Bees

bbam

HI.
Anyone out there keeping bees as an alternative farm income?
It's something we're lookng at but not too many seem to do it...
Cheers

vcsggl

We keep bees at home in England - 7 hives and on a good year you might make a few hundred pounds. Have tried several times to estblish bees at the place in Co. Monaghan but had very little luck. Bees hate cold wet weather so the winters in Ireland are a problem. The other thing is that in our part of Ireland there is very little foraging for the bees - no flowering crops to speak of, very few wild flowers and not that many gardens. In the UK there are often big fields of rape - bees love rape! Field beans and peas are good also, some farms are growing sunflowers on a big scale and also linseed ( flax). In the UK some of the best yields are found in the towns - roof-top hives in big cities are very productive - lots of parks and gardens for them to feed in. I'm sure that there is a branch of the Irish Beekeepers Association in your area - check them out on Google. Some beekeepers around us do quite well by keeping the bees near old bog lands - fair bit of heather and quite a lot of wild flowers.But at the end of the day it's a lot of work for possibly not much of a return. The initial outlay is high - 100Euros for a very small "starting colony" of bees + hives + honey extractor + protective clothing etc etc . Reckon you'd need the best part of 1000Euro to make a serious start

By all means do it to have your own fresh honey but you'll not get rich by keeping bees!!

George

bbam

Thanks for the info...

We have lots of wild flower, from my research bees forage in a two mile radius of the hive. Around us there are huge areas of whins (gorse) which have a good long flowering season..

From what I have found out the wholesale price paid last year was about €8/Kg and a good hive producing ~25Kg gives a possible return of €200 per hive (near double this if you want to pot it and sell it that way).

At present we run about 12 suckling cows and without SFP we're not making more than that per head.. You comment that it's alot of work for not much return...I reckon what we're doing at the moment is a whole lot more labour intensive..

If I wanted to get rich I wouldn't look into anything farming wise, herself works and I'm looking for ways to have the farm pull it's own way while affording me the pleasure of working from home (priceless to me)..

vcsggl

Bees will fly about 3 miles from their hive, especialy if there's something they like! Not sure about whins - there are quite a few flowers that bumble bees can feed on but honey bees can't get at the nectar - their tongues aren't long enough. The secret is to have a good succession of feeding sources - willow and hazel catkins in early spring give them pollen, blackthorn is good for nectar, horse chestnut is great. As I said bees really love rape - the honey is poor though - deadly sweet and no flavour but the bees will fill a hive with honey in a few days if they are near a rape field.

A good hive will produce about 60lbs of honey a year but there will be years when you're lucky to get even 10 lbs. With respect to work I guess it's relative - it's not that demanding physically but they do need constant attention - e.g. this time of year they are very likely to swarm and unless you watch them very closely you lose all your bees - and before they swarm they stuff themselves with honey so you lose the honey too! In terms of a good return I think that honey/bees are likely to be much more variable than many other "crops".

There's no doubt that there are good markets for honey and also for other bee products - we make a lot of beeswax handcream and that sells easily at £3.00 for a small jar.

Not sure what the situation is in Ireland at the moment but in the UK it is extremely difficult to find bees for sale - so many people have lost their bees over the past couple of seasons that very few beekeepers have "spare" bees for sale. There is a quite active Irish Beekeepers Society and they will certainly know how available bees are this season. Interestingly I have read recently that beekeeping on the Isle of Man is a booming business - they have not suffered from the collapse of bee colonies nearly as much as the UK and there's quite an active business now in exporting queens from the Isel of Man.

George

BeeDI

vcsggl wrote: »

. Interestingly I have read recently that beekeeping on the Isle of Man is a booming business - they have not suffered from the collapse of bee colonies nearly as much as the UK and there's quite an active business now in exporting queens from the Isel of Man.

George

Had a queen in the Isle of Man myself, once upon a time :D

PANADOL

very similar situation to yourself farm size etc no sfp but /organic /aeos will buy sfp next year , anyway i bought 4 hives last year and if managed right i think you could get some return if you consider the margins in cattle , and bees dont need silage /land etc so i think you should get a hive to start with , apart from the economics bee society very interesting for anyone with an interest in nature

bbam

PANADOL wrote: »

very similar situation to yourself farm size etc no sfp but /organic /aeos will buy sfp next year , anyway i bought 4 hives last year and if managed right i think you could get some return if you consider the margins in cattle , and bees dont need silage /land etc so i think you should get a hive to start with , apart from the economics bee society very interesting for anyone with an interest in nature

Have you found out anything about wholesale prices or how do you intend to sell honey??

Cheers

Qualitymark

Local health shops will often buy honey directly from the makers. Well, not the makers exactly, but the beekeepers. Local honey is a well-regarded specific for hay fever - if you eat your local honey, it's said to jizz up your immune system and give you immunity to your local pollens. (The same is said of local goat's milk.)

oldsmokey

had the beggars for 12 months - ungrateful sods, was glad to see the back of em !!

vcsggl

Was at the Country Fair at Florence Court on Sunday last. Fermanagh Beekeepers had a stall there. Talking to one of the members from around the Butlers Bridge/ Lisnaskea area and she had 60lbs of honey from each of her 8 hives last year - selling it at £5.00 sterling a 1 lb jar so £480 sterling from the 8 hives - not bad going!

What she did say is that heather honey yeilds are down because it is increasingly rare to burn off the heather and therefore you don't get the young frsh growth - and the flowewrs - that you used to get.


George

vcsggl

Sorry folks - got my pounds sterling mixed up with pounds weight!! 8 hives, 60 lbs of honey per hive, that's 480 pounds weight of honey. Selling at £5 sterling per 1 lb jar that's £2,400 sterling - that's even more euros than it was last week!!

So given a good season you can make a fair bit out of a few hives.

George

Qualitymark

Nice piece from the Dublin Beekeepers' Association site (they have a talk tonight, by the way) about Sylvia Plath and bees:

http://dublinbees.org/members-area/sylvia-plath-and-the-bees/

They run a course in winter for beginner beekeepers, and sell hives, swarms, nucs, etc.

Another nice piece, about bees in (pre)history:

http://www.gousiaris.gr/en_meli_istoria.html

bertie1

bbam wrote: »

HI.
Anyone out there keeping bees as an alternative farm income?
It's something we're lookng at but not too many seem to do it...
Cheers

Don't know where you are but if you look at http://www.irishbeekeeping.ie/index.html you will find a branch near yourself where you can talk to locals in your area that keep them & give you a feel for it.
They are normally helpful in getting a stock of bees as well.
They need to checked /inspected every 7-9 days from April/ August until the honey comes off , fed up for winter & are fairly ok after that until the following spring. Honey can be sold in bulk if you don't want the hastle of dealing with it your self. I live in a rural area & once people know you have honey & bees they will come looking for it. There are a number of bigger operations looking for honey & advertising for bulk honey in the Beachaire ( its a bee magazine distributed through the Federation)

I got a stock of bees & did a beginners course in Cork and now have 5 hives. Some are good some are bad.

You should make contact with a local organisation where you get a chance to visit a local beekeeper or go out with him a few times to see if you will really like it.

Costs for start up hive approx 200/250 Euro
Stock of bees ( nuc or somebody may be retiring ) Euro 150.00 200.00
Spare equipment , frames & foundation another Euro 100.00 - 200
Bee suit gloves smoker 150.00
A honey extractor can be hired from your local association if you are a member for a nominal fee, when you build up stock you will need your own.
Most people have at least 2 hives as an insurance policy ( don't keep all your eggs in the one basket) Some stocks don't make it over winter. You meet interesting people , it can supplement your farm incomes but there is a nice outlay of money before you see any return.

broke

Hi Im a beekeepper and I live in Co Wicklow and I'm looking for some where I can put some bee hive. We also make beehive. We keep the Irish black bee. We are also looking for beekeepers who are selling bees to do a swap for Irish hives for Irish bees bees.