# Good per hive average?



## Moon (May 7, 2011)

What would be considered a good per hive average? I know this is completely dependent upon your area, what your flows are like, length of season, etc... etc... So let's narrow it down to northern areas that experience five months of cold weather or more. What do you guys in the north expect to see for yields in a season? This is only my second year keeping bees and I have yet to harvest any honey however this fall I imagine I'll have around ten deeps to harvest. And that's being a bit optimistic, but depending on how many hives make it through the winter and whether or not I'm able to keep them from swarming I'd like to see two full deep supers next fall for extracting per hive. Roughly I think that's a 180lb average, some maybe more some maybe less. Is that to optimistic? I have first year packages right now that already have three full deeps that I'll probably throw a fourth on here in a few days. So what do you gals and guys think?

*NOTE* On the first year packages it's not typical that they all have three full deeps. I've got some that haven't even filled up their first ten frame deep yet and I have others that have all three filled up. The trend right now that I'm seeing is 75% have drawn out foundation in two deeps and have honey and brood in. Maybe fifty percent are working on a third deep and I've only got one or two that are ready to move into a fourth deep.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

If you are drawing comb and if the rains come you may get another full box on each. THose that are still in the first box aren't going to get much better in my experience. I would do combines with the ones in the first box. You can pinch the worst queen or better yet both and requeen them now if you want to winter them. It is a numbers game. The number of colonies is not important this time of year, the number of bees in the colony is. Since you have to count those washouts that won't amke enough for winter feed, sixty pounds would be good if we get rain.


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## Moon (May 7, 2011)

Thanks for the reply Vance. I really appreciate your input especially since you're so close to me. The thing with some of the hives I have that are still in the first box is a couple of them are duds and I'm just waiting for some queens to mature so I can requeen but other hives seem to have awesome looking brood patterns and look like they're on the verge of really taking off. I'm hesitant to do anything with them.


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## Fuzzy (Aug 4, 2005)

Once you have supers with drawn comb...

A novice will get 60-80lbs
an average will get 120lbs
someone who understands the timing and flows may get 150-180 lbs


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Most hives in my region (midwest) need 70lbs to get them thru winter, and we call it a good hive if it has 70 pounds of surplus, so a breeder queens hive should produce 140lbs of honey per year.


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## westernbeekeeper (May 2, 2012)

The official average honey production per hive here in Wyoming is 66 pounds per hive.


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## Moon (May 7, 2011)

Where are you getting that number westernbeekeeper?


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## AJ Boss (May 30, 2012)

how many lbs per gallon?


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## casinoken (May 6, 2012)

I think Fuzzy's numbers are high for California. Here in Mississippi, officially, (USDA numbers), this state consistently produces more honey per hive (average) than any other state. This past year's report put the per hive average for Mississippi at 120, the next closest state was around 94. The typical Mississippi per hive average is somewhere in the 90 to 100 range, and even then we far outpace the next closest state. Not bragging, just throwing out the "official" numbers. (And Lord knows I disagree with USDA numbers all the time) LOL


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## westernbeekeeper (May 2, 2012)

I asked one of the state bee inspectors, and I _think_ that maybe it's also on the Wy Dept of Agriculture's website. 

A five gallon pail holds 60-70 lbs of honey.


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## indypartridge (Nov 18, 2004)

If you want "official" numbers, here is the report - state-by-state - from the National Agricultural Statistics Service. You can see that in 2010, the average per hive in Wyoming was 36 lbs, but 2011 was much better, at 54 lbs per hive.

http://usda01.library.cornell.edu/usda/current/Hone/Hone-03-30-2012.pdf


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Moon,
It not only depends on where you have bees, which State, which part of that State, but, it also depends on how you figure your average. Are you going to count all live colonies into the average? Are you only going to count the colonies which you take honey off of? Are you going to figure in the feed you give them? It effects the amount of honey available to harvest.

A good hive average is 100lbs. I have only hit that once in 20 years. Which says something about me as a beekeeper, where I have my bees, the fact that I migrate and pollinate, and other factors. How much your colonies will average depends on many factors, known and unknown, largely uncontrolable. Some controlable. Doing what you can well will make the difference.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

sqkcrk said:


> A good hive average is 100lbs. I have only hit that once in 20 years.


Did that make you a millionaire that year?


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

From the list linked to above I am seeing country wide anything from the low 30 lbs per hive up to I think a top of 98 lbs per hive. I was actually surprised to find Nevada as high as it was in the 40 some lbs per hive.

Mark, Having hit 100 lbs per hive one time in your career does not make an average. Much less a good average. that is your record. New York actually is listed with a 64 lb average for 2010.

Having more lists for other years would be helpful in actually figuring a more accurate average per state. Such as an historical average.

I do agree that location will make a huge difference even within a state. The chart was written from Honey Producer data so I am guessing these info came form folks that know a bit about what they are doing. including hive placement. Can't swear to that though.

I woudl like to see the same sort of data concerning hive weight. I think it woudl be more helpful to beekeeping across the board. I know my bees already have far more than 40 some lbs of honey but it is all surrounding brood. If my objective is to rear bees and make nucs is that a successful hive that might be far above average? Donno without data or experience.

Edited to add for the OP. Wyoming shows an average of 36 lbs per hive for 2010. I cannot believe it is lower than Nevada. I consider this state the most desolate location on the earth. Actually we are nto that far from what most consider the same. Death Valley.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Daniel Y said:


> Mark, Having hit 100 lbs per hive one time in your career does not make an average.


Dan he said average for that year. It would be pointless to have a 20 year average. That would just be a number that wouldn't mean anything to anyone else.


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

Having grown up in Cheyenne, schooled in Laramie, and lived in the South while in the military, I can tell you you can expect a lot less rain than most of the responders here. You will also have a lot less honey production unless you are in an atypical area. Two deep supers in a season is fantastic, get some daughters from that queen and hope they are thrifty with their winter stores. My first hive in Cheyenne made one shallow and one medium super back in 1977, but it swarmed when I was working in Denver and commuting home on the weekends. HTH


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## woodedareas (Sep 10, 2010)

Arn't there 8 pounds per gallon? So 5 gallons would be 40 pounds.


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## westernbeekeeper (May 2, 2012)

Thanks indypartridge, that's helpful. Keeps me informed. Thanx.


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## Sherman (Feb 23, 2012)

Water weighs 8 pounds per gallon. Honey is heavier than water.

--Sherman


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## woodedareas (Sep 10, 2010)

Your right Sherman its about 12 pounds per gallon. I never have a need to calculate gallons as I am more concerned about weight.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

Water is about eight pounds to the gallon, honey about 12. An average is derived from the number of colonies you start with and have paid to set up. It doesn't pay to be dishonest with yourself. If your ego needs serious boosting, by all means lie. Colony average productions are figured by how many hives are registered and the poundage by how many are reported--and taxable. When asked, the best answer is, "It varies from hive to hive".


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## Moon (May 7, 2011)

This is related but on a side note, how many of you guys work on developing areas where you have your hives? Encouraging land owners to plant native flowering species in barrow ditches or fields that aren't in use that year. As well as planting hedge rows along fence lines that flower?


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Keep in Mind those numbers are SURPLUS honey averages..... That is going to depend on how much you leave in the hive


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## Moon (May 7, 2011)

That's a good point. Last year I had planned on over wintering my hives in two ten frame deeps each and ended up letting all of them overwinter with two full ten frame deeps and a partially full third ten frame deep with excellent results. I'm debating on whether or not to harvest all of the third deeps this year and let them overwinter with the two deep setup or not. From everything I've read given my climate and area two full deeps should be more then enough, I guess I'll pull the trigger on this one in October


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

From stories told, a total of ten frames in a nuc is enough. The enough part will depend on weather and ratio of bees to stores. Although my two years of successful wintering is not enough to go on I can say my experience is the bigger the hive going into winter the bigger the hive in the spring and that makes a boomer as opposed to a nurser.


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

Moon said:


> ...SNIP... I had planned on over wintering my hives in two ten frame deeps...snip...


For Wyoming, two deeps is a good plan.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Daniel Y said:


> Mark, Having hit 100 lbs per hive one time in your career does not make an average. Much less a good average. that is your record. New York actually is listed with a 64 lb average for 2010.


Maybe I didn't state that in a way which others could easily understand.

One year, my per hive average production of honey was 100 lbs. Out of all the hives I had that year dividing the crop by the hive count the per hive production came to 100 lbs each.

That is how an annual hive average is calculated. Which I brought up earlier.

For many years the Statewide average per hive production of honey runs, over the years, at about 60 or 70 lbs.

I don't keep records well enuf to tell anyone what my production average has been, averaging over the past 20 years or so.

DanielY, thanks for telling me something I should have learned as early in my beekeeping career as you seem to have. I wonder how I have gotten as far as I have. Thank youi.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Acebird said:


> Dan he said average for that year. It would be pointless to have a 20 year average. That would just be a number that wouldn't mean anything to anyone else.


Well, I don't know about that. Last year I had a hive proiduction average of about 30 or 35 lbs. Balancing that against the year in which I had a 100 lb average, that would put my two year average at 65lbs. Had I data for the last 20 years, we could figure out what annual averages are more likely to be, taking into mind the peaks (100lbs) adn valleys(30lbs).


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

woodedareas said:


> Arn't there 8 pounds per gallon? So 5 gallons would be 40 pounds.


No, not if you are talking honey. Five gallons of honey weigh close to 60 lbs. Before plastic became as popular as it is today, honey was sold in "tins", square tin cans, which were 5 gallon in size and weighed in at 60 lbs of honey.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Hive averages are really only good for bragging rights. Remember, figures may not lie, but liars can figure.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

sqkcrk said:


> Moon,
> it also depends on how you figure your average. Are you going to count all live colonies into the average? Are you only going to count the colonies which you take honey off of?
> 
> A good hive average is 100lbs. I have only hit that once in 20 years.


DanielY,
Perhaps I should not have assumed that Moon has more than one hive. Perhaps I should not have assumed that Moon understood production averaging in the samne way I do.

To me, when I talk about "Good per hive average", which is what was asked about, I figure my annual production average by taking the total amount of honey produced that year and divide it by the total number of live colonies I had that year when I had the most, not counting the nucs I sold.

How do you figure your annual "per hive average", DanielY?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Yup, there I go again, letting some Johnny come lately get my goat. My apologies to those who have read my rants.

Seymore, where's my sign? My dope slap?


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## westernbeekeeper (May 2, 2012)

Hey Lburou,
My first winter (three years ago), I had eleven hives and overwintered ten of them in one 10-frame deep. Eight of those had only three frames of bees and 2 frames of brood going into winter. All but one successfully overwintered, and most of those are hives from which I breed survivor stock now. I am overwintering most hives in double deeps now.


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

westernbeekeeper said:


> Hey Lburou,
> My first winter (three years ago), I had eleven hives and overwintered ten of them in one 10-frame deep. Eight of those had only three frames of bees and 2 frames of brood going into winter. All but one successfully overwintered, and most of those are hives from which I breed survivor stock now. I am overwintering most hives in double deeps now.


That is great! But, you need to plan for the worst winter, not an Average winter. I used two deeps because my mentor, the lead bee researcher at the USDA bee Lab in Laramie, recommended two deeps. I have seen -30F for six weeks running in Cheyenne...more than once.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Do what works best for you. There are Canadians in many Provinces who winter their bees in single story deeps and others that winter in two story deeps.


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## westernbeekeeper (May 2, 2012)

When I say that I over winter mostly in double deeps, I mean about 45% of my hives have double deeps. I guess that's not most. I want overwinter in two deeps, but my problem is this: I have very little extra drawn comb to work with, and I find it very hard to get the bees to move up into the brood box of (Mann Lake's plastic) foundation. I have tried spraying the foundation with syrup, but that didn't work. They have little difficulty drawing mediums and shallows, seem to hit a roadblock with the deeps. Can I checkerboard drawn comb with undrawn frames? Right now I have quite a few hives that have had a second deep on them for three weeks and have not touched them, yet the bottom box is well filled, with about ten frames of comb and nine frames of bees; there are at least 6 frames of brood out of the 10. Any ideas?

Lburou, you're right. We had 42 below zero Fahrenheit two winters ago for three days straight.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

There is only one way to calculate an average or more accurately, Mean.
The mean is just the average of the numbers.
add up all the numbers, then divide by how many numbers there are. 
This is a mathematical fact.

This leaves the relevant issues in question as. Just how many numbers do you use.

Assume there are 15 hives and the following amounts in lbs are harvested.
The mean is just the average of the numbers.
3, 7, 5, 13, 20, 23, 39, 23, 40, 23, 14, 12, 56, 23, 29 

The sum of these numbers is 330

There are fifteen numbers.

The mean is equal to 330 / 15 = 22
The mean or average of the above numbers is 22.

But is that an accurate calculation of the real average? Is it only possible for a hive to have a net gain? What about feeding? Isn't that actually a negative figure?

What about honey produced but not harvested?

As for the importance of such numbers. They do not really become important to anyone until you have gathered hundreds of thousands of them. setting other management issues aside. once you know that average you know exactly what you can expect from keeping each and every hive of bees. With a 20 lb average having been calculated from thousands of hives over many years. you are pretty much guaranteed to get 20 lbs of honey from every single hive you choose to keep. But that will be over time. Averages do not apply to a single unit ever. they apply to the whole. thousands of pieces. they only show up after thousands of attempts. but the average will still be the average.

As mark said the average in his area changed. That is actually very hard to do and usually comes about by game changing events. Averages, true averages. Not just the average of the 20 hives you kept track of last year. but the 200,000 hives in the entire state. are a powerful and accurate thing. But truly accurate usable averages require those sort of numbers.

As for seeing no importance in averages. I liken that to seeing no importance in budgeting. Many people don't. few get away with it. IT is a tool that help manage. but if you don't knwo how to use it. no tool is of much importance.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

westernbeekeeper said:


> Can I checkerboard drawn comb with undrawn frames?


I think that is the way you normally do it. You may not need to do 50/50.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Daniel Y said:


> Not just the average of the 20 hives you kept track of last year. but the 200,000 hives in the entire state. are a powerful and accurate thing.


When a state is large like NY and CA the state average is not accurate because location is such a variable. Averages within a county might be more accurate but even those could have considerable differences. A county like Herkimer would be one of those because of it's shape.


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## Ted Kretschmann (Feb 2, 2011)

You can only figure into your average per hive equation, the honey actually harvested, drummed, put into a jar or bucket. And you can not make a living on a twenty pound average. Being a Sioux member, we have pretty good records of what the yearly production per hive is. Seventy pounds year after year is the average we shoot for. Some years are bust and some years are boomers. But the over all average is Seventy pounds. It takes that to make a living. You hope during the years that are boomers that the price of honey is up when the production average per hive for that year is way up. Thus there are more dollars in your pocket. Always work with your bees and use their natural hoarding instinct to your advantage. So if you think you might just put one super on, sometimes it pays to put two or three on. This is called liberal supering. Most beekeepers underestimate what their bees are capable of producing. An under supered colony is an under producer. Bees will cram out the space given them. Once all available space is used up, the bees will quit foraging. Their mind set is that we are crammed out and we have enough stores now to winter on. So if you have not given enough room, your per hive average will be down. A sixty to eighty pound average is very doable across the board in anyone's operation. That is a good average for everyone that keeps bees to shoot for. One last thought, to produce good averages, you must know what nectar producing plants that bloom in your area and when they bloom. Then time your supering accordingly. And you must have your colonies in top shape to maximize the nectar flow when those plants bloom. A good book to learn the different nectar plants in the USA is AMERICAN HONEY PLANTS by Frank C Pellet. It is hard to find a copy but I am told you can print is off the internet. Good Luck, TED KRETSCHMANN


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## Beeslave (Feb 6, 2009)

Acebird said:


> I think that is the way you normally do it. You may not need to do 50/50.


Off topic.....asking for trouble during a weak flow doing that.


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## Moon (May 7, 2011)

Ted Kretschmann said:


> ... One last thought, to produce good averages, you must know what nectar producing plants that bloom in your area and when they bloom. Then time your supering accordingly... Good Luck, TED KRETSCHMANN


Ted thanks for the very insightful post. I'm curious as to why timing of your supering is important if you're saying to over super simply based off of the bees natural instinct to hoard. If I throw three extra deeps on top of everything in early May knowing that my flow begins in late May why would the timing matter. Is jumping the gun on supering going to be a hindrance?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Moon said:


> What do you guys in the north expect to see for yields in a season?


I would like to see a 100 lb yield, but I expect to see better than last year's yield of 30 lbs. Sixty lbs is not unusual here in Northen NY. I hope you get an amount of honey satisfactory to you.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Ted Kretschmann said:


> Seventy pounds year after year is the average we shoot for. ... It takes that to make a living.


If you dump your bees in the fall your honey average would be higher, No?

I harvested 15 quarts one year and 11 quarts last year. I make a living but not on bees. Bees are just the frosting. You don't have to keep bees with the intention of making a living.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

The notion that putting on too many supers too soon actually hurts honey production is one that I have never really accepted. We still only rarely put on more than 2 mediums at a time for a couple reasons. #1 is that we always seem to be running short of boxes and so we try to be as efficient as possible with what we have. #2 it makes a lot of unnecessary handling if they are only partly full as the bees will just work right up through the middle leaving the outside combs untouched. Our main exception is if the bees are on a location far from home or a location that is not easily accesable in which case we like to just stack them up and forget them for awhile. 
Averages? There have always been lots of games played with those numbers. Some use hives started, some use season ending numbers to make their average look better. Some like to inflate them to brag while others like to understate and be coy about what they produce. I think pounds per location says as much as pounds per hive. Personally I use the number of queen right hives that we start the honey production season with since that is what we have costs associated with. Timing and putting hives that are of the proper size and "on the grow" on location ready to produce honey just as the major flow begins maximizes your production potential and as a beekeeper that is about all you can do, the rest is up to the season and how much nectar is available. We always hope for a 100 lb. average and do get it occassionally but experience has shown that it is tough to do especially long term. But now I am being a bit coy aren't I?


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## Scrapfe (Jul 25, 2008)

Maybe a better way to figure honey production would be to find the median. With this method you would automatically need to exclude any non-producing hives to keep the median poundage from CLIMING. I 'spect' a lot of us already exclude non productive hives when we figure the average or mean. 

However to find the median requires a level of record keeping that most 'beekeeps' would be uncomfortable with, myself included. Maybe it would be easier as well as more educational to figure an average for all bee yards by extracting them separately, and use this data to find the median of all locations. 

I think it was Mark Twain who said, "There are three kinds of lies, regular lies, danged lies, and statistics."


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Ted Kretschmann said:


> So if you think you might just put one super on, sometimes it pays to put two or three on. This is called liberal supering.





jim lyon said:


> The notion that putting on too many supers too soon actually hurts honey production is one that I have never really accepted.


From a couple of experienced pros….
And if you are putting on drawn comb, I agree. If, on the other hand, you are putting on undrawn foundation, it’s my experience that you should add one at a time.



Ted Kretschmann said:


> Most beekeepers underestimate what their bees are capable of producing.


I am embarrassed to admit that I do this to several hives every season. A hive swarms itself nearly into oblivion. The last swarm queen hasn’t even begun to lay yet. The population is down to a couple of thousand bees, so I add a single super and forget them. At season’s end I open it up….it is packed with honey and bees and the girls look at me like ‘where the devil have you been?’. I kick myself, swear I won’t do it again….but do all the same.
Production averages are a result of management practices as much as location…..which is why I often wonder how I make any honey at all.


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## Moon (May 7, 2011)

sqkcrk said:


> I would like to see a 100 lb yield, but I expect to see better than last year's yield of 30 lbs. Sixty lbs is not unusual here in Northen NY. I hope you get an amount of honey satisfactory to you.


I guess the good thing about this is any amount, or no amount at all is satisfactory to me right now. Considering I don't have any goals aside from learning about the hive and the various mechanisms of beekeeping itself honey yield, or even high honey yields for that matter, isn't an area of beekeeping I'm focused on right now. However, I was curious what other people were expecting.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

Ted Kretschmann said:


> A good book to learn the different nectar plants in the USA is AMERICAN HONEY PLANTS by Frank C Pellet. It is hard to find a copy but I am told you can print is off the internet. Good Luck, TED KRETSCHMANN



http://archive.org/details/americanhoneypla00pell

PDF, ePub, kindle, take your pick.


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## Moon (May 7, 2011)

Awesome! Thanks for the link grozzie2


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Ted and Mr. Lyon where accurate. IF you are expanding your hive numbers, the trick is knowing when to stop expanding hive counts, and start expanding hive populations, so that you arive at peak population at the beginning of the flow, not before or after. Years ago it was easier, but with the current weather conditions, it is tough to hit it. 

The old timers would say that the hives have a momentum, and if they peak too soon, loose the momentum. As for supering, the oldtimers also claimed that a hive that was kept "empty" by always removing any full supers on a timely basis, would produce more than one that was given ample supers, but where allowed to stay on the hive after full.

We have production records that begin in the late 30's. I will try to find them again.

Crazy Roland


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## Moon (May 7, 2011)

Roland that would be awesome for a basis of comparison if you could go all the way back to the 30's. Heck even back fifty years would be extremely interesting to read.


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