automated as the one in ND but is still fairly modern.

We use a spiral notebook and a ballpoint pen to keep track of our hives. Haven't lost any yet.


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

We didn't buy much woodenware new originally. Bought used boxes, split for increase, bought packages. Never bothered to sterilize, knew where they came from, didn't buy bad equipment. The bees do a pretty fair job of sterilizing. We buy new boxes and wood frames every year now, put them together ourselves about half the time, depending on time constraints. We don't use plastic foundation, cuz the bees don't seem to draw it as well. As for extracting, we have a radial which we have outgrown but we have pretty good labor for extracting time so won't replace it. If we had to extract ourselves, we probably would, lol. If we were starting from new we would go with the Cowen horizontal self-loader.
As for trucks, we use a 4 wheel drive 1 ton flatbed. It is a little undersized for some things, 1 1/2 ton would be better. 2 ton can carry more weight still, for moving hives into close range pollination this might be useful. We hire all our long range trucking done, but at some point it would probably pay to purchase trucks for pollination transport. The full time pollinators could probably advise as to that....
Sheri

[ August 22, 2006, 10:30 AM: Message edited by: JohnK and Sheri ]


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

Nick, no I don't know your parents, my husband might.... I just have been to your web page.
Sheri


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

I buy all my woodenware from Lewis Farms in Manitoba. His prices are competitive and the quality is very good. Boxes are assembled and dipped in paraffin and rosen. Frames are glued and stapled, plastic foundation is inserted. freight is alittle steep, but the man does quality work and it frees me up, time wise. Besides I just got a building this year, from where to operate out of.

I will keep purchasing from the same manufacturer. I have a cowen in NE Alta, and they are great but they work best if every frame is the same and straight. They certainly pick out the crooked ones, but the lost time in production is easily offset by having good quality frames.

I purchased used equipment 3 times. First time was OK. Second time got some AFB. Third time the equipment waskinfda crappy. I've replaced 25%of it already (3 seasons) and will try to replace the rest of it in the next 2 years. I don't think I'll ever buy used again. I do not like working with junky stuff,I much prefer good equipment.

As far as trucks go I've always had well used ones and that is a mistake. Next year I will purchase new. The down time and the repair costs are expensive, more so than the cost of payments.
I think I want to go tandem axle. The trouble with 1 tons is that it is very easy to overload them when moving bees or pulling honey. Some guys go with 5th wheel trailers which is good I think. Although this can be limiting at times in pollination jobs. They need a lot of room to manoeuvre. With a tandem, overloading should not be an issue. Purchase a trailer and I could do some of my own long distance hauling. Not so much as money saving but I can go when it is most convenient. I do not have to depend on a trucker.

Jean-Marc


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## Craig W. (Feb 26, 2006)

Jean-Marc,
I know what you mean about used equipment. I bought 100 boxes they all had wax moth larvae damage, the boxes and the frames. I didn't look at them before I bought them I just took the word of a fellow bee keeper sometimes on this forum but, my bad.
I will use what I can and replace the rest.


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## Brian Suchan (Apr 6, 2005)

John- we move them for winter most of them get double or tripled up in wintering location(abandoned farm place with good wind protection). Then in the spring they get moved out to crp or other various locations. As far as being on pallets I can make those cheaper than bottom boards, And the fact we grown considerably in the last 4 years. 

Oh as far as the california deal goes weve got some neighbors that are big into that. & I have yet to see anything great from that deal granted it helps to pay the bills & what not but it has it fair share of headaches. I'm just not seeing the chanmpagne water waterfalls. Such as 200 on a load come back as deadouts Or not make frame count on most of the load. We can successfully overwinter up here & will do so for time being. 

As far as equipment we have bought tons of used stuff pretty cheap & in good shape. but we still by lots of new stuff. Either from mann lake or drapers.

We use a mid 90's f-450 & most time it gets the job done. However when it comes time to move them or pull honey its not enough & would like to get a newer international or something of that sort so 2 guys can easily strip 3 yards a day & easily fit it on the truck with out breaking it in half.

[ August 22, 2006, 11:34 AM: Message edited by: Brian Suchan ]


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

Jean-Marc
Yes, depending on truckers can be a problem, good point. Especially when all the bees in the world seem to want to move at the same time. We had our pallets freeze to the ground last fall waiting on trucks, quite a pain.
We always run new trucks. Like you say, down time can kill ya. 
We have considered trailers but they are too much trouble trying to manuever, and by the time you load them up and add the hitch weight you don't gain that much. We would definitely go with a bigger truck first. Our 1 ton IS a little undersized, might be good if only used for putting supers on, feeding etc, but for pulling honey it is really too small. We never move honey (except in the supers, as stated) so that is no problem. The buyer sends trucks to get it.
Sheri


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## pahvantpiper (Apr 25, 2006)

Sheri,
You said you don't use plastic foundation because the bees don't like to draw it out - I agree - they would rather chew their wings off. But...I can put 10 plastic sheets of foundation in frames in the same time it takes to wire, install and melt 1 sheet of wax into a frame. I put in 1,500 sheets last year and early this year and swore I would never do it again. They do eventually draw out the plastic so from then on it's a non issue.

If no plastic, do you use wax foundation or Duraguilt?


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## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

I attended a bee demonstration at Longwood gardens one fall, bought some books, attended a short course, and started with two hives the following spring.

I am running up to 450 hives and 190 additional nucs for queen/nuc production. All my hives are permanently placed on working farms, many also being farm markets. All pay pollination fees, and then buy my honey to sell in the markets.

I have no desire to move my hives for migratory pollination. Pollination, queen/nuc production, and honey is more than enough. I am breeding northern raised queens, and they all overwinter here in Pa. I have not used chemicals for 4 years except some volunteer testing in conjuction with the state.

I also am a bee inspector for Pennsylvania. Between that, my 3 year old daughter, and 1-1/2 year old twins, that keeps me busy.

I am not out to grow so big that it ceases to be fun. I plan on stopping around 600-800 hives and perhaps 400 nucs. 

Nobody in my family has had bees previously. But I hope a few years down the road, my son may want to take over the operation.

[ August 22, 2006, 02:17 PM: Message edited by: BjornBee ]


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## Brian Suchan (Apr 6, 2005)

We always have good luck with the rite cell plastic from mann lake.


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## greenbeekeeping (Feb 13, 2003)

Currently I am not a fulltime beekeeper but we hope to be within the next few years. I am a second generation beekeeper and currently have around 120 hives in northern Indiana. I help a commercial outfit of 2000+ hives almost every weekend getting every bit of experience that I can. I buy used equipment whenever I find it if the price is right and then Torch it, repair it, paint it and install wood frames with plastic foundation. Most of everthing that I have is used. Everything is currently on bottom boards but changing over to pallets this fall. We just bought a truck, 97 Ford f450, 2wd w/ 14 foot flatbed for hauling bees. Next year our goal is to get up too 300+ palletized hives. Also started raising queens this year and plan to do alot more of that next year. My wife and I have decided that we want to make a run for it.


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## AstroZomBEE (Aug 1, 2006)

Busy day, Time to load up first 1000 colonies to florida


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## pahvantpiper (Apr 25, 2006)

BjornBee, 
"All my hives are permanently placed on working farms, many also being farm markets."

That's awesome! I wish I could leave mine in one location. I have to move mine off the farms so I don't get sprayed.


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

I shouldn't say we haven't used some plastic, we have gotten from Mann Lake too, and they will draw it just takes a little time. We prefer wax, not Duragilt, but special order 5 sheets to the # from Dadants.
Umm, when I say new trucks, I mean "newish", we don't buy new every year.  Try to keep them a few years til the warrenty runs out.

That is a nice setup to be on farms and then they buy the honey.
Sheri


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## keqwow (Jun 7, 2006)

What about you other commercial guys? Do you save time by using plastic frames/foundation, wooden frames w/ plastic foundation, or do you go through the time to wire up wax??? I am actually quite curious about that.


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## AstroZomBEE (Aug 1, 2006)

The majority of our frames are wooden with plastic foundation. I recommend the wax coated plastic foundation. It's durable and reusable if the frame becomes broken. That is only for my deep brood boxes.

My honey supers are 5 11/16 shallow with just wax foundation from Dadant's. If anything goes wrong with that it's not that hard to boil the frames off and pop in new wax foundation. mainly because i don't think they make plastic foundation in that size.

And as far as extracting goes I, myself, am partial to the Hanging cowen uncapper with dual verticle extractors, with the honey pumped into a Cook and Beals Spin float honey wax seperator.

As far as trucks go we try to buy a new one every year using an old one for trade. We have 3 Mitsubishi Fuso 33,000lb flat beds, one Freightliner 10 wheeler flatbed, 72,900 gvw. And 3 pickups. And one Chevy 5500 i believe, our 26,000 lb pickup to start off new truck drivers in. And one Freightliner 6 wheeler with a van body.

Aaron


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

While we don't have to keep track of what STATE our bees are in, lol, we do have to keep track of about 50 beeyards in three counties here in Wisconsin. My husband has a big approx 18" x 24" sheet of styrofoam, cork would work also, with paper attached. The names of the yards are in a column and then different colored stickpins are put in after their names to indicate different conditions. When he puts supers on, for instance, he puts a certain color pin in for each of the supers, plus enters the date. In this way he can look down his list and see at a glance what is or is not done yet. This is consulted each morning, left at home, then updated in the evenings. He also carries the spiral notepad for notes during the day, with a page for each yard. I keep threatening to get him a PDA, I think it would work much better, but he will have none of it.  
Sheri


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## pahvantpiper (Apr 25, 2006)

Nick,
I think it was me who called you about the doubles. I would love to come and see your facility some time. I'm probably going to take a road trip some time in the next couple of years as I get ready to build my extracting facility. (Right now just using my shop). I'll probably swing through Idaho on my way to the Dakotas.

Thanx for the invite.


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## Nick Noyes (Apr 28, 2005)

You should visit our place in ND if you get up there. They have a computerized Cowan system with everything on it. 


We are starting to use some plastic foundation. All of our 65/8's are wax foundation but we have been buying some deep frames already assembled. I have had better luck with Dadants over Mann Lake as far as getting them drawn.


We are truck poor 1 semi,2 tandems,2 single axle trucks,2 f450s,1 1ton and several pickups. If anyones looking I think the single axle International is for sale and possibly one of the F450's.


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## Hillside (Jul 12, 2004)

How do you folks load and unload hives on all these trucks. I know some people use skid loaders with forks, and I guess there is a machine called a Swinger, but don't you have to haul the skid loader or swinger around with the hives? I assume that means a second truck with a trailer.

Does anyone use a lift gate?

I suppose supers can be hand loaded, but some kind of mechanical assist sounds like it would save a lot of work with those too.

This has been one of the more interesting threads that I've read.


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## Sundance (Sep 9, 2004)

I am just a little feller and I use a 
Bobcat with forks. My yards are all
very close so far (like 3 to 5 miles).


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

I am a longtime third generation commercial beekeeper. We are currently operating about 3500 hives. I have my son myself and one more full time hired man. I would like to turn the question around of "how many" into "how efficient" or "how profitable". I have had opportunities to operate more hives but am really not interested unless I feel that we can manage our operation at the same level of efficiency. 
I know operations that have been extremely profitable running half of what we do and I have seen operations that are far larger than us but always seem to be struggling because it is so difficult to get the quality of help needed to manage that many hives well. Hardly a year goes by that I don't feel that we could have done something a little better ourselves.
With all the pests and other challenges that a commercial operation faces it is very easy to get too big for your own good and find that the problems of management are just too great. For those of you who run those very large outfits and are able to run it well you certainly have my respect but the one emotion I don't have is envy.


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

We only went palletized a few years back. Before that we loaded them by hand, but everything pretty well stayed put in outyards so it was no big deal. Honey supers were taken off hives in the yards, the bees blown out then the supers stacked on the truck by hand, on 'drip' pallets. When we palletized we also bought a "Swinger", the outdoor forklift. We would be lost without it. Here is a somewhat hazy photo showing it being used to unload a truckload of bees coming back from California .
http://community.webshots.com/photo/142765342/2938989570048587895VHMuTA
Sheri


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## shoefly (Jul 9, 2004)

Amazing collection of photos! Thanks for sharing - the bear trapping pictures especially.


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

Yeah....those pesky bears! Youse that don't have to deal with them are lucky!  The Electric fences almost always work, but you have to turn them ON, lol.
Sheri


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## Nick Noyes (Apr 28, 2005)

We have 4 swingers that we pull behind the trucks (not semis) on single axle trailers. It's not to hard for one guy to move 500 hives in one night. Unless you are moving a long distance.

jlyon brought up an excellent point on numbers. We are going to scale back about 500 hives because the work load went up but the profit didn't. You can only do so much.


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## AstroZomBEE (Aug 1, 2006)

I am going to concur with Jlyon and N Noyes. Our operation is big, but only becuase i have enough independantly hard working employees who know thier jobs. Our numbers go up and down directly related to our amount of competent employees.

I have never used a swinger. We have been using bobcats with edward's masts since the early 80's. We also have one JCB with mast. Most of my employees hate the JCB. It is hard to get used to after using a bobcat so long, but With some experience it can actually out due a bobcat. Mainly due to it's higher top end speed.

My next question is what does everyone use to pull thier skidsteers???

We used to make our trailers in house but, this year we bought 4 rollsrite tilt deck skidsteer trailers. They were designed by a beekeeper turned trailer builder from Florida, one of the Mendes brothers, www.tropictrailer.com . We like the overall design and features of the trailers but, whoever was actually building them left a bunch of inconsistencies. Mainly things like fender depths and different styles of lights from one trailer to the next. We wanted 4 identical trailers so we had to stock as little different repair parts as necessary. We are slowly making the necessary changes. OVerall they are good trailers. Very few mechanical defects.

[ August 25, 2006, 12:11 PM: Message edited by: AstroZomBEE ]


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## Trevor Mansell (Jan 16, 2005)

The trailers from Mendes are really the best ones for the all around job. They pull nice behind a one ton and up. I freind of mine bought a Hackenberg style trailer a little heavy for daily use in my opinion. I bought my trailer from Eli last summer, they told me it was the finished product, I guess they are changing it again.


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## pahvantpiper (Apr 25, 2006)

I use a ford 1 ton with a 13 foot bed (can carry 64 hives) I pull my swinger that sits on a homemade trailer (2 axles). It's working pretty good this year but the ford gets terrible gas mileage and I would really like a bigger truck that could carry AT LEAST 80 hives. For pulling honey I will eventually get a 33,000 GVW.


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## Trevor Mansell (Jan 16, 2005)

I know about the gas mileage thing. I use a f-550 with a 16 foot bed, I can carry 80 hives on 4 ways and pull the bobcat no problem. I would think a 1 ton would get pretty good milage ,what year is yours?


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## pahvantpiper (Apr 25, 2006)

Trevor,
my 1 ton is a 94 and gets 10 mpg empty pulling nothing. Full with hives and pulling my swinger it gets about 7 mpg. Wish I had a diesel engine.
Then again with the price of diesel...

How do you guys feed, internal feeders or top feeders and why. I use internal feeders but am considering a change.


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## AstroZomBEE (Aug 1, 2006)

My Mitsubishi Fuso FM-SP,33000lb gvw get 11 mpg empty 7mpg loaded. So we have an overall average of 8 to 8.5 miles per gallon. We do most of our work with these trucks.


We feed with economy 5lb jars, which use a 70G lid. So, we drilled holes in all our covers so we can set a jar on whenever we want. When not in use we just put an old 70G lid in to fill the hole.

If the bees are strong enough we just open feed. We use the jars on the younger nucs so they don't have to compete for the open feed.

Aaron

[ August 25, 2006, 04:54 PM: Message edited by: AstroZomBEE ]


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## Trevor Mansell (Jan 16, 2005)

I use jars also ,but I think Im going to change over to 1gal buckets this fall.

Im sorry your 1 ton only gets 10mpg. The 550 gets around 12 empty and 10 loaded. Trade up to a deisel, its only money.


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

We pull our Swinger with a trailer we had custom built by a local outfit. It is narrower than most, the wheels track the same width as our 1 ton, and the bed is steel mesh. The mesh is nice for strapping purposes.
I love our Swinger....I can drive it easily, unlike our little indoor Hyster forklift, which I can drive but gives me FITS!. The Swinger is also very easy to get off and on, you don't have to climb out the front over the bars like with a bobcat.

We have division feeders in all our hives yearround so if need be can give any particular colony a taste.
In fall we mass feed with 4 Gal hive top feeders that the bees access from inside the hive. They cannot get into them to drown, they are kept out by a screen. They are basically like dishpans installed into a standard box. Standard migratory
lid goes over the top. To feed we use a hose with nozzle, so they are easily refilled until heavy enough. 
Sheri
PS our Chevy 1 ton only gets about 10mpg.


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## Iowabeeman (Mar 9, 2003)

We have a 95 F-350 diesel with a 4.02 rear end that gets 16 MPG running down the highway and about 13 driving between yards. I'm not sure on the horsepower. I think it might be 235. If we're pulling the trailer, milage drops quite a bit. We have a small commercial operation of 700 to 800 hives. We bottle 50 to 60 barrels and sell the rest wherever we can. We also have a small queen reaing operation for summer queens.


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