Hello deknow & All,
I see a new list has came on the net for commercial beekeepers. About time. 
The commercial point of view is very different than most others.

I have a close friend which says it takes around $200,000 dollars to simply 
open the doors of his bee farm for a month. When you enter a casino in 
Missouri the limit you can gamble is $500. Most take $20 to gamble with and 
when gone leave.

beekeeping is high stakes poker today.

Each hive is an investment. Equipment, support equipment, bees , feed, meds, 
fuel, a percent of the total cost of opening the doors is involved and the 
labor to maintain said hive.

The same with all business but few beeks really look at costs.

The first rule of commercial beekeeping is "healthy hives".

The quickest way to bankruptcy is 80-90 % losses two years in a row. Once 
you get above the fifty percent dead out range you move into an area where 
you simply can not rebuild from your own bees and supply pollination 
contracts an produce honey as you did before. Rebuilding /cleaning dead outs 
and buying package bees takes money. Rebuilding costs run very high. In many 
cases you can buy hives cheaper than rebuilding old boxes with contaminated 
comb. Check the Bell Honey ads in the bee magazines. $100 for a single ( 
with top and bottom) in new Dadant equipment/ 2008 Kona queen and all new 
drawn comb which have never had a chemical treatment. Email me for contact 
info.

The new method for keeping afloat today is constant splitting of hives. Dave 
Mendes (pres. ABF) has spoke on his methods. His losses since bees started 
crashing have been in the 50% range or higher. Dave makes splits after most 
major flows now. Instead of once a year like he used to. Some are now making 
splits both spring and fall.

If you have not noticed package bee prices have risen like *oil* prices and 
in the Midwest we have to add around $10 a package for delivery!

The dollar dropping to the Australian dollar has driven up Australian 
package prices.

Today's commercial beekeeping is a complicated business world to survive in.


deknow asks:
>how is research done on "dinks" applicable to strong production hives?

research hives are kept small for ease of checking. I keep hives in which 
you would be hard pressed to find the queen when full of bees. Hives coming 
out of pollination are boiling with bees. Often at a time when those left at 
home hives are on 4-5 frames of brood/bees.

A big difference exists between varroa reproduction in a hive with 12 frames 
of brood and 60,000 bees being fed syrup to make the bees think a flow is 
still on and a research hive in a bee lab.

However we understand why bee lab bees are kept the way they are. I can take 
you to bee yards where at times you can not get out of the truck without 
being stung as a semi has just been unloaded or the hives worked. You can 
not have sucn a situation around a university or even most bee labs.

quote from the last page of the book
"following the Bloom"
"Across America with the Migratory Beekeepers"
By Doug Whynott

Doug speaking about the single hive he now keeps in his backyard: ( pg. 206)

" I like to watch them,most of all,and now,when I see them making their 
sweeping arcs ,when they glide down among the crowds of bees at the hive 
entrance, I just watch."

"Contraction has followed expansion, and I sometimes think of a Zen saying:

"At first mountains were mountains, and then the mountains were not 
mountains, but some other thing, now the mountains are mountains again"

Excellent book! From the above I can say for sure Doug has saw what 
commercial beekeepers see.

One day the "mountains will be mountains again for Bob Harrison and not some 
other thing"

bob 

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