Costs and revenues

I'm intending on doing a hive inspection this afternoon, as well as installing the new colony this evening - very exciting - watch this space. Also, I'm planning on taking loads of photos for the record and also to make this blog more interesting. However, for now here's something completely different......

It's certainly not my intention to keep bees commercially, and as I've stated already my interest is primarily in the husbandry and nature conservation angles. However, since I've shelled out a fair amount of cash so far, I thought I should keep some tabs on how this is stacking up, and whether I might even be able to recoup my outlay.

I'm sitting on a fair amount of kit: 3 broodboxes, 7 supers, full sets of frames in all these (plus an extra set of super frames), 2 hive stands, a couple of dummy boards, 2 bee suits (tops, veils and gloves actually), 2 smokers, hive tools, some feeders, some basic honey extraction kit and some queen marking kit. I've gone for "budget" kit on nearly everything, and the total cost is still just under 800 quid. Not cheap but there's quite a bit of kit and much of it should last well.

Now, I'm OK having just shelled out this cash as a sunk cost to invest in a new and fascinating hobby. However, looking at how I can recoup these costs by selling a few jars, I thought I'd make some assumptions about over how many years to amortise costs of larger items of kit. For example, say the hives last 10 year (should be much longer, I hope), the frames 3, and so on. I'll also I assume I can sell a jar of honey for 5 quid which is perhaps unlikely since I'd probably have to go through a reseller to have any volume whatsoever. Making these assumptions, and looking at how much it costs to jar up the honey (about 50p per jar with the labels and lids included) I will need to sell around 23 jars to cover this year's costs. Of course, since the costs are amortised I'll then have to go on making similar further sales in future years to cover those future amortised costs. Alternatively, if I assume I take all costs up front, I'll need to sell 167 jars to cover my costs. Hhmmmmm......looking at the comparison of the numbers popping out from these methods implies I've put an average life of 7.25 years on my kit - perhaps not conservative but probably not totally unrealistic if I look after it. Although I'm sure I've missed out some future costs (such as disease prevention measures, food, extra kit and so on), all in all breaking even does not seem too ambitious to me, and I'll like to try to sell enough jars over the years to cover my costs just for the fun of it. However, it's clear to see that keeping bees commercially would require a very large scale operation.

New colony arriving soon

I dropped off my new hive with Fabiola today. She's very kindly been bringing on a colony for me which is currently sitting in a nuc on her allotment. This weekend she's going to swap frames with bees from the nuc with the empty ones in the hive and leave the hive to sit for a day or two. Then, on Monday evening I'll be popping over to pick it up and move it on site. It's very exciting for me, though perhaps slightly ambitious to be trying to run two colonies at this stage. I'll have two quite different colonies. The original one seems to be large and strong. The second will be initially quite small (a few frames) and I'll need to be conscious that the priority is to let the colony build up so they're in good shape for the winter. Whilst I was at her house, Fabiola showed me the 72 jars of honey she's just pulled out of 2 supers. Wow! I hadn't realised that each super could yield that much honey. I found it interesting to note that she told me it's her style to leave the bees with one brood box only during the winter and feed them well. This is similar to the advice I've heard from others, though I've also heard advice to leave the 2 brood boxes on plus a super and don't bother to feed them (much). It's all a bit confusing really, but I'm starting to get the impression that beekeeping is an art for which I will need to develop my own style. Having said that, at this stage I'd rather err on the side of being conservative and somewhat generous to the bees, and anyhow I'm not in it primarily for the honey.

Argh! There's a bee in my suit....

..get it out....argh....oh my god I'm a gonner......

Actually there WAS a bee in my suit, or so I discovered after the inspection. So, how did it go? Pretty well, like this.....

My plan for the inspection was this: open up the hive and check it out making sure the colony is OK; very little likelihood of need for extra kit in there; hopefully mark the queen (had the new pen primed and ready, together with the queen cage). I spent extra time cranking the smoker up (lots of crinkly cardboard packing at the ready, and load of thick twigs) and suited up. It was a late inspection: after a really hot week (30 plus) it had been cooler today (23) but the evening was sunny enough.

Throughout the inspection the bees seemed pretty animated and angry despite quite liberal smoking: perhaps I had them open too long, or perhaps they recognised my amateur sytle. Remember that I have one honey super (10 frames) and brood-and-a-half (12 frame brood box plus 10 frame brood super, let's call them). Top to bottom, first is the honey super. The bees were beginning to draw this out, but barely. Some were working on every frame, but only the centre one was starting to look a little like proper comb, barely. I did not even bother to take the frames out, but moved on in the inspection. Next the brood super. What a great job the bees had done there. Every face of every frame was drawn out and all filled in one way or other save the front face of the front frame. There was lots of uncapped brood, mainly in the rear frames 2-6 (counting from the back), and honey on the other frames, much of which was capped. There was less pollen that I had expected, though. The inspection was already taking a while....next the brood box. It was fairly stuck together, but the hive tool came in very handy. Again, the front face of the front frame was unfilled (though built out) but the rest of the frames were packed. Clearly the queen had been hard at work, laying from the back first. Lots of larvae and eggs were present: capped larvae towards the rear of the hive, then uncapped further forward, then eggs towards the front. In fact frames 7-11 (again counting from the back) all had eggs, and lots of them too. These front frames I clearly saw were in their second generation of brood: the comb was darker/dirtier and I remember it being filled with capped brood last time rather than eggs - wow - this colony is really up and running!

Again I wondered about the apparent low incidence of pollen throughout. I saw some drone brood on the underside of some of the frames. I did not see any queen cells, though to be frank I could have paid more attention to this. And she, the queen, was illusive again, though spotting and marking her had been more of an aspiration than an objective. Overall the brood box was pretty gummed up and I do now see that putting 12 frames in there was perhaps a mistake - I can see that 11 frames and a dummy board may have been better / easier to manage. At least they have the extra space through that extra frame, though. I do wonder about that extra space and whether they would rather be in a double brood box since in the whole brood-and-a-half space there seem to be very few unused cells. I have the kit for this now, so it's just a matter of judging it and managing it.

How did the smoker do (see my comment on it running out in my first inspection)? Wow! It went really well. I'd stoked it up with many larger twigs and cardboard packing and it kept going right through my inspection (I had fed in the occasional twig) and in fact way afterwards so I had to put it out.

And the bee in my suit? Yes: as I unzipped my veil from my smock-top I looked down inside and there was one of the girls calmly crawling towards my neck to say hello. I flicked her off to then feel the crawl of another across the back of my neck. I am proud to say I did not freak out but ran a notepad across the area and flicked her in front of me. Phew, but no panic. I do wonder whether the smock I have is good enough - perhaps I should bite the bullet and go with the suit instead. One more incident like that and I will.

That's it! The bees are doing really well. Very prolific. Very productive. The queen still eludes me, but I am not concerned. Next inspection in a week.

Buying and building

A while since I posted....I am biding my time till my next inspection since the bees don't actually like me cracking open their home and giving them a little prod, so I think. Fair enough.

I've been buying and building, though. My new hive which I bought on eBay arrived. Pre-made and beautiful, though with only brood box, one super, floor, crown board and roof (no frames) I do wonder about the value. I also bought a set of super frames (unmade) and I've knocked those together as well as the 2 extra sets of super frames I had......lot more nails and my arm is sore again (combo of this and too much tennis has done for me, I'm afraid). I also received through the post my queen marking pen (green for '09) and my queen marking cage (sort of circular thing with a jabby underside and mesh top so I can catch her on the comb and mark her through the mesh). I'm now suffering from a bit of a kit management issue (!! how? I've only just started!?) since the eBay bought super has sliding runners rather than castellated ones...this is way too detailed for this blog - suffice to say that it's a little involved and I may well order some new runners and subbing them in on my new super box.....who would have thought it was all this complicated, eh? Anyhow - easy enough I suppose.

So, I'm looking forward to the next inspection greatly - it's been a while. Will I see the queen? Will they have filled both supers I put on? Will they be happily stocking up the nectar and pollen and stuffing that comb with larvae? Fingers crossed.....

Another super

I put the new (empty) hive on site today, though all blocked up to prevent any insect invaders of any sort. It's just easier having kit on site to prevent my house being completely taken over with beekeeping kit and paraphernalia. As it is I still have the bits to make up 20 more super-frames sitting on the drawers in my bedroom, and I have no idea where the big vat for honey extraction (and associated smaller tubs) will find a home. That's two hives I have on site now, one of which is currently empty but I hope to populate soon.

Anyhow, whilst on site I lost my bottle and, despite it being a mere 4 days since I last inspected the hive, my concern regarding whether the bees had enough room got the better of me. Without taking any frames out for inspection, I whacked the roof and crownboard off, put on a queen extractor and another new super full of frames, and closed up the hive again. So I'm now running with "brood-and-a-half" for the queen, with a further single super above the queen excluder. From the very quick glance I got I certainly saw that there were very many bees in the brood super, but I could not see much built out comb on the frames in that box. I'm hoping this super-addition is not premature, but I'm not sure what harm it can do. It gives me the comfort that the bees have lots of space for now as they build up their colony. I plan not to open the hive up again till a weekend after next.

Hive building and good-bye bees

I managed to knock together most of my new hive today. Brood box (tick), super (tick), second super (tick), floor (tick), roof (tick), 11 frames for the brood box (tick). Let me tell you: that's a LOT of nails. In fact I'll tell you how many.......errrrr....(*thinks) 48 per box and 11 per frame and say, dunno, 19 for the floor, and, errrrr....., 60 for the roof (yes really) so that's (*opens Excel).....that's 344 nails in total with another 20 frames (for the supers) still to do which is another 220 nails. That all gives a total of 564 in a hive. My arm hurts.

The swarm on the big tree in the communal garden left today. I'd checked it shortly before lunch and it was still there and looked pretty calm. I went in to make myself a sandwich and came back and they had gone! Little tykes. I have no idea where they went. I got straight on my bike and went round the local streets with my eyes looking up, but saw nothing. Good-bye bees. And good luck.

Another bee day

My new hive and "stuff" arrived this morning. It's a whole kit, the same as the one I got already got, plus it includes some honey extraction kit (vats and sieves and more stuff). So I've not got two sets of suit/veils/gloves too. Cool.

It was the late afternoon when I had the chance to crack open the many boxes and start assembling the flat-packs into a hive. I was hammering on the work-bench in the back garden and just completing the brood box when a head popped over the hedge to the communal garden and said "The bees have swarmed. They're in the big tree." And indeed they were. I may already have mentioned that in the communal garden there are two colonies of feral bees: one in next door's chimney and one in a London plane tree several doors down. It was the latter which had swarmed. Great! I though - this is my chance - what a wonderful coincidence just as I am constructing the hive. But no, the swarm was way too high up: it sat deliciously but frustratingly about 20 feet above my head as I stared up at the outer branches of the tree. It wasn't even low enough to tempt me into some overly elaborate and dangerous ladder-pogo manouever. I checked on it several times into the evening, and I believe it's still there as I write this late into the night. Boo-hoo.

I had also popped over in the afternoon to see Graham, another local beekeeper who keeps bees in one of the other communal gardens in the area. I was supposed to be popping round to join him in his hive inspection, but due to some spectacular mismanagement of time on my part I only managed to drag him back to my place for a quick peek at the swarm. I hope to join him in an inspection in a week or so.

I am anxious to get my hive constructed since the more I think about it the more concerned I have become about my own colony and the space they have. To have filled that brood box in 12 days with comb filled with nectar, eggs, larvae and pollen was quite impressive. Of course there will also be more bees emerging in the next week. Was that extra super I left them really enough?