A Year at Sweetacre Apiaries; Trying to Run a Sustainable Bee-Farm.

Transcription

1 A Year at Sweetacre Apiaries; Trying to Run a Sustainable Bee-Farm S

2 A History of Beekeeping in BC quote. S I found cut-comb honey satisfying, although the Shuswap area lacks the nectar flow you really need. When I bought my first bees from Joe Bauer in Kamloops, he warned my that my area was marginal. He was right and I became a marginal beekeeper. S So know your area.

3 Goals, Objectives S Maximize nuc and queen sales. S Maintain honey production. S Run young, healthy queens. S Not relying on imported stock. S Think Intensive, not Extensive S KISS.

4 The Beginning of Your Season. S March is not the beginning of the season. S The day your honey comes off is the beginning of the season. S Poor fall management sets up for a disappointing spring.

5 My Fall Management Goals S My goals; honey off by Labour Day, Formic Acid on same week, all feeding done by Thanksgiving. S QR colonies, vigorous populations, with ample stores. S Current arrangement is wintering in 1 ½. 1, 6 ½ dadant on the bottom with 9 ½ standard on top. S Some yards get wrapped, some do not. S Can you over-feed? Best entrance arrangement? Best wrap?

6 My Fall Management Goals S After Thanksgiving I look for an opportunity for an oxalic acid dribble. The lower your mite levels are, the better. S Take you losses in the fall, I am not the 1 st or 100 th to say this, but it is so important. S The yards that do get wrapped, I do so before or after the first cold snap. Hopefully before the snow falls. (Loyd Harris)

7 Winter Time S Enjoy what you can, take the time to relax and de-stress.

8 Get Organized. S For me S Equipment put together. S Grafting/ queen rearing schedule finished. S Get caught up on bookkeeping. S Know your own weaknesses and strengths. S Existing equipment sorted cleaned etc.

9 March S My first check, get an idea on survival, food stores, and if the weather allows an idea of cluster size. S This will be a reflection less of the winter, more of how you started you season in August. IMHO S I feed syrup only if necessary. S Pollen patties? Protein in, bees out? More then 1 brood cycle, increased Nosema?

10 March 7 th 2018

11 April S S S S S S Get colonies ready for Cherry pollination. Get the rest somewhat balanced and do some culling, or boosting. Formic Acid. Starters/Finishers/ Breeders get moved and first graft gets done. First graft April 16 th. Mating nucs are sorted, prepped and celled up. Prior to 1 st cell up collect excess brood for early QL nucs, cell them up along with mating nucs.

12 Weather S 2016 S April (avg 18.8C) S <18C= 19 days S May (avg 21.9C) S April (avg 13.6C) S <18= 1 day S May (avg 20.6) S <22C= 13 S <22C= 16 S 2017

13 May S First mated Q s pulled, used for nuc intro s and sales. S Cherry girls come back to Shuswap. S Every colony in the outfit gets nuc d out S Colonies are celled up between May th. Nucs go to customers after this. S Haven t mentioned swarm control.

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15 June S Continue Q Rearing S Amalgamate my 8 celled up units into 4 QR colonies with extra Q s for sale. S During amalgamation also install pollen traps. S Put out to summer yards. S Super-up as necessary, hopefully this is necessary.

16 July S Continue Q Rearing S Super-up as necessary, hopefully this is necessary. S Opportunity for some down time. Camping, canoeing, maybe Rockslide Curling Camp in Kelowna! S Also the month that I spend some time doing electric fence work. S Get my honey house ready and extractors running.

17 August S Amalgamate mating nucs into mating nuc colonies, having more Q s for sale. S Super-up if necessary S Start pulling honey 2 nd or 3 rd week of August depending on flow. When the honey is off, my season is done. The next season starts immediately!

18 The Numbers Game Ø First thing you need is to establish how many colonies you want the following spring. Ø Look at your winter loss over the past past 3 years, take a realistic average. Ø 200 hives in the spring? 15% winter loss? Seasonal culling 5% Ø 200 in spring = 240 to go in. Ø I can count on 1.5 sale nucs out of every overwintered colony. Ø In the past I have shorted myself bees, not anticipating losses, being unable to build up my own numbers.

19 Thoughts, Considerations S A combination of an overdraft, line of credit, and credit card works well for building a business. S Big advantage to keep a low overhead. S Bees offer limited resources, don t overstress, overtake, overextend a colony. Dead bees don t make money. S Think intensive, not extensive Know what is going on. Don t take short-cuts. You ll make more money running 200 hives properly than 300 poorly. Guaranteed! S No excuse for high mite levels, don t tolerate them.

20 A Big Thank You Gerry McKee Ted Kay John Gates Richard Springborn Swww.sweetacreapiaries.ca