Honey Bees for mead

[bigken462]

I've never made Mead, but now that I have some acreage, I have been thinking about putting some hives out (never done that either lol)

I'm a lil curious about the amount of honey a person would need and perhaps too, the amount of hives I would need to have established to harvest a few carboys of mead a year.

I will admit early on, I have not a single clue what it takes to make either. My interest has always been making beer, but now that I have room to stretch my feet out, I thought I would see what bounty nature has to offer.

Is bee keeping worth the hassle to get the honey, or is it more practical to just buy it?

 

[nitack]

I've never kept bees p, but have studied a lot about it because I want to. From what I have read a well managed hive can produce roughly one hundred pounds of Honey per year, and you can safely take half of it. Your pounds per gallon of mead will depend on the ABV and final sweetness that you want. Let just say 3 lbs per gallon for the sake of argument. If you get 50 lbs of honey from a hive, you are looking at about 16 and a half GALLONS per year. That is roughly 83 standard bottles of mead.

I'd say a production capacity of a bottle and a half of mead each week is pretty damn good.

 

[honeycon]

All beekeeping is dependent on local conditions.If you live in an area with lots of forage and little competition from other bees, you should get lots of honey. I live way north of you so my bees have completely different conditions. Most years a colony of healthy bees should give you 40 to 70 lbs of harvest-able honey.Some areas a lot more. I suggest that you get some boxes and some bees and give it a try. If their is a local beekeepers association attend a couple meetings and ask questions. Keep your investment as small as possible by not purchasing all the shiny stuff in the catalogs. By far the number one issue you will have to contend with are varroah mites.You will probably have small hive Beatles as well. Good luck.

 

[Arpolis]

In my bee keeping experience one hive is plenty of you just want it for mead making. 40lb of honey in a year from a single hive on the low end and 2-4 pounds of honey per gallon of mead...

But getting at least two hives is advisable. You never know when something stupid happens to a hive. Like you go to check on a hive and realize a queen is dead in one of them and the hive had no chance to raise a replacement queen. Take some eggs and young larva from the strong hive. Transfer to the failing hive and poof. New queens being raised. You just saved a hive and can continue honey production.

Best of luck. It is a fun hobby. Both bee keeping and mead making.

 

[LBussy]

We were just talking about this ^^^

A friend had a hive in a fairly urban area. I guess he was doing it all correctly and his hive died off. He supposes it was the queen that died off and the hive went poof.

I LOVE honey, I love it so much I keep talking about having a hive someday even though I am terrified of bees.

 

[Arpolis]

We were just talking about this ^^^

A friend had a hive in a fairly urban area. I guess he was doing it all correctly and his hive died off. He supposes it was the queen that died off and the hive went poof.

I LOVE honey, I love it so much I keep talking about having a hive someday even though I am terrified of bees.

Yea you never know. Last year I got a call from some lady that after a storm had knocked down half her tree she found out there was a really large hive in there. When I went out I found the brood chamber where the queen was, was in the part of the tree that fell. And she was dead. I scooped up as many of the workers I could. Cut out all the good comb and placed in a box of frames all rubber banded in there. And took it all home. I put one frame of eggs and larva in there and they raised about 7 queens. One seemed to make it, mate and the hive started doing great in a few short weeks. Very cool stuff.

 

[honeycon]

In my bee keeping experience one hive is plenty of you just want it for mead making. 40lb of honey in a year from a single hive on the low end and 2-4 pounds of honey per gallon of mead...

But getting at least two hives is advisable. You never know when something stupid happens to a hive. Like you go to check on a hive and realize a queen is dead in one of them and the hive had no chance to raise a replacement queen. Take some eggs and young larva from the strong hive. Transfer to the failing hive and poof. New queens being raised. You just saved a hive and can continue honey production.

Best of luck. It is a fun hobby. Both bee keeping and mead making.

All great advise for keeping bees. You may be able to start your beekeeping venture with a swarm of bees. I just put one into a top bar hive yesterday. Only cost me a couple dollars of fuel and a couple hours of time. Just another advantage of joining a local beekeeping organization. Most also offer classes for "new beeks"

 

[WVMJ]

Be aware there are many ideas on keeping bees, main camps are nontreatment vs treatment, nontreatment sounds good until your bees die from varoa, so beware if your local bee group is reasonable to all treatment options or are just radical nontreatment types that will tell you how to kill you hives each year. Try to find a mentor who has live bees make it thru the winter, if they have to put packages in their hives every year to make up for deadouts find a new mentor!

 

[madscientist451]

We need more honeybees, so go for it. I Know some beekeepers in my area and last fall, all the colonies suddenly died. No one knows what caused this but it is suspected that some new chemical is being used on area farms.
When you get your honey, do some 1 gallon test batches, not all honey makes good mead. I've used darker honey and didn't like the mead all that much, I've been told the lighter honey is better.
Good Luck.

 

[WVMJ]

Get some tulip poplar, its darker, a bit more character than some lighter honeys and it comes out in the mead, also works better with dark berries and oak . WVMJ

 

[bigken462]

I've found a good forum to get in and read some. It's really surprising how expensive it is to be a beekeeper, but I have made a decision to push on. It's to late in the year to get started right now, so this gives me time to save up some funds and do my homework on what needs to be done.

There is still several large areas of my brew room that I want to improve also. I'm always wanting to upgrade and improve my brewday so there is going to be a lil tug of war of where to use my play funds. It sucks to be broke. lol

 

[fsr_racer]

I've been looking into this myself, and if I ever do I'll probably go with Flow Hive:

http://www.honeyflow.com/

 

[honeycon]

I've found a good forum to get in and read some. It's really surprising how expensive it is to be a beekeeper, but I have made a decision to push on. It's to late in the year to get started right now, so this gives me time to save up some funds and do my homework on what needs to be done.

There is still several large areas of my brew room that I want to improve also. I'm always wanting to upgrade and improve my brewday so there is going to be a lil tug of war of where to use my play funds. It sucks to be broke. lol

Beekeeping can be real expensive or fairly cheap. It all depends on how you go about it . By getting bees from a swarm and purchasing used or making your own stuff will save you lots. Then don't think that you need all the stuff the pros have. Especially for extracting honey

 

[Beesnbeer]

Be careful starting the beekeeping hobby! It's crazy addictive, just like brewing.

 

[bigken462]

It's funny you say that........As I surf the bee forums, I thought I heard a lil soft voice from HBT saying "hey, don't forget about me". Lol

So this is what big brother felt like when lil brother came along. lol

I am really surprised at the popularity of beekeeping and yet, I never hardly knew how much it was around me until I started my research. Turns out, we have several huge bee farms local to me.

I regret not finding this interest sooner in the year.

 

[godsmulligan]

Far more practical to buy, not near as satisfying.

Four hives, pushing for more. Wait until you get into catching swarms!

 

[WVMJ]

Why is it to late to get started this year? If you got bee farms around you people are doing splits and making nucs, drive over there and have a chat with them, you might find some nice bulk honey to. Watch out for those treatment free people on the beeforums, they kill a lot of bees and dont mind if they talk you into killing yours also! WVMJ

 

[bigken462]

Why is it to late to get started this year? If you got bee farms around you people are doing splits and making nucs, drive over there and have a chat with them, you might find some nice bulk honey to. Watch out for those treatment free people on the beeforums, they kill a lot of bees and dont mind if they talk you into killing yours also! WVMJ

I don't have any experience to say one way or the other, but I think it's because all the ordered package bees are bought up. But more related to my situation is that I don't have the extra play funds to get a cpl sets of hives going.

I'm still doing my homework and reading, but I can't really justify the extra expense right now. Not to mention I really want a few items to help on the brewday. i.e. pumps, perhaps a brewstand etc. I will admit there is a strong tug of war with which way to go. If I start some bees, it will be at the expense of my brewing.

I think the best course will be to sit this summer out, spend my time reading and learning and get established in the local bee club. I don't mind paying my dues and learning ahead of time if it will help me be successful at beekeeping.

 

[WVMJ]

Good path to follow. Try to find a mentor in the group who keeps his bees alive, I know this sounds obvious but if they have to keep replacing all their bees every year they dont know what they are doing. Unless you go the top bar route and build your own it is not cheap but places like Mann Lake, Brushy Mountain and Dadant have good beginners packages for hardware. You may be able to trade muscle for honey, help out a beekeeper who needs assistance moving hives around, or another popular thing nowadays is to let a beek keep their hives on your property if you are in a good area and split the honey. Good Luck, WVMJ