# How Much Honey from A Beehive?



## Poultryguy (Jan 29, 2014)

How much honey can you get from a beehive?


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## BohemianWaxwing (Sep 13, 2014)

How many miles in a car?


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## BohemianWaxwing (Sep 13, 2014)

Not meaning to be flippant... There are all kinds of hives and all kinds of bee-keepers. I'm like the little old gent who owns a Caddy for 30 years and dies with only 15k miles on it. I keep my top bar hives for the love of bees, for their educational value for the kids, pollination in the orchard/garden, and for their honey. I spend very little time on them and less money. We harvest maybe 20lbs/year from each. 

If you wanted to, and your bee forage permitted it, you could harvest every drop, feed your bees sugar water and squeeze 50 lbs of honey from each super...


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## simi-steading (Sep 27, 2012)

It's not a get rich quick scheme... Some years will be a bumper crop of honey, other years you can't take any and will need to feed the bees.


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## Poultryguy (Jan 29, 2014)

I knew there can't be a fix value for it, so I was asking about estimate. Thanks all.
..
I asked a question in another thread with no reply, so may I ask it here. What are the challenges bee keepers are likely to face? I've heard about bees attacking other hives to steal their honey. I need more please.


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## simi-steading (Sep 27, 2012)

Cololny Collapse Disorder. Wax Moths, Mites, Hive Beetles, Depending on where you live, *****, bears, skunks and ants.. Then there are diseases of the brood caused by molds or viruses.. Swarms, Splitting of hives, not enough honey production before winter. Wasps raiding the hives, It's a long list...


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## BohemianWaxwing (Sep 13, 2014)

It is a long list indeed. 

I ran across some unhappy neighbors as well...  I was keeping the bees on a balcony in my town home at that point so I could see their point. Still, they could have come and talked to me instead of calling animal control. lol.. that poor guy. Asked my wife, "I'm goin' to have to ask you to round up all these bees."


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## Iddee (Sep 25, 2005)

Biggest problems facing a new beekeeper...............

Not enough reading in beekeeping journals, forums, library.

Not enough utube searching.

Not joining the local beek club and attending meetings.

Not asking local beeks to allow visits when they are working their bees.

Expecting too many good results too soon.

In other words, not enough study and attention.


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## DLMKA (Jun 28, 2014)

anything from 0 to 300lbs.


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## k9 (Feb 6, 2008)

It's also helpful if you have a neighbor that sprays a perticide like Lambdastar from an aircraft, it will help you sort out your weaker hives from the strong.

Seriously it is something to consider if you have neighbors that use pesticides, it can have a drastic effect on your hives.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

And worst of all is the two legged skunks, (shouldn't insult real skunks) who steal hives set out where people can see them and are easy to get to.

with the cost of honey bees sky rocketing aq 2 deep colony can be split 4 ways and a cool 400 bucks relized.


 Al


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## farmerDale (Jan 8, 2011)

My brother in law got 420 lbs this year. Not typical, but yield depends on a lot of things. For whatever reason, Saskatchewan has among the highest worldwide average yields of honey per hive.


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## Poultryguy (Jan 29, 2014)

Thanks everyone for the wonderful replies. Interesting infos.


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## ganoosh (Dec 6, 2009)

Ill put my 2 cents in, my background, new beekeeper, end of 2nd season so lots and lots still to learn but am absolutely fascinated and plan to keep with it until I can't.

First year 2 hives next to each other, one produced some honey, didn't take any and ended up starving out. The 2nd hive produced 70#s that I took and plenty left for them.

2nd year upped to 6 hives by end of summer (1 split, 1 swarm, 1 cutout and 2 purchased), now down to 5 due to AFB I discovered in one. But from 4 hives was able to get around 400#s.

Aiming for 10 or so next year, but a lot depends on winter losses as buying packages at $80 a piece is already starting to get more than I want to spend on the bees themselves.

Have experienced wax moths, AFB, serious case of deformed wing virus due to large mite load, not to mention being stung more in the last two years than I ever have in my entire life which were all not what I wanted but if you have the bees have to expect the issues.

They pay for themselves and if I wasn't planning on slowly expandindng I would actually make a bit of a profit this year.

Hope the info helped


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## Poultryguy (Jan 29, 2014)

It really help @ganoosh. Another question please, can bee hives be sited close to other animals like chickens, goats, snails etc?


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## BohemianWaxwing (Sep 13, 2014)

Our hives are in the same fenced half acre with the chickens and goats. No issues.


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## ganoosh (Dec 6, 2009)

I hive my hives near the chickens and no problems. Neighbors have horses and besides dead bees in the water they don't complain and a bit of honey given as a bribe helps. Biggest thing is to make sure the bees have a water source close by, if not they will use whatever they can find, swimming pool, water trough.... which might make the people unhappy but animals don't seem to mind.


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## Poultryguy (Jan 29, 2014)

Bee keeping is very interesting then. I believe so much in integrated farming.


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## Lynda486 (Mar 25, 2014)

We started out hives in April last year, from one hive we got 3 gallons of honey, the other wasn't strong enough, so we left it all for the bees. Yesterday it was near 60 degrees and both hives we active. I made sugar blocks the other day, hoping it warms enough that I can get in and place them today, because winter comes back tomorrow.....


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## johng (Feb 14, 2009)

Lots of variables as have been noted. The Florida state average is 60# which is a 5 gallon bucket. Here's a report from usda.http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.abfnet.org/resource/resmgr/imported/hony0314.pdf


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## Poultryguy (Jan 29, 2014)

Tnks.


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