Worldwide Beekeeping
Beekeeping => Bee News => Topic started by: Perry on July 27, 2015, 05:21:20 pm
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-tqiaPoS2U
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Cool video! I really like that picture of the guy opening his hive. 72,000 hives! I can't imagine that! Thanks for sharing!
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72,000 colonies and for a good pollination unit for almonds $150 per hive that is over $10,000,000.00 contract if he could rent them all out. He had suffered 50% winter loss and yes hives can be split and the colony numbers replenished by May to build up for a honey crop and canola pollination, but the 36,000 colonies that he didn't have for almonds is a 5 million dollar loss of income. When you have mortgages on land and buildings and loans on equipment and staff that need to be paid, this has is a huge economic impact.
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cannot access the video due to computer limitation. who is this person that runs 72000 hives?
I SUSPECT the entire question of 'loss' needs to be discussed since more than anything else it sounds to me like folks crying that 'the sky is falling'. Short story... a long long time ago I signed onto a migratory honey operation and we took about 2500 hives north to the very southwestern corner or North Dakota. In the fall of the year it was my job to select about 800 hives to take back south for the winter and in the following spring we would split these 800 hives to get back to the 2500 number. It was also part of my job to kill the hives in North Dakota that we did not take back south. Some might tag this as a 66% loss and some folks today might call this system unsustainable but in fact it was a fairly successful system of keeping bees for at least 30 years when I signed on.
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All the hype on bee winter loss and honeybee shortages is generated by the Almond growers. They pushed for Packages to be brought in from Austrailia because of winter losses and the decline of colonies available for almond pollination. The 1.6 million hives needed for almond pollination need to be over wintered. The 2 million colonies that are kept by the small commercial and hobby bee keepers are no help to the pollination of almonds.
Tec back when you worked for commercial magritory beekeeper the beekeeper kept bees for honey. Now bees are being kept for polanation and if a beekeeper has contracts for 1000 sets, he thinks he is a good beekeeper and his winter losses should be less than 15% so to be on the safe side he goes into winter with 1200. Winter loses are high 30% so he looses 400 colonies and now he is short 200 colonies for his pollination contracts with no way to make up the loss before the bees are needed, except from getting bees the Southern Hemisphere.
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A link to Richard Adee talking about his bee operation
http://archive.argusleader.com/VideoNetwork/2527291486001/Adee-Honey-Farms
Story on yields and extracting
http://www.twincities.com/ci_23930568/cool-temps-hamper-dakota-honey-production
Truck accident
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/52773919-75/bees-hives-beekeepers-accident.html.csp
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thanks for the links and your thoughts apisbee.
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A link to Richard Adee talking about his bee operation
http://archive.argusleader.com/VideoNetwork/2527291486001/Adee-Honey-Farms
Thanks for posting apis. I wonder if there is a family member in line to take over the business.
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He said he was going to send his son to see what was salvageable and it mentions that it is a family business.