Honey Production

We used to calculate our average production per hive using the current year's honey production divided by the number of hives that we put into the previous winter. The problem with is that tended to make the average appear lower because of winter losses, particularly high winter losses like in the winter of 2010. Now when we are wintering 5 frame nucs and mating nuc hives as well as hives, it begs the question what number do you count as your hives going into winter. If you count the nucs as hives, as I was doing, the average is further diminished. However, if you don't count the nucs into your average at all, the number is unrealistically inflated. The number is also impacted by how many bees (hives + nucs) an operation sells or brings in during a year or how many nucs they are making to recoup losses.

In the end, it comes down to the old saying, "Figures don't lie, but liars figure." So I've left the old graph showing averages that I was calculating with all the nucs and hives put into winter the fall before. I've added a more recent graph that demonstrates how much the average changes depending on which figures you use. You can look at the accurate records link to see a snapshot of what some of our hives are producing.