>I was wondering if anyone has feed bees to the point it out weighs,in cost,the honey output?
For the last two years. Yes. I fed them several hundred pounds of sugar and harvested nothing. The sporadic weather has not been good to beekeepers here. They were putting up honey like crazy and then there was no fall flow last year or this year and the bees burned up all their stores that I would have harvested AND had to be fed. But then some years they make 200 pounds a hive and I don't need to feed them at all. :)
Maybe im off topic or just not understanding the question correctly...
weather does play a role ( if there is no flow then they make no honey and you have to feed or they starve) but on average if you pull 2 mediums supers of honey, sale that then buy enough sugar to feed back to fill those supers you will end up with money left over, honey just cost more....
yeah but still MB your not explaining your position, I have never been to MB's but I bet he is like most other beekeepers here that raise queens, the problem you get then is we mostly keep more hives in one place than we should, its easier to work and raise queens in 1 yard so you can work them regularly, we have our mother hives we graft from and maybe 10-20 other full hive that we shake bees from and take frames from, then anywhere from 20-100 nucs going so we have to feed, most times when you manage for honey you will only have between 5-20 hives in one spot. Finsky has preached this for years on here, like most everyone that tells you, you either raise queens or go for honey, its almost impossible to do both with the same hives unless you have help or a large number of hives, enough for queen rearing and enough for honey production,
I know i missed some things but just trying to show that if you sold all your honey and replaced the same are with sugar syrup you will make more off honey that you will spend on sugar.......