Interesting thread, nice to hear about different regions!
Jim's comment about weather was right on, as beeks we need to adjust accordingly.
A little info on the commercial side in the Midwest, so a update and comments from the Midwest.
First commercial guy in southern IN. lost 98% of his hives this winter, so tough year. He bought 300 hives in March and turned that into 900, 600 for pollination contracts and some for honey and sold of 100 or so. Honey flow this year for his late winter has been spotty at best. But since the bees had a good flow during the growth phase, they boomed well, no honey but lots of bees. Hive peak was too late for good spring honey, summer flows are spotty.
2nd guy had fairly high winter losses, sent 400 to almonds got back 240 in fair shape. Bought another 180, sold off 300 nucs and turned that 420 into 650 for pollination. He doesn’t do honey. As he is a cheapskate, he used a lot of cells this year again, and the take rate from bad weather really cost him. Less than 50% so many weeks of brood production missed. Still fair numbers.
Mine, bright 380 back from almonds 180 were 5 framers that I got paid real well for came back at a 10 frame average. The other 200 well 18 framers. Those got caught in the rain in CA and came home having canibilzed all the brood. Cold temps here for 3 weeks meant no brood so they also were way behind when the honey flow hit, I put 120 into honey production and they are running about 95lbs each so far. The rest went to be production, 250 nucs sold 50 singles, and just sent the balance of 512 as 10 framers to cranberry pollination. Still have a hair over 200 now in honey, but the flow is mostly done so not much honey to be made here in IL.
My biggest real kick this year is NO SWARMS! Last year I guessedaround 30% of my hives swarmed out. This year with a lot of planning we have seen literally no swarmy hives,or already swarmed out, so a huge win for my planning for once! Late spring may have helped that a bit.
All southern production queens, so for 3 commercial operations a typical 3 fold increase in bee numbers, but low on honey so far. Hopefully some summer plants will kick in and bring up honey numbers, and if the weather holds I usually make 35lbs or so in cranberries.
Charles
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