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  • From: Don Yellman <don.yellman@webformation.com>
  • To: NAFEX <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [NAFEX] Honey Flow Dates
  • Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:20:00 -0400

Jim:

I would not be at all surprised to find that the early honey flow in Northern
Minnesota is later than mine, and no doubt a lot heavier. The norther you
are, the more the honey. Northern honeybees seem to build up their colonies
much faster, and just work harder than southern bees. The champs at honey
production seem to be the Canadians, and I have seen some reports of over 200
lbs. of honey from a single colony in Canada. When the weather gets really
hot, my bees pretty much stop storing honey, which is why I believe I never
had much of a fall flow here.

Although I did keep honeybees for quite a few years, I am by no means a bee
expert. I kept them more as pets than anything else, although in a good year
I could get 100 lbs. of honey from 2-3 colonies. I certainly did not do it
to make money, or even to save money, since I spent far more on bees, hive
bodies and frames, foundation, equipment and medications than I could ever
hope to recover with honey production. I really do not understand how any
U.S. honey producer can make money in this business, especially given the
cheap honey coming in by the barrel from China and Argentina. Of course, I
don't sell anything here, so even recovering expenses is a distant dream.

There is so much to learn and understand about honeybees that I doubt one
individual can know it all even after a lifetime of working with them. They
have some predictable behaviors, but also many quirky habits, and there are
many things I still do not understand about their life cycle. I have seen
some odd reports of a movement to abandon the Langstroth hive entirely and
return to I-don't-know-what, apparently as an effort to be kinder to the
bees. But if I can keep my one little volunteer colony healthy through the
winter, and maybe split them early next spring if they are still there, I
will be a very happy little beekeeper.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA



  • [NAFEX] Honey Flow Dates, Don Yellman, 10/10/2007

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