# Honey House costs? Floorplans?



## AndreiRN (Jun 13, 2008)

I think a 40 ft steel container placed in a nice shade would be ideal and inexpensive. If you have no power then a generator or solar would do the job.
The rest would fall into place in time to bost eficiency. 
If you move the bees a lot a mobile unit would be even better.
A toy hauler loaded with extractor an all the equipment would save time and fuel on the road.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Cramped space already and that's w/out any equipment in it. I had a 12 by 36 ft trailer that I used for a honey house, but Icouldn't have anything else in it other than the extracting equipment, honey to be extracted and some tank. I also had to add a 10 by 10 shed for the sump tank and pump to sit in.

So, let's see. 
Twelve by thirtysix foot trailer, set up on Railroad Ties. One end was th Hot Room which was heated by the furnace which came w/ the trailer. 
Three one hundred gallon tanks, set up in the air against one wall of the trailer on 55 gallon drums, high enuf to fill drums or buckets.
Two extractors, one 60 frame Dadant Stainless Steel w/ electronic control. The other a 36 frame Kelly w/ manual control, which I could get 76(?) shallow frames into.
One Kelly cappings tank that I uncapped into.
Everything drained into a Dadant sump tank. 25 or 30 gallon perhaps.
Honey pump to transfer honey from sump tank to bulk tanks.

That'sabout as small a space as I would want to have for extracting honey for 500 colonies, which I had at the time and actually got up to 800.

Way too small. But it worked.


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

Lb: 

Many on this site don't favour borrowing money to purchase outfits. I'm not one of those people. Put a pencil to all the assets the old boy has for sale and then decide if it is worth it. If the equipment was indeed purchased from Moses himself then there may be some blessings from the Big Guy himself which may help you long term. There is some value in having a turn key operation in my opinion. Then you can start working with a large number straight away and make payments to the bank. This works if you know what you are doing and if pencils out. If the old boy selling out does not have that many hives then the ratio of hives to other fixed assets like land , buildings, living space might be too low such that you don't have enough hives to support buying the land , buildings etc...

Co-op , I'd be carefull. I've seen two beekeepers trying to work together and it always falls apart and that early on. I've seen this many times. I'm not sure how multiple people working together could co-operate especially if they are all beekeepers from the get go. It can be done but without wanting to knock those involved in my profession it is reasonnable to expect that it won't work longterm. If they are like most beekeepers they won't even be able to agree to get it going.

There is a book out there called Western Canadian Beekeeping or Beekkeeping on the Canadian Prairies.I've got one in the house somewhere. I believe it has floor plans or options for what you are looking for. I'll keep my eyes open for it.

Good luck.

Jean-Marc


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## rocky1 (Jul 19, 2009)

Whatever you build, it won't be big enough! At least not for more than a year or two! Decide what you need for space, then double it. 

As for beekeepers working together. My brother-in-law once said the only thing he'd learned in 3 years in the business was, "You can ask 25 beekeepers how to do something and get 25 different answers, and they'll all be right." (_Sarcasm implied!_)


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## Beeslave (Feb 6, 2009)

Honey House/ Storage-2,000 sq ft

Extracting equip new installed and running with capability of extracting 5-8 drums a day with 2 people-$30-40,000


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## honeyshack (Jan 6, 2008)

the book is called "Beekeeping in Western Canada"....cool book.

our honey house is 26x36 and we have 200 hives. I need more space. I can not accomdate all the supers when pulling honey. We are thinking of adding on in the sometime distant future.
When we build the HH we had 50 hives. I think if we saw 200 hives + in our future we would have built it alot bigger


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## Duboisi (Oct 7, 2009)

Seems like it would be a good idea to place the new honey-house in a location where there are ample place to expand later if needed. You may even want to do ground works and put down a much larger cement-floor than the honey-house are gonna need. If you never need to expand, you still have a nice outdoor space for working, parking or storage.

After the concrete is laid and cured, you can put some plastic along the edge, and then make a concrete-ramp that can easily be removed at a later stage.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Lakebilly- the equipment from Moses, are you talking woodenware, or extracting equipment, or both?

I would be leery of disease in old woodenware. Learned that one the hard way.

Be careful of galvanized extractors and honey handling equipment. They may not pass food inspection, if you have any.

Roland


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## Skinner Apiaries (Sep 1, 2009)

Buying Bees is always buying problems. But contracts can be valuable. But buying them just to lose them is a waste in itself. If you're going to buy someone out you should work with them for a year and learn the technique to what they're running, imo.

As to the actual thread, we have a shipping container, in the sun... I found out a dehumidifier and triple digit temps cure the honey very nicely... Hell to work in. I would avoid a shipping container in retrospect, because every time a discussion comes up about a new shed, or a new honey room I have to put up with my old man bickering about incorporating the container. Also, consider regulations, and my favorite rule, would I let the people I sell this honey too see the extracting facilities? Do it right the first time, save lots of money; and maybe moot point, don't buy bees in the Fall. That is all.


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## Duboisi (Oct 7, 2009)

I think the shipping container could easily be incorporated as an out-building for storage of empty hive-bodies and such. That way you don't need to incorporate it into the actual building, and the old man gets happy at the same time.


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## Skinner Apiaries (Sep 1, 2009)

I find its rather clumbsy to drive the bobcat into it and fairly hard to get 2 pallets across due to the wide nature of my bobcat. It would work really well with one of those tiny forklifts made for those environments. Maybe herb wants it to put the weevilcide on his combs 

Then again, I bet it would cure green lumber pretty quick too. It turned some 21% green honey to 17.6 in a couple days, who says you gotta spend 15 grand on that Dadant machine!


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## Skinner Apiaries (Sep 1, 2009)

lakebilly said:


> Local guy is probably gonna retire soon, his equipment he bought from Moses. (wants alot for his operation) talking with others that may want to co-op . like to know what it would cost to outfit honeyhouse for this size operation. thanks. Lb


Coop's are poison. Partners are bad juju. Buy it outright or don't touch it. You can take that advice to the bank.


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

My parents started with the kitchen, a 4 frame extracter and a hot knife. The last year in the kitchen before building honeyhouse they produced 5+ ton. I now work out of a 38X50 building with a 11'X40' honeyhouse. 820 hives produced 80+ ton. Extracting equipment bought back in the late 70's at $15,000 same equipment new today is $40,000+.


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## Mathispollenators (Jun 9, 2008)

I built a honey house last year for us. It's 100x50 ft there are three rooms in it. Two of the rooms are 25x30 one for super storage\fumigation and the other is storage. As time goes and money is there I'll seal the storage room like I did for the super storage room. That left us a open area of 75x50 for extraction and working. I have doors large enough I can drive vehicles in and work on them without having to clean and move things around. This is a bigger building than I actually thought I needed but as others have replied it's getting full now. I can't tell how much we have invested in it because my friend and I were block masons and built it ourselves saving a ton of money in labor. Before you build I would recommend checking with the state and see what is required as you are going to be processing food in it. You don't want to build and then have to change things to meet the standards costing you extra. You can look at my website browsing to the honey house link to see what I have. The state of Georgia has a link as to the honey house requirements you can also look at. I realize they may want diffrent things than your state but that's a start. I don't get on here as much as I once did but if you have questions e-mail or pm me I'll be happy answer then and help anyway I can.


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## fish_stix (May 17, 2009)

Honey Houses and boats have the same genetic lineage. Never enough room. Build it bigger than you think you need now! (Lots bigger!)


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## Jeffzhear (Dec 2, 2006)

sqkcrk said:


> Cramped space already and that's w/out any equipment in it. I had a 12 by 36 ft trailer that I used for a honey house, but Icouldn't have anything else in it other than the extracting equipment, honey to be extracted and some tank.
> 
> Three one hundred gallon tanks, set up in the air against one wall of the trailer on 55 gallon drums, high enuf to fill drums or buckets.
> Two extractors, one 60 frame Dadant Stainless Steel w/ electronic control. The other a 36 frame Kelly w/ manual control, which I could get 76(?) shallow frames into.
> ...


Mark, Thank you for sharing this post. It is information like this that helps many.


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## johng (Nov 24, 2009)

I know this is an old thread that's recently been brought back up. But, I was wondering if anyone knows what happened to Fish Stix? He used to be very active on here and haven't saw anything from him in a couple years. Anyone??


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## GaSteve (Apr 28, 2004)

The Honey Householder said:


> 820 hives produced 80+ ton.


195+ pounds per hive. Very impressive. Do you truck the bees around - chasing different flows?


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