# Renting land for bees?



## Jennifer L.

Someone stopped by yesterday and asked if I would let him put hives on the farm this summer, and in return I'll get a couple of jars of honey in the fall. Seemed a little cheap to me, but I went along with it, mainly because I thought it would be interesting.

What is the normal rent for bees on a farm? He mentioned 80 hives.

And the people with the bees are Hackenberg Apiaries out of Lewisburg, PA. He says the bees are in Maine now doing blueberries, and they'll come to here from there.

Jennifer


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## Elizabeth

For 80 hives I would ask for a gallon of honey, but it kind of depends a lot on what they are foraging on while on your property and how much honey they actually make. The Hackenbergs were the first beekeepers to report CCD losses a couple of years ago and as I recall they lost THOUSANDS of hives. So, they may be hard pressed to even come up with a couple of jars of honey this year. 

FWIW, I know of the Hackenbergs. They are members of the same beekeepers association in Florida which I was a member of when I lived down there. I don't really know them since they were on the road a lot during the time I was attending meetings, but their reputation is solid amongst people who have known them for many decades.

My rule of thumb on placing hives is this- if the landowner hires me to place hives for crop pollination, he pays me for the service. If I request permission to bring in hives and the landowner benefits from pollination, either his crops or a garden, then the "rent" is the pollination and I offer some honey by way of thanks. If the only forage is tree crops from which the landowner doesn't really benefit directly, then I'll offer a little more honey- usually not more than a gallon, or the equivalent in quart or pint jars. Fact is, most people don't use a gallon of honey a year, and even when giving a few jars I have had property owners tell me that they didn't use what I gave them the year before. I always tell them they need to eat more honey, lol, but I'm not going to force it on anyone.


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## no1cowboy

Around here its typical to give a pound of honey per hive, but then the hives are left on the property all season.


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## alleyyooper

I give a quart of honey to the land owner any time they ask for their own use. Some have asked me for some for their next door neighbour so I charge them for it at the going rate.
For 80 hives I would give more than a couple jars and throw in some capping wax too if they could use it.

 Al


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## Batt

Usually about 1# of honey per hive per year, minimum 1Qt. A bit more if it is a good year. But it has been a while since I had to rent. That is what I usually gave without being asked back when I had more hives. 80 hives is a lot of ground that is otherwise unusable. I'm thinking a 5 gal. bucket at least...then again I may be out of touch. 5 Gal = roughly $150 or about $2 per hive.


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## hiswife

I would love for someone to come and put hives on my property! Does anyone have any suggestions about where to look to contact someone to offer? I have 5 acres and am surrounded by corn, wheat and soybeans (and a few cattle on one side) and am in central Missouri.


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## Mike in Ohio

So basically it sounds like a pollination outfit that travels quite a bit. They are probably looking for a place to keep hives when they are not on the road or if they are starting new hives.

To be honest, I'm not sure I'd want that kind of operation close to me. Before anyone gets ranty, let me explain. We all know (or should know) that most of the pest/problems we face have been introduced. One of the main vectors has been imports and travelling pollination services. For example, we didn't have a small hive beetle issue in NE Ohio until some @#$ brought uninspected hives (law requires them to be inspected) up from Georgia.

This is somewhat different than a local beekeeper looking to place some additional hives.

You can expect that they will show up with large trucks and some kind of forklift like a Swinger for loading and unloading. this activity may happen during off hours (night or early morning) so that the bees are in the hives. I'd be asking more detailed questions and for more than a little honey if I were you but that's me.

Mike


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## Jennifer L.

OK, thanks, everyone. I guess it depends on how much honey "a couple of jars" amounts to. LOL! I just wanted to make sure I wasn't being taken for a ride, since my knowledge of the industry is about zilch. If I am honest about it, I'd have been glad to have them there for the summer for free, as they are going in the yard of an old farmstead I own on a back road and people tresspass there a lot, dump junk, etc. I'm hoping the bees will help keep them away. I have some equipment stored in the barns and there's always some little summer person brat around ready to light a fire in an old building. Bees might be just the ticket to keep them moving down the road. 

Elizabeth, it's is Davey Hackenberg I spoke to. He does seem to be a nice young man. He was telling me they try and run 3000 hives, but that they are hard pressed to keep 2500 going with the problems associated with the bees now. He said one of the draws of where I live (6000 acre peninsula in Lake Ontario) is the fact no corn farming is going on around here and it's all hay production on the land that's even farmed anymore. So it's non-polluted as far as anyone applying insecticides. 

Jennifer


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## Ernie

Well, I'd also find out how often they'll be out there, will they be driving heavy trucks, cutting holes in fences, etc. Best to cover every detail in advance.


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## stranger

My SIL in Ct gets a five gal pail every fall from a guy that keeps just 6 hives there all yr. I don't know how much honey the guy gets but he's there every 2 weeks in the summer as there are lots of fruit trees and clover in the area.
his grand mother made the deal with the original bee owner over 30 yrs ago. now the 3rd owner has taken over.


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## mommagoose_99

How lucky. I have to pay to have two hives on my property to pollinate my market garden. IN fact they are being delivered tonight. The bees cost me $30 for the summer.


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## Durandal

Is this THE Hackenberg who lead the alarm call on CCD?

Just curious. 80 hives is a lot, even if on pallets and stacked. Plus they'll probably tear up ground loading and offloading them, just keep that in mind.

Sounds cool.

I'd throw up a whole lot of swarm traps in trees around them. 

Mike in Ohio throws out some very valid points.


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## alleyyooper

$30.00 to have bees to pollinate your garden all summer is cheap.
We get $40.00 a single deep colony for 30 day during the strawberry blooms. We no longer do apples since they wanted them longer than the bloom time and wouldn't pay more than $30.00.

 Al


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## Jennifer L.

I went over and looked at them this afternoon. They sure don't take up much room! Looks like about 20 pallets.

He didn't use too much for equipment. A Bobcat with a flail cutter of some kind on it to knock the grass down and to unload the truck. No problem getting equipment in there as I've had tractors and stuff through there for years.

Here's a couple of pics: http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL87/507137/2415015/321872681.jpg

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL87/507137/2415015/321873304.jpg

The old horse barn with the elevator beside it is on the left and just out of the picture in the second photo is the old hog barn, so you can see it's not much room taken up. Probably not 100' between the two buildings. The pallets are actually sitting on what used to be the manure pile the last time there were cattle there, which is probably 25 years ago now.

Jennifer


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## mommagoose_99

The bees are in place by our cucumber field. These are new colonies with Russian queens. One hive has lots of bees coming and going but the second hive doesn't seem to have very many bees. I only counted 5 bees per minute in the second hive while there were many dozens of bees in the first hive. The bees are feeding mostly on wild radish. Is there anything I can do to help these bees get going? There wasn't one bee on my cucumbers this afternoon so I sprayed bee attractant on the flowers.
Linda


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## damoc

yards are valuable if he wants to put 80 colonies on your property 60 to 120
pounds would not be to much unless he is doing pollintion for you.
i have some yards that take about the same that i would pay 500 to 1000
dollars for and i have others that i will not put bees in anymore because
access is to dificult or repeated damage to the hives.


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