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Author Topic: Whats your best honey crop from one colony  (Read 7930 times)

Offline leechmann

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Re: Whats your best honey crop from one colony
« Reply #20 on: August 10, 2010, 11:44:14 pm »
I have 22 hives this year. The best hives are two deeps and 8 medium supers high right now. I am going to extract in 2 weeks.

Offline bee-nuts

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Re: Whats your best honey crop from one colony
« Reply #21 on: August 11, 2010, 02:54:44 am »
I have 22 hives this year. The best hives are two deeps and 8 medium supers high right now. I am going to extract in 2 weeks.

have any pictures?  Thats got to be a site.
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Offline Michael Bush

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Re: Whats your best honey crop from one colony
« Reply #22 on: August 11, 2010, 02:56:38 am »
>it says on a website that i just visited that a shallow super weighs around 40 lbs

But that is the box, the frames and the honey...
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Offline bee-nuts

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Re: Whats your best honey crop from one colony
« Reply #23 on: August 11, 2010, 04:20:33 am »
I was told by a commercial beek that a shallow on average hold about 25lbs, a medium about 40 lbs.  I got 22 quarts from two mediums.  I guessed about 66 lbs at 3 lbs a quart.  They could have been drawn out more so im sure on second extraction I would get closer to 80 lbs.
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Offline msully

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Re: Whats your best honey crop from one colony
« Reply #24 on: August 11, 2010, 04:32:00 pm »
Last year I got 137 lbs from my one hive, this I'm at 123 pounds and still have one more extraction to go.  I had 6 mediums on it, but am down to 4 now.  My guess is that I'll get another 60 pounds off of it so I should be around 180 +/-.

I've made a couple of sister queens from that one!
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Offline Finski

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Re: Whats your best honey crop from one colony
« Reply #25 on: August 11, 2010, 04:50:00 pm »
.
I have a hive on the balance. The weight rise was this kind
http://www.mtt.fi/bees/anjalankoski10.htm

Weight rise in one month about 130 kg.
Best days 8 kg/day.

Thera are a big diversity between hives and places.

The curve inform about  the quality of pastures, not about bees.
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Offline slacker361

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Re: Whats your best honey crop from one colony
« Reply #26 on: August 11, 2010, 04:56:46 pm »
Last year I got 137 lbs from my one hive, this I'm at 123 pounds and still have one more extraction to go.  I had 6 mediums on it, but am down to 4 now.  My guess is that I'll get another 60 pounds off of it so I should be around 180 +/-.

I've made a couple of sister queens from that one!

that is freaking impressive, can we test your girls for steroids?

Offline leechmann

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Re: Whats your best honey crop from one colony
« Reply #27 on: August 11, 2010, 09:11:37 pm »
I have 22 hives this year. The best hives are two deeps and 8 medium supers high right now. I am going to extract in 2 weeks.

have any pictures?  Thats got to be a site.

Here you are Bee-nuts, these are my best hives. I have some not so good ones too.

Offline AllenF

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Re: Whats your best honey crop from one colony
« Reply #28 on: August 11, 2010, 09:18:19 pm »
Where's your ladder?

Offline AllenF

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Re: Whats your best honey crop from one colony
« Reply #29 on: August 11, 2010, 09:20:16 pm »
And I was just wondering leechmann, do you have SHB there yet?

Offline leechmann

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Re: Whats your best honey crop from one colony
« Reply #30 on: August 11, 2010, 09:56:34 pm »
I haven't had a problem with them, SHB, but they are a problem for some around here. I inspect the hives from the tailgate of my pickup.

Offline Finski

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Re: Whats your best honey crop from one colony
« Reply #31 on: August 12, 2010, 01:20:23 am »
.

Splended! You seems to be a good beekeeper. I hope that pastures are good too.

You seems to have 2 brood boxes and then excluder.

Where you get queens or rear you self?

You body must be in a good  shape too when you lift those full honey boxes down and upp. And to check queen cells ...


What kind of winter you have there?



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Offline leechmann

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Re: Whats your best honey crop from one colony
« Reply #32 on: August 12, 2010, 12:27:37 pm »
.

Splended! You seems to be a good beekeeper. I hope that pastures are good too.

You seems to have 2 brood boxes and then excluder.

Where you get queens or rear you self?

You body must be in a good  shape too when you lift those full honey boxes down and upp. And to check queen cells ...


What kind of winter you have there?




Finski, we have very harsh winters here. We have snow on the ground from November to April. The temp reaches 30 below for a couple of weeks at a time. I had 7 hives last year, and they all died I the spring, in March. I purchased all new nucs this spring, and I caught 8 swarms this year.


I have to back my pickup up to these hives so I can inspect them. As far as queens cell inspections go, I quit doing them quite a while ago.

Offline Finski

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Re: Whats your best honey crop from one colony
« Reply #33 on: August 12, 2010, 02:09:22 pm »
...


 I had 7 hives last year, and they all died I the spring, in March.


Do you know why? Why after wintering?

Poly brood boxes are very good in wintering and in spring build up

.

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Offline bee-nuts

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Re: Whats your best honey crop from one colony
« Reply #34 on: August 12, 2010, 03:15:33 pm »
Nice pic leechman!  I sure could use those supers. 

How many do you think are full of honey on an average in those pics?
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Offline leechmann

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Re: Whats your best honey crop from one colony
« Reply #35 on: August 12, 2010, 04:40:28 pm »
Bee nuts, I only add the supers one at a time and I wait until the bees have filled at least half of the super below, and have started to cap some of the frames. I'm hoping they are all full, except the top super, and I looked at that yesterday when I took the pictures, and the bees are really getting after that one too.

These bees are on an alfalfa, hay fields that run for several hundred acres. It also has a little spring fed creek just behind the hives. It's the best bee yard I have, of the 5 locations.  I'm going to put more hives here next year, I built the stands for them as you can see the empty one in front of the hives. Just hope the bears don't find the honey before I get it.

Offline vermmy35

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Re: Whats your best honey crop from one colony
« Reply #36 on: August 12, 2010, 04:51:45 pm »
Last year my Carnies gave me 125 lbs, this year I got 85 lbs so far.
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Offline D Coates

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Re: Whats your best honey crop from one colony
« Reply #37 on: August 12, 2010, 05:18:09 pm »
My first year of havesting I got over #200 from one and over #180 from the other. I thought this is what I should expect.   :roll:  The main surprise was the soy bean flow that first year.  I put my extracted supers on there to get cleaned up for storage and they filled them to the top.   I haven't gotten a drip of soybean to speak of since.  Now I'm averaging 60 to 90 pounds a hive. 

I am optimistic about the soybeans this year though.  My OB hive is suddenly drawing comb and putting up honey.  The nucs I've checked are doing the same and there's strong activity at the landing boards of my double deeps.  It's so hot here though I can't help but wonder if they are merely getting water though.  I don't want to disturb them at this point but I'll crack one open for a senak peak this weekend.
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Offline bee-nuts

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Re: Whats your best honey crop from one colony
« Reply #38 on: August 13, 2010, 02:24:37 am »
"Bee nuts, I only add the supers one at a time and I wait until the bees have filled at least half of the super below"

Leechmann

Looks like you could have up to 300 lbs of honey in some of those than.  I belive it too cause Ive been pulling in th alfalfa as well and can hardly believe how fast they can draw and fill a deep.  I had two run ins with bears this year.  You really dont want to find out the hard way.  I would hurry up and take what you have before you have a nightmare on your hands.

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Offline leechmann

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Re: Whats your best honey crop from one colony
« Reply #39 on: August 13, 2010, 05:05:56 am »
Bee nuts, I think thats good advise. I'll be getting after it on my next days off. I can't wait to try my new maxant radial extractor.

How many hives are you running Bee nuts? Do you winter your hives in Wisconsin? What percentage of your hives make it through the winter?

 

anything