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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
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Sun, 6 Mar 2011 18:27:08 -0500
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When I drew out hundreds of supers of comb honey annually, I compared the production to extracted honey and never could see a difference that was obvious.  Drawing out standard combs for extracting, though I found more difficult if carried to excess.  10to 20% a year was no burden, though..

It all come down to when we draw the comb.  I never tried to make comb when the bees were not ready to make wax.  There would be no point to try if there was not a strong flow on.

So, for me, the cost of drawing comb is somewhere around zero if the timing is right and one does not to push the bees make more comb that they are prepared to make naturally.

If trying to force comb buliding, then feeding honey makes no sense, although Tibor did in his fall was drawing experiments because he could not buy sugar.

For most of us, in that situation, we would feed sugar and not honey and those of us trying to draw foundation is spring usually feed syrup.

So, IMO, for reasonable amounts of somb drawn in season, the cost of feed is zero.  Of course the other costs are real, but I do question assigning overhead to this operation since it is a sunk cost and not associated with the need to draw comb.

I also agree that the proper price to assign to the honey is the replacement cost, i.e. what bulk honey sells for, or the net value after your production costs, whichever is less.  In many cases, that number may actually be below market price :(

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