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Date: | Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:49:55 -0700 |
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Andrea Young asked about honey flow / harvest projections for Northern Virginia.
Your local bee club might keep such records. We do for Medina County, Ohio.
From your question, though, I'm guessing that you are trying to establish a budget or try to determine whether your harvest is "normal". If so, you may be disappointed. Our records show high variability in harvests both from year to year and across geography. The average recently has been about 45 lb per year but the harvest for any given apiary varies from 0 to 100+. The year-to-year variation is largely due to weather, though we are also seeing some longer-term trends which we believe reflect the urbanization of former farmland. There may also be some effect from beekeeper skill level as the club's membership shifted from mostly farmers to mostly hobbyists.
I would also be skeptical of any projection offered for an area as large as Northern Virginia. Our records show remarkable differences based on geography. We break the county into four quadrants and can see clear patterns which, in hindsight, can be correlated with rainfall and other micro-climate variables.
Mike Rossander
www.rossander.org/infosec
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