hello All,
The below offer has been given to wanabee commercial beekeepers and former
employees of commercial outfits for decades by many of the largest
beekeepers.
The biggest hurdle is *convincing* the owner of the hives you are capable
and committed.
The large beekeeper provided the hives from one semi load to ?
Most usually took a 1000 hives but I have seen 10,000 received before.
The small commercial beekeeper supplied a truck to place the hives and
locations, all the needed honey supers (but those could be sent for a bigger
cut of the profits) and extracting the honey crop.
The owner of the hives wanted half the honey crop.
The small beekeeper met the semi/semi's and unloaded and met the semi and
loaded the hives back when the crop was harvested. (6 weeks?)
Many beekeepers have got their start under the plan as financing for trucks
and extracting equipment is available.
rent a building for a couple months.
After a few seasons the small beekeeper might buy the hives.
The above has many pros and cons which I will not go into now.
The large beekeeper kind of looked at the proposition like he would a
pollination.
Hives enroute from say cranberries would be dropped in the Dakotas. Picked
up again in say six weeks.
Most of the time both parties made money.
most of the time the hives the smaller beekeeper used were sent on to
another pollination.
When you see the ads in bee magazine "wanting to lease bees" the above is
usually what is being wanted.
I would suggest a person wanting to get into commercial beekeeping work a
couple seasons with a commercial operator and then he/she would be able to
convince the large beekeeper  to provide the bees as above.
bob

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