Bee Business For Sale!

[Boobie]

JD  got a question.... Every morning I find dead honey bees in my driveway in the same place. Any ideas?

[jdmidwest]

Look up, you probably have a hive in a tree or your house.  What you are seeing is dead bees being carried out of a hive.

[jdmidwest]

There may not be a business for sale, just some used equipment.  Lost another hive this weekend.  I noticed it was being robbed on Thursday as I was packing for the weekend.  Completely destroyed today when I got home.  I guess I will tear it apart tomorrow if no rain and see what went wrong with it.

This sets me back to where I was 2 years ago.  Looks like a bleak winter coming.  I have lost 10 hives since last fall.  Replacement cost of a hive of bees runs about $150 each currently.  Nice little loss, its a shame I have only sold about $100 in honey in the last 2 years.  Good thing I really don't bother keeping records, that would really get depressing.  I spent $400 on new hive equipment expecting growth this spring.  Its still sitting in boxes.  Last years expenses were over $1500 with the hive materials and extractor.

Of course labor is always free.

[jdmidwest]

Not much of a bee business for sale anymore.  Down to 3 hives at the house today.  Had a nice bonfire of burning bee equipment.  I tossed about 100 bucks of frames on the pit to burn from the 2 dead hives this week.

Pretty sad.  Nothing to do to stop it, just sit back and clean up mess when its over. 

I started burning stuff today because I am out of storage for the stuff.  And it was so eat up with moth larva that I did not want to fool with it.

[Daryk Campbell Sr]

So sorry to hear.   I was really enjoying the reports.   Maybe with the wet summer we had, the flowers will produce and more bees will come your way.  

[Flysmallie]

16 minutes ago, Daryk Campbell Sr said:

So sorry to hear.   I was really enjoying the reports.  

Same here. 

[ollie]

My mother in law use to be into the Bee business.  Helped her out a few times.  The city here would contract out to her and her husband when they needed bee's removed from buildings or the park.  Also went on a couple of calls to houses to remove them there.  They had the whole business thing going for them.  A centrifuge to separate and that packaging supplies for selling the honey.  I found it very interesting and was going to get into it until they told my they only made around 15k a year from it.  Hang in there if you like the honey and the therapy it brings with it.  I know she found it very satisfying.  Of course they were retired as well and this was like a cash under the table thing for them.

[jdmidwest]

That was the reason I was looking at it.  More farm income when I quit my day job and start living off the land.  But its a hard way to make a little cash.  Weather plays a big factor.  Other things like neighbors spraying pesticides can knock a hive down pretty quick.  It may have been what got my hives, no real easy way to tell.

Right now it is a learning process.  I have had things go so well from the start to this summer, then everything collapses.  Back to starting point almost. 

[ollie]

When my mother in law needed more bees that is when they would go to a house or someone's business and remove them from there.  That is how they acquired most of their bees to begin with.  Pretty simple to do actually.  Just takes some time.