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Offline efmesch

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Wisconsin beekeepers worries
« on: June 26, 2016, 02:08:02 am »
I didn't just provide a link because of all the "garbage" that came with it---instead I copied just the article.  If you decide that you want the article with all the edited-out parts, you can follow this link: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/26/for-wisconsin-beekeepers-a-question-to-migrate-or-/

For Wisconsin beekeepers, a question: To migrate, or not?


By ROB SCHULTZ - Associated Press - Sunday, June 26, 2016
MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Nathan Clarke’s bees spend their time scattered around the Madison area. That’s great in spring and summer, not so great in winter.
Doug Hauke’s bees, like snowbirds, are in Central Wisconsin now but winter in California, Texas and other warmer climes.
Loading up semi trailers with buzzing hives headed to points south doesn’t just protect bees increasingly weakened by disease and pestilence from harsh weather. The pollination service also brings a separate revenue stream that can equal or outpace what a beekeeper makes from honey.
While Clarke’s business, Mad Urban Bees, survives locally as a relatively small producer, Hauke said that on a larger scale the migration strategy is essential for sustainable success in the state’s battered bee business.
“You can’t winter bees here because it’s too cold and there are too many diseases. The guys who winter here never get ahead because they are always buying replacement bees,” said Hauke, owner of Hauke Honey Corp. near Marshfield, which is among the largest pollinating and honey-producing operations in the state.
While honey production continues on small dairy farms or pops up in cities, the Wisconsin State Journal (http://bit.ly/23k0Cjj ) reports that most of Wisconsin’s commercial beekeeping operations take their bees on the road for months to keep them warm and healthy. They join about 1,600 beekeepers from around the country to help pollinate California’s almond trees in February and other fruits and vegetables in other states the rest of the year.
 

But that business model isn’t real appealing for many beginning beekeepers, even though the financial rewards can be greater.
“I would like to mentor somebody to take over for me someday, but they find out how hard I work and they go running,” said Hauke, 62, who never married and has no children. “They see I have no time for anything else. I’m gone all the time.”
Beekeepers brought in $656 million from pollinating crops in 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, dwarfing the $283 million from honey production that same year. Directly and indirectly, pollinators’ role was essential to up to a third of the U.S. food supply.
While the country has several multimillion dollar beekeeping operations, Hauke said, none is in Wisconsin - a state once one of the nation’s top honey producers.
In recent years bees around the nation have been hit hard by disease, parasites and environmental factors like pesticides. According to a report from the Bee Informed Partnership that uses data from several sources, more than 40 percent of the nation’s commercial hives were lost during the 2014-15 winter. With cold weather exacerbating bees already weakened by pests and disease, Wisconsin’s beekeepers lost 60.2 percent of their hives, which was among the highest in the country.
Losses like those have pushed down honey production over the past 10 years. Wisconsin bees produced an all-time low of 2.9 million pounds of honey in 2014, according to National Agricultural Statistics Service data, a 51.7 percent drop from 2006.
–—
Challenging business
Hauke Honey is among the biggest producers in Wisconsin, with 3,000 hives, five full-time employees and about $1 million in revenue per year, Hauke said. Pollination and honey production each account for about 40 percent of the company’s income. The rest comes from selling queens and forage bees.
He said he sells the lion’s share of his honey, about 200,000 pounds every year, to brewing companies including Miller-Coors, which uses it in some Leinenkugel’s and Blue Moon beers, and craft brewers such as Central Waters and Stevens Point.
In addition to disease and pests, broader changes in agriculture also have hurt honey production, Hauke said. Wisconsin farmers have zeroed in on corn, alfalfa and soybeans, limiting biodiversity that supports pollinators. And many crops have been genetically modified to be resistant to pesticides, allowing more use of the chemicals that kill weeds that are a good pollen source for bees. Urban bees like Clarke’s, with a banquet of flowerbeds and weeds to visit, don’t suffer from that dearth of pollination.
In the last two decades, Hauke said, imports have cut into sales as well. Today, 80 percent of the honey consumed in the United States is imported at prices that are less than half of those from domestic commercial beekeepers, according to Bee Culture magazine.
Most of the other commercial beekeeping operations in the state are much smaller than Hauke’s and are also diversified with pollination and bee sales operations, according to Gordon Waller, president of the Wisconsin Honey Producers Association.
“You can make a comfortable living, but it’s not a good living for the hours you have to put into it and the knowledge you need to be good at it,” said John Piechowski, owner of Henry’s Honey Farm in Redgranite.
–—
The California ‘cesspool’
While Wisconsin’s winters can be punishing on bees, some also die each February among California’s 90 million almond trees during what Scientific American magazine calls “the largest managed pollination event anywhere in the world.”
Hauke, who sends 2,400 hives there each year, called it “a cesspool” in which sick honeybees mingle with healthy ones among the trees that produce 50 to 80 percent of the world’s almonds. Making matters worse, some almond farmers spray pesticides when the bees are pollinating, he said.
“That’s why diseases spread so fast,” he said, noting the sick bees can also transmit disease after they return home. “We deal with it because that’s where the money is.”
The cost to pollinate the almond trees has jumped from $45 to $76 per hive in 2005 to around $182 in 2015, according to the Fresno Bee. Hauke figures he nets about 65 percent of that per-hive total during a two-week period but still has to cover $100,000 in shipping costs to move his bees via six semi tractor-trailers. He also loses bees from disease, pesticides and theft while they are in California.
“Some years we get three semi loads back that are dead,” Hauke said. “This year everything came back good.”
Hauke believes it’s worth it. “If it wasn’t for California almonds, there would be no commercial beekeepers right now,” he said. “It would just be hobby beekeeping. So it’s keeping the industry alive. We owe a lot to California.”
Piechowski, 75, who sends 1,500 hives to California in October and retrieves them in April, claims he rarely makes a profit from almond pollination but it’s worth it for him because the hives that make it through come back robust and ready to go to work.
He also earns extra income driving semi tractor-trailers to retrieve bees for Wisconsin and other area beekeepers. This April, he said he made four round trips to California.
–—
Changing of the guard?
An increasing number of beekeepers, many of whom are in Hauke’s age bracket, are considering early retirement or quitting the business because they can’t afford to keep up the physical and financial toll of replacing dying bees.
“We’re not worried about the bees going extinct, we’re worried about the beekeepers going extinct,” Dennis vanEngelsdorp, an apiarist from the University of Maryland, told the Wall Street Journal.
Tim Tucker, president of the American Beekeeping Federation and a beekeeper in Kansas, told the Mother Nature Network that as more beekeepers quit, the honey industry may have to start relying more on urban beekeepers like Clarke and hobbyists who are increasing the demand for bees.
Clarke’s Mad Urban Bees, which places 90 hives at homes in Madison, Middleton and Monona, sold all the honey it produced last year and kept more than half of its bees alive over the winter. Now he’s confident that this will be the first year his 5-year-old business will be profitable.
Clarke, 40, said he’s improving his business practices, running a more efficient operation and already has recouped the cost of replacing this winter’s dead bees.
“My goal is to have it support me, to start paying my mortgage this year,” he said. “I’ve calculated it out - this should be the year.”
___
Information from: Wisconsin State Journal, http://www.madison.com/wsj
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Offline Zweefer

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Re: Wisconsin beekeepers worries
« Reply #1 on: June 26, 2016, 08:16:46 am »
Great post, thanks ef!
Keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams.
Henry David Thoreau

Offline lazy shooter

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Re: Wisconsin beekeepers worries
« Reply #2 on: June 26, 2016, 08:43:49 am »
This is another example of how hard and efficiently agriculturist have to work in order to survive.  This illustrates the tenacity of commercial beekeepers.  They transport bees to California in order to stay alive.  They don't do it as a preference.  Agriculture is tough and so is life from time to time, but we do what we have to do.

lazy

Offline Perry

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Re: Wisconsin beekeepers worries
« Reply #3 on: June 26, 2016, 08:57:45 am »
The problem as illustrated though, is that it is the keepers themselves that are becoming scarce. A lot more money can be made in a lot easier ways, and the returns for the effort are not great or guaranteed.
"It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor."      
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Offline lazy shooter

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Re: Wisconsin beekeepers worries
« Reply #4 on: June 26, 2016, 09:11:41 am »
Supply and demand suggest that if enough commercial beekeepers leave the business, that at some future point in time, people will pay enough for honey and pollination that it will become more, maybe much more, profitable.  That's the way the oil patch has worked all of long tenure in it.

the "kick in the butt" to agriculture is that so many people want to be agriculturist.  A self owned ag business is an appealing way to earn your keep.  You are your own boss and set your own hours and make all the decisions.  You don't have to wait on the higher ups to plan your work life.  Besides, it's fun to go about your work day knowing that, "you" provided this, not some corporate executive that you never see.  Small ag businesses appeal to so many youngsters that there is always someone wanting to take the bit in their teeth and run.  If you run with the crowd you are never seen, and to paraphrase that, if you do something that is fun, it won't pay much.  Good luck, and God bless you ag people.

lazy

Offline lazy shooter

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Re: Wisconsin beekeepers worries
« Reply #5 on: June 26, 2016, 09:20:56 am »
Supply and demand suggest that if enough commercial beekeepers leave the business, that at some future point in time, people will pay enough for honey and pollination that it will become more, maybe much more, profitable.  That's the way the oil patch has worked all of long tenure in it.

the "kick in the butt" to agriculture is that so many people want to be agriculturist.  A self owned ag business is an appealing way to earn your keep.  You are your own boss and set your own hours and make all the decisions.  You don't have to wait on the higher ups to plan your work life.  Besides, it's fun to go about your work day knowing that, "you" provided this, not some corporate executive that you never see.  Small ag businesses appeal to so many youngsters that there is always someone wanting to take the bit in their teeth and run.  If you run with the crowd you are never seen, and to paraphrase that, if you do something that is fun, it won't pay much.  Good luck, and God bless you ag people.

lazy

Offline neillsayers

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Re: Wisconsin beekeepers worries
« Reply #6 on: June 26, 2016, 01:03:46 pm »
Supply and demand suggest that if enough commercial beekeepers leave the business, that at some future point in time, people will pay enough for honey and pollination that it will become more, maybe much more, profitable.  That's the way the oil patch has worked all of long tenure in it.

the "kick in the butt" to agriculture is that so many people want to be agriculturist.  A self owned ag business is an appealing way to earn your keep.  You are your own boss and set your own hours and make all the decisions.  You don't have to wait on the higher ups to plan your work life.  Besides, it's fun to go about your work day knowing that, "you" provided this, not some corporate executive that you never see.  Small ag businesses appeal to so many youngsters that there is always someone wanting to take the bit in their teeth and run.  If you run with the crowd you are never seen, and to paraphrase that, if you do something that is fun, it won't pay much.  Good luck, and God bless you ag people.

lazy
It couldn't have been said better!
Thanks Ef!
Neill Sayers
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Offline riverbee

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Re: Wisconsin beekeepers worries
« Reply #7 on: June 27, 2016, 01:27:41 am »
thank you ef for the article.

a quote:

“You can’t winter bees here because it’s too cold and there are too many diseases. The guys who winter here never get ahead because they are always buying replacement bees,”

yes you can overwinter bees here in wisconsin.

i am not a commercial operator, but i do overwinter my bees pretty successfully from year to year, and it's not always about how cold it is,   italian stock does not make it up here, and the article and the commercial keeps in this article are keeping italian stock and/or italian/carni hybrid bees and queens. one company is selling nucs that are advertised as varroa survivors.....?!

i say get on board with the rhba, and start breeding bees/queens for our climate and stop saying ya can't keep bees up here.

italian stock does not make it up here.  carnis a little better, find an answer but don't tell keeps bees can't be overwintered in wisconsin.
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Offline neillsayers

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Re: Wisconsin beekeepers worries
« Reply #8 on: June 27, 2016, 09:27:23 am »
RB,

I've read some old books and articles describing how beekeepers stored their hives in a cellar until spring. What a lot of work!
Neill Sayers
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Offline apisbees

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Re: Wisconsin beekeepers worries
« Reply #9 on: June 27, 2016, 01:29:19 pm »
RB bee selection is not all about overwintering. The commercial beekeeper is relying on those bees to do early pollination on the first crop of the season. A bee that although overwinters well but will not start to build up until they are presented with a flow are of no use to them. Italians you can give them the syrup and pollen to them had have them built up in time for them to go into the Almond bloom. When getting paid for the service is dependent on the amount of brood that is in the hive, a more prolific bee than the Russian carnis may be required, Allowed to progress with the season they so catch up and because of this trait, they do overwinter more successfully but they may not be the wright bee for what the commercial beekeeper needs out of them.
Honey Judge, Beekeeping Display Coordinator, Armstrong Fair and Rodeo.

Offline Zweefer

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Re: Wisconsin beekeepers worries
« Reply #10 on: June 27, 2016, 06:17:03 pm »

yes you can overwinter bees here in wisconsin.


What she said!
Keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams.
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Offline iddee

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Re: Wisconsin beekeepers worries
« Reply #11 on: June 27, 2016, 06:43:46 pm »
""yes you can overwinter bees here in Wisconsin."

Yes, but maybe not the bees and number of bees you would like, with the spring results you would like. Overwintering bees and obtaining a thousand drums of honey the next summer may be far between.

“Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.”
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Offline Ray

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Re: Wisconsin beekeepers worries
« Reply #12 on: June 27, 2016, 10:19:33 pm »
The rest of the story:
Migratory Beeks bring their hives and their sick and poisoned bees back north. Their need for winter stores is nowhere near as much as local Beeks. They take their bees south, mid-winter. They have no way of knowing where the local hives are, and probably don't care. They are a serious problem for us year-round Beeks.

Offline riverbee

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Re: Wisconsin beekeepers worries
« Reply #13 on: June 27, 2016, 11:46:44 pm »
i get what everyone is saying, and i said i wasn't a commercial operator. i have a choice of breed of bee what works for me and overwinters well after years of losses. year after year, not so much anymore.  i don't have the uphill battle that commercial operators do. in the big picture we all do whether we are commercial operators or not. each of us do have that battle every year trying to keep our bees healthy and alive every year and successfully overwinter.  i understand what commercial keeps need to do. i don't have the work and the challenge.

spring build up? maybe not, but the bees i keep soon catch up to any other breed of bee and can and will surpass others for honey harvest and relatively mite free.  and when they come through in the spring, i am happy as a pig in mud or a rabbit chewing through my fence to get to my peas and beans....... :D

to what ray said.......guess who brought the shb to wisconsin?  not dishing c/o's.  i do understand. but like ray said, none of them, NONE, overwinter their bees here in wisconsin, and if they do, very minimal.

don't tell me i can't overwinter bees here in wisconsin, and don't make a blanket statement that we can't, because we can.

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Offline Knucs

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Re: Wisconsin beekeepers worries
« Reply #14 on: July 19, 2016, 12:29:15 am »
 :yah: :thread:
This article speaks to why I have gotten in to the Nuc selling biz.  Wisconsin has lost a lot of bees, 60%.  Its why I started with overwintered local Nucs, then some Carnolians, more locals, a little VSH, then some Russian, & now the latest, Caucasians.  I aim to have a cold hearty, frugal, disease resistant, calm Wisconsin mutt.
Nucs & queens, for 2017.

Offline Perry

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Re: Wisconsin beekeepers worries
« Reply #15 on: July 19, 2016, 07:33:05 am »
:yah: :thread:
This article speaks to why I have gotten in to the Nuc selling biz.  Wisconsin has lost a lot of bees, 60%.  Its why I started with overwintered local Nucs, then some Carnolians, more locals, a little VSH, then some Russian, & now the latest, Caucasians.  I aim to have a cold hearty, frugal, disease resistant, calm Wisconsin mutt.

Good thinking. I have pretty much gone the same route, using the sale of nucs too make up for the lost revenue when I stopped moving bees to pollination. Averaging about 5% winter loss since I started.
Now if I can just get the overwintering of nucs down I can stop paying $40 for imported queens in the spring and increase my margin there.
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Offline Knucs

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Re: Wisconsin beekeepers worries
« Reply #16 on: July 19, 2016, 10:08:53 am »
By the look of things, Perry, we both have been influenced by Michael Palmer.  What's your % survival with your Nucs 'vs' your full sized hives? 5% overall sounds awesome to me!  I've got a million questions for you, lol. Do you do anything different to over winter your Nucs 'vs' full sized hives?  Do you cluster your Nucs together with the idea of sharing heat for winter, use quilt boxes, have fondant on them when you tuck them in for winter, treat for mites?   :o , oooh so many questions, lol.  I've started looking @ some of your other posts, hopefully I won't be so needy.   ;D
Nucs & queens, for 2017.