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Our bees have been so busy lately that Stephen opened up the hive to check on them. They’ve been making so much honey so quickly that we actually had to order more hive supplies before we thought we’d need to.
Here are some pictures of the frames.
A good look at some uncapped honey
More uncapped honey
Nice light-colored comb
A frame absolutely loaded with honey (also uncapped)
Some capped honey
We’re waiting for all the honey to be capped over before we harvest any of it. I can’t wait though – it’s been quite a while since we’ve had any raw honey so I’m anxious to have it in the house again!
Another thing I forgot is the beeswax is so versatile too. I’m wanting to try to make candles out of it, and I’ve seen a lot of recipes for health and beauty stuff I’d like to try too.
We didn’t plan on having 4 hives this year – we only planned on one! We already had supplies for the two others, so really only had to buy for the one more hive. So that didn’t cost us too much there (well, in comparison).
Stephen says last year’s garden yield alone was worth the bees, even though we didn’t have a huge amount of honey. We’re hoping for a good bit of both this summer!
Heather, it varies depending on what the bees can collect. One hive in a good year will meet our family’s needs. We have three hives (one here at the house and two in Lincolnton), and another hive body that we’re about to put a swarm of bees in.
If I remember right, some hives can produce 50-100 pounds of honey a year, and a pint jar is right at a pound. So, in theory – if we were to be able to sell a pint jar of honey for $7, we’d recoup our costs pretty quickly at that rate. $7 sounds high to me but that’s the going rate for local honey around here right now.
We’re not in it for the business end of things. We wanted them to pollinate our garden and to produce enough honey for us. If we could sell some extra, great. If not, well, we’ll have a lot of honey to use for other things.
One thing about the way we keep our bees is while the initial investment isn’t exactly cheap, the ongoing expenses are really low. Equipment gets reused from year to year and what we’d have to buy new every year is very minimal.
How much honey do you usually get from a hive? Is it enough to sell or just use for yourselves? It seems like it’s one of those things where the final product does not outweigh the investment for it to be a business endeavor anyways.