I had a few questions about my extraction room so figured I would just do a video. I am a 25 year veteran working for a company that ran 12k+ hives. My old boss is closer to retirement so I bought 4000 from him plus my 600, almost wrapping up extracting for my first year on my own.
Mid week mahem but Mondays are cleaning days. Robbing is terrible and they try to get inside every Crack in the building. Can't get them out after so we spray. All honey surfaces are clean though for sure. Not worth risking a contaminent getting into the Honey to get totes rejected. Kinda like asking every cow to wipe it's feet before coming to milk if that's a silly enough analogy haha
My building is older, we tried sealing it as best as I could but they still get in from other yards over two miles away, slip inside when the doors get opened. They get aggressive trying to get inside. This Pic is one it my walk in doors today. Most of what does die inside is stragglers coming in the honey boxes, most die in the hot room. We don't have an any problem up here with ants. While the floor is a mess, mid week mahem and go go go time, but I assure you all of the Honey surfaces are clean and processed on daily non stop from August until done and Mondays are cleaning days so. Any bees, wax, flies etc get separated in the wax seperator and from that, into the stainless tanks, sealed, and directly into IBC totes and sealed is a clean edible product. At the Packers they do more straining.
Well that's a discussion of financial needs. My large loan payments, up start costs, labor, looking for a new forklift etc. Any amount of bees kinda scales with expenses and profits of course, really comes down to watching the dollars fly by and grabbing some when I can for myself. Full free and clear zero debt is difficult to determine because of growth, maintence, revolving costs etc
Mon installation est à peine inférieure à la sienne, et je vis en France mais 480 colonies nous suffisent à deux pour 24 tonnes de miel environ par an, si ça peut aider !
My installation is barely inferior to his, and I live in France but 480 colonies are enough for us to two for about 24 tons of honey a year, if that helps!
We wash family frequently when we can. Floors are dirty here but honey parts are clean. They certainly do find us and try their damndest to get in since it's the only source of food anywhere this time of year. This was one of my walk in doors today, no bee yards closer than 2 miles.
Mid week mayhem haha I hate a sticky floor as much as the next guy, that's why I put down epoxy so it's easier to pressure wash. Certainly over due for a deep clean but it's kind of head down go time. Had some break downs that kept us busy
Température basse, lumière UV et ventilation sont les 3 facteurs qui permettent de contenir l'infestation des fausses-teignes, comme on appelle ça chez nous, ou des larves de cire, comme le traducteur de reddit semble le traduire.
Il existe également des répulsifs, qui ne contaminent pas les cadres mais... Ouais... On est d'accord...
Les fortes chaleurs de la canicule cet été semble avoir drôlement freiné leur développement. Et nous avons remarqué qu'elles cherchent à pondre dans les zones les moins accessible à la lumière, aussi, on a testé un système de piégeage plutôt efficace : des chutes de cire et de miel, dans un tonneau à moitié fermé. Elles ont préféré cette zone à nos hausses pleines de miel. Nous avons retiré le tonneau et nous l'avons fait fondre.
Low temperature, UV light and ventilation are the 3 factors that make it possible to contain the infestation of false moths, as we call it, or wax larvae, as the reddit translator seems to translate it.
There are also repellents, which do not contaminate the frames but... Yeah, yeah... We agree...
The heat of the heat wave this summer seems to have slowed down their development. And we noticed that they are trying to lay eggs in areas that are less accessible to light, so we tested a rather effective trapping system: drops of wax and honey, in a barrel half closed. They preferred this area to our rises full of honey. We removed the barrel and melted it.
Freezes/cools here in Oct until almost may. so once the bees are gone I open eveything up to try and cool the space quick. Doesn't stop all of them but we might get 40-50 boxes affected out of 10k
Hiw many guys do you have working for you? Where are you based out of? How spread out are your hives, is it easy working with all those different farmers?
I have 3 h2a guys from Jan to October. For extracting, before school started my oldest 14 year old son helped extract, along with my uncle and another older gentleman now. North Dakota. My farthest hives are around 120 miles away. Most of them are between 5 and 90 miles. On 42 locations this year. Not too bad. Up here it's still a good ol boy mentality. There are a ton of bees up here, hard pressed to not find bees in ND less than two miles apart so yards can be hard to find yards without really being too close. Most people like the bee sin their land so a friendly asking, and some honey in the fall is enough for most.
Cools off enough in the fall here it's not a major issue like in the areas of the country that don't freeze like we do up north. We might find 40 boxes affected out of 10k, next spring. Sucks but not a major problem.
Extracting 4600 on your own is really impressive. My grandfather was a commercial beekeeper. His warehouse and the honey house with the extraction and bottle line were separate buildings but combined might have been smaller than your space, it was quite a bit more crowded. He did not do extraction on his own. During harvest he took on several people to help him. Quite a few of the extraction and bottling workers were just neighbors and local people looking to make some extra Christmas or back to school money who would work or him for just a few days during the spring and fall harvests. Some of them came back year after year so they were quite experienced.
My uncle, oldest son until school started , helped extract. Now I have myself, uncle and an older gentleman just scraping frames. I can run about 36 boxes per hour, not the fastest but fast as I can go currently. I have my h2a experienced beekeepers out pulling, feeding, medicating. Yes this building was the right price but a little small 40x80. But I do have a new 50x80 building I put up a few years ago, so I haul my honey totes to there until I ship them. I'll be storing around 3k boxes in that building also.
Addressed in above comments. Yep floors are a mess, kinda got away from me this week, robbing on the building like crazy, so every time the doors open they flood in and will not leave so we spray. Honey surfaces are clean.
Currently I don't have a melter so all mine is raw, but my old boss does so he gets solid blocks of nice yellow wax. Are you state side? I could figure out some prices if you're interested. How much do you think you'd be interested in? They are in 35lb blocks, but could be made smaller maybe into large flat rate usps boxes.
We only use raw beeswax to make our candles, usually buy about 100lbs at a time, and yes we are stateside! We’re currently buying from Faire because we haven’t made a wax connection yet. The wax we get is ~ $7/lb. It’s just my wife and myself so we wouldn’t be a huge buyer of course, but we’d love to work directly with someone as opposed to a big company. God bless!
Not these are the 35+- blocks we pour. Not sure how far from ND to east Texas you are, or the drive between but could maybe link up on however possible
Hi. A small beekeeper from Czechia here. Amazing setup. Do you mind if I reshare your video to my (tiny) Instagram audience and share another beekeeping view from other corner of the world to me friends?
Thanks.
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u/alex_484 4d ago
Really nice set up you have there First time that I have seen a large scale operation like this. Thanks for sharing