>>Don Dee will not give us her yields, how about you?  How many hives do you 
>>run, for how long, and what is your average yield?
>>Dave

I can't answer for Dee, I don't know what her year was like, what she chose to harvest and what her goals are. 


As far as my own production I've answer this request before on this site just a month or so ago but to summerize:

I'm a 2nd year beek going into this winter with 41 hives. All my bees are captures from cutouts and feral swarms.

This spring I had 12 hives that overwintered from last year and they averaged just a little over 2 full 8 frame medium supers each (about 80 lbs) and capped their brood boxes. I don't feed.

Not great but a little over our local average and I'm not in located in a high honey production area and we are in the drought zone. I also shoot to winter over in 4 mediums and like my hives to weigh in the 120 lbs range give or take, so I leave them with plenty of honey.

Of the swarms I caught this year, most caught before May 1st are going into winter with a little over 100 lbs. in stores.

The early May swarms probably weighed in the neighborhood of 60 to 80 Lbs each. The later May swarms and cutouts missed our main flow and ended up the year light, generally around the 50 lbs mark. I robinhooded whole supers of honey around to make sure all hives are up to weight for winter.

At one point in the summer I was up to about 50 hives but I sold 4, combined some others and lost a few late cutouts and a couple afterswarms. I also lost 1 big hive from the 12 that overwintered last year.

Last winter I had losses of about 25%, this winter all are alive so far but a couple look weak (we had a warm flying day last week).

Don

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