I am writing this article in an effort to document my harvest and to answer questions such as how much honey does one colony of bees produce?
Harvesting honey is a multi step process. Harvest time is one of the busiest times of the year and is the most work as well.
The other busy time is the spring when starting new packages. The hives must be checked each week. The feed that the new bees need must be checked.
How much honey from four hives?
I harvested 18 gallons of honey from my four hives. One of my hives was over wintered and three of the hives were started from packages in the spring. This works out to 4.5 gallons per hive.
A gallon of honey weighs 12 pounds. The total harvest in pounds was 216 pounds or 54 pounds per hive on average.
Of course, the average doesn’t really represent the reality. My strongest hive produced 3 full supers (about 9 gallons) while the weakest hive barely filled 1 super.
I keep bees primarily for the honey. I only have one more task to perform in the apiary this year. To prepare the honeybees for winter, I will add insulation to their all season inner cover.
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P.S.
Stay tuned to this space. I am preparing to offer a limited quantity of my raw wildflower honey for sale on this site for the first time in the near future. Update: honey gift boxes are now available. (Click here to go to the honey gift box product page.)
