NZBF: Hosting vs. Running Our Own Beehives (for Mead + Personal Use)

[mead]

Kia ora! We’re based in Far North, Cable Bay, on a 50-acre property where we used to host beehives for a friend (who’s no longer keeping bees). We're now thinking about setting up hives again and have two options in mind:

1. Hosting hives – finding a local beekeeper to install and manage hives, in return for a small fee and some honey
2. Running our own hives – we're complete beginners, but my partner makes mead (not commercially) and has time and interest in learning. We'd love to eventually be self-sufficient in honey.

We’re looking to collect around 50–100kg of honey a year just for personal use and mead. We hosted around 20 hives in one location before without issues – good health, no food shortages. Given the size of our land, we could probably host more hives in other spots too.

Site info:

• 50-acre block, 15 minutes from town, all-weather access, locked gate
• Surrounded by kanuka, gorse, and nearby native bush within ~5km
• No issues with past hives – healthy and productive
• No commercial land use

We’re also interested in alternative hive types like top-bar hives – we know they yield less, but they seem more natural and maybe easier for beginners?

We’d love to hear from experienced beekeepers:

• Would anyone even want to expand or host hives in the current honey market?
• Is it crazy to consider starting from scratch with no experience?
• Are top-bar hives a good beginner option, or more hassle than they’re worth?
• Any gotchas we should know about if we go DIY?

We’re not aiming to go commercial – just want to support our mead-making, learn a new skill, and enjoy the process.

Cheers and thanks in advance!

 

[Alastair]

The easy option would be to let someone else keep bees on your property, although wanting honey and a fee might be a little optimistic. People where I have hives get 1 kg of honey per hive per year. Some have asked for money, I don't do that, there is just not enough money to be made in beekeeping these days. If someone insists on money I move the bees elsewhere, not from malice, just from economic reality. Some landowners where you are will be getting paid money if the bees are making high grade manuka honey, meaning the beekeeper could afford it. But in Cable Bay depending just where you are the honey will be a mix.

You are not crazy to start with no experience, lots of people do. But the statistics are that around 80% of new beekeepers lose all their bees and give up within 2 years. This is because they think it is easy, and so do not do their research. To keep your own bees not so much time is needed to care for the bees, but a lot of time needs to be spent on research in the first year or two.

Re top bar hives (TBH's), they were promoted as natural because most TBH keepers let the bees build their comb from scratch, rather than on comb foundation, as is mostly done in most other hive types. TBH's became a fairly popular fad in NZ ten'ish years ago as they were promoted as natural, good for bees, etc... But they have now gone out of vogue and near impossible to find one, because of the high failure rate with them, caused by the basic design not working in accord with the way bees like to do things. The "natural" claim is based only on the bees building their own combs (natural combs), rather than on beekeeper supplied comb foundation. However bees can be allowed to build natural comb in any hive type if the beekeeper chooses to do that.

The reason bees make a lot more honey in other hive types such as the Langstroth hive, is simply because the Langstroth hive design is much more in accord with the bees natural way they like to run a hive, and allows them to reach their potential and do well.

 

[Collie]

I know nothing but from what I researched and have been told, your honey requirement of 50 to 100kgs is not very many hives ? I was told hives give 50kg a year and I have a neighbor here who estimates 30kg from one hive