# When do you need extra help?



## Bens-Bees (Sep 18, 2008)

My wife and I have been considering jumping into commercial beekeeping in the next few years, and I know that before we do, it will be hugely benefitial for me to learn from a commercial beekeeper, so what I would like to do is try to take an extra week or two of vacation this year and spend a week or two helping out a commercial beekeeper in a labor for knowledge and experience kind of exchange. I'm not even sure it will be possible at this point for me to take an extra week or two off, but in order to plan for this properly, I'll need to know what time of year you need the extra helping hand?

Also, if you would be interrested in offering this kind of internship arrangement, let me know. I'll want to learn from a larger operation and preferrably something closer to my location so that I don't have to waste much time travelling.


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## alpha6 (May 12, 2008)

Hey SgtMaj,

This time of year things are slowing down and besides how to prepare your bees for winter I doubt you will gain much working with someone at this time of year. You would be better off to hit them up in the spring or summer when they are placing hives, supering, pulling suppers, etc. Thats were the meat of the operation is. You will be surprised at how much you can learn about running lots of hives and the little tricks of the trade that make them manageable. I think you are on the right track and won't regret the time spent with a larger operation.

Good luck.


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## Bens-Bees (Sep 18, 2008)

Do you have any more specific time-frame? To do this, I'll need to request the time off within the next 2 months, and locate a day-care to enroll my son in for that time since I normally have to watch him during the day.


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## Keith Jarrett (Dec 10, 2006)

alpha6 said:


> this time of year things are slowing down .



lol...lol


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

What part of the business do you want to learn. We start splitting in late April first of May. We start extracting about mid. July. Just getting starting to clean up for the next season. I'm clean up brood box and spraying full of syrup in the next 3 months. It's all comes down to what you want to learn about the business. 
I'm a second generation honey producer. 
o/o Ron Householder


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## Trevor Mansell (Jan 16, 2005)

We will be pulling honey and splitting bees for the next 2 weeks. I love free labor.


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

I would recommend continuing to work your day job until the commercial operation is up and running. Do what bee work you can do working around your day job, and hire someone to work for you doing the rest. You provide the management, not the labor.

Once your commercial operation is up and running and developing to a point you need to add even more workers, then think about quitting your day job and hiring yourself to work in the bee business.

If you quit your day job and the bee business has a bad year or two or you have tons of hives crash, will you be able to get your old day job back if necessary?

I believe fat beeman Don Kuchenmeister offers classes on commercial beekeeping. That would likely be a good option for you.


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## JoshJames (Jun 12, 2009)

Commercial migratory bee keeping is both easy and HARD! There was a steeper learning curve than I thought when I got in. You can gain great insight by working with another comm beek but beware, that is only PART of the equation. You must learn husbandry. That just takes experience, which takes lots of time with the bee's That means lots of shooting yourself in the foot!!!!! With bee's, one small mistake and bam, you can lose tens of thousands of dollars quick! But man, I never forget those lessons either...lol...It's a great business. But I would be careful about borrowing money. You don't want to be stuck with a lot of crashed or almost crashed hives with no income and have to pay back on a loan. Depending on how you do it, you can usually get in fairly slowly and build your way up, but that takes lots of time and patience but the end result, I feel, is waaay better. Sure, you may be stuck with an old 610 bobcat instead of a hummerbee, but at least you own it. That's what we did and i'm glad I don't owe nobody nothin'. Good luck!


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

No offense, but free help that slows you down is not free. So how much are you willing to pay to work with a commercial beekeeper? That's the 64 thousand dollar question. (hmmmmm, now that DOES sound like a good number, about what you will save with the knowledge of what to do AFTER you buy all that "cheap" used equipment)

Roland


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## Bens-Bees (Sep 18, 2008)

The Honey Householder said:


> What part of the business do you want to learn. We start splitting in late April first of May. We start extracting about mid. July. Just getting starting to clean up for the next season. I'm clean up brood box and spraying full of syrup in the next 3 months. It's all comes down to what you want to learn about the business.
> I'm a second generation honey producer.
> o/o Ron Householder


I think probably doing the splits would be the most benefitial to me at this stage. So late April to beginning of May is what I'll shoot for then.


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## Bens-Bees (Sep 18, 2008)

Trevor Mansell said:


> We will be pulling honey and splitting bees for the next 2 weeks. I love free labor.


I wish I could head down there now, but between trying to get away from work and then making alternate arrangements for my son, it'll take some time for me to get it all sorted out.


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## wfarler (Jul 9, 2003)

JoshJames said:


> You must learn husbandry. That just takes experience, which takes lots of time with the bee's ..... Good luck!


Can't emphasize this point too much. If you can manage 20 or 30 hives successfully for a couple of years you will learn the husbandry. You'll want to learn to raise queens, make splits, manage swarming and understand how heavy a loaded deep can be.

Interning can help you understand commercial practices which are different than husbandry. You can learn to drive a lift, load pallets, load trucks, strap and net. Doesn't take long to learn how to fill feeders, slap cakes all day but it will give you a taste for hard work. You could also find out if you really have a taste for the job. It's hard, hot, they are stinging insects.

A mentor would be the best thing you could find. Someone local.


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## luigee (Nov 3, 2009)

Roland,

Like someone mentioned before, Fat Beeman offers a commecial 1 year course for $250. Not bad for the knowledge you gain. On the website it says "come at your leisure" so maybe you can take a week off and take the whole course...worth discussing your options with Donald Kuchenmeister.

Here's the link: http://fatbeeman.com/

Good luck!!


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

luigee said:


> Fat Beeman offers a commecial 1 year course for $250. ..... maybe you can take a week off and take the whole course...


This sounds like a slick way to get free help to me. If a newbie were to follow a true commercial beekeeper around for a year it would cost the commercial a bunch more than $250 worth of time unless an awful lot of grunt work were provided by the student.

As for the course being crammed into a week, I can only assume you are joking. Being a commercial beekeeper isn't something you learn to do in a week or even a month, no matter how hard you study, or who is doing the teaching. It takes years of experience; of hands on experience through all phases of the business. And that a lot of that work is good ol fashion sweating hard work may be the best lesson to learn before you quit the day job. 
Sheri


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## luigee (Nov 3, 2009)

Hello Sheri,

What I wrote was just a suggestion. If you know better from experience then I appreciate your expert advice. I'm not a commercial beekeeper, so I saw the website and gave a suggestion. If you feel "Fat Beeman" is trying to get free labor and the course isn't worth taking, then I'm glad you let us know. I'm a newbie myself, so input from more advanced beeks like you is always appreciated. I don't mind being corrected 



JohnK and Sheri said:


> This sounds like a slick way to get free help to me. If a newbie were to follow a true commercial beekeeper around for a year it would cost the commercial a bunch more than $250 worth of time unless an awful lot of grunt work were provided by the student.
> 
> As for the course being crammed into a week, I can only assume you are joking. Being a commercial beekeeper isn't something you learn to do in a week or even a month, no matter how hard you study, or who is doing the teaching. It takes years of experience; of hands on experience through all phases of the business. And that a lot of that work is good ol fashion sweating hard work may be the best lesson to learn before you quit the day job.
> Sheri


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## Mathispollenators (Jun 9, 2008)

I think about the best way to learn this business is to grow your bees until you can't work anywhere else. Learning how to drive lifts, load trucks, judge locations manage much more hives are all things you'll learn as you go. I don't think spending a few weeks with any of us could give you much insight you wouldn't learn on your own and asking others as the need came. Besides management is completely different for different amounts of hive you have to take care of.


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## greenbeekeeping (Feb 13, 2003)

I helped commercial beekeepers to learn. I think it is a great way to learn, but you don't want to disrupt there business either. Go with a willing to work attitude. I worked my way into 100 nucs one year. Most need help in spring for splitting and then for pulling honey.

Matt


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

Luigee, iI didn't mean to sound abrupt. The statement about free labor was tongue in cheek, I should maybe have put a smiley face after. I wasn't saying it was not a course worth taking; Don is a very knowledgeable beekeeper. What I was trying to say is you cannot possibly learn to be a commercial beek in one week and I am certain Don would agree. Additionally, any course in beekeeping would have to include hard labor or it would not truly reflect the business, so it would be entirely appropriate for the student to lend a hand to the beek in such in a course. I was not kidding when I said $250 would not begin to cover the costs of such a course.
Sheri


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

JohnK and Sheri said:


> I was not kidding when I said $250 would not begin to cover the costs of such a course.
> Sheri


Deknow and Ramona from this list visited FB, and bought nucs this past spring. They said FB gave them a bill for $1500 for their "education." 

I have immediate openings in my bee school.


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## JoshJames (Jun 12, 2009)

One thing to remember is that THERE IS NO ONE WAY TO KEEP BEE'S COMMERCIALLY!!!! As many comm beeks so are the myriad styles with which they use to run a comm operation. You will develop your own style after a time too. But it has to come from years of experience which means lots of mistakes and lots of shooting your feet off  It is true that with newbie help, you tend to get in the way and slow down the operation and since most of us are migratory we run tight time schedules. However i'm sure there is someone who you can tag along with and help with the grunt work. One thing I wish I was told when I got in was that there is a steeper learning curve(especially in the past few years) than meets the eye. It all seems pretty simple upfront but will take years of hands on experience to use real husbandry. You just gotta get out and work the bee's through the droughts and famines. There's money in bee's IF you have good ones It's a great multi-faceted business and i'm glad there's some people that still are willing to work hard for a living. Best of luck to you!


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## Keith Jarrett (Dec 10, 2006)

Michael Palmer said:


> I have immediate openings in my bee school.


lol...lol...


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

Michael Palmer said:


> Deknow and Ramona from this list visited FB, and bought nucs this past spring. They said FB gave them a bill for $1500 for their "education."


I just got a PM about this post (which I had missed).

1. We did visit Don to buy bees.
2. He did encourage us to take his course while we were there...we declined.
3. We paid Don exactly what we had agreed upon for bees...and paid him nothing for anything else.
4. Granted, there was a bit of a "hard sell" gonig on wrt taking his course, but there was never a hint of "if you don't take the course, you can't have the bees" or any other tactic that I would consider unfair...like all of us, Don has the desire to help everyone.

I have nothing but good things to say about Don.

deknow


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

deknow said:


> Don has the desire to help everyone.


Selling bees is different than selling cordwood. Bees are living sentient beings and to just hand them over to someone not knowledgeable enough to keep them alive goes against the grain. It is natural to want to educate them, not only to benefit the buyer, but to save the bees. That time costs money and $250 would be dirt cheap for a years worth of education, all kidding aside. 
Sheri


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

deknow said:


> I just got a PM about this post (which I had missed).


Sorry Dean, I misunderstood what you said. 
Mike


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## BEES4U (Oct 10, 2007)

SgtMaj said:


> My wife and I have been considering jumping into commercial beekeeping in the next few years, and I know that before we do, it will be hugely benefitial for me to learn from a commercial beekeeper, so what I would like to do is try to take an extra week or two of vacation this year and spend a week or two helping out a commercial beekeeper in a labor for knowledge and experience kind of exchange. I'm not even sure it will be possible at this point for me to take an extra week or two off, but in order to plan for this properly, I'll need to know what time of year you need the extra helping hand?
> 
> Also, if you would be interrested in offering this kind of internship arrangement, let me know. I'll want to learn from a larger operation and preferrably something closer to my location so that I don't have to waste much time travelling.


*Back to the original question:*
Most outfits are gearing up for the big push to make divides, packages and or queens.
Here in California right now.
Ernie


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