Most productive honey flows in nz

[tristan]

Honey crop and pollination in my area is about on pa with each other , im guessing you chase abit of manuka to gain a higher value crop as a trade off to early pollination?

not really, we do a little. the trade off for the losses with pollination is cash flow and reliability.

 

[Wildbee]

not really, we do a little. the trade off for the losses with pollination is cash flow and reliability.

You get a few dead hives coming off your pollination work?
There must be still money to be made in manuka as see a few outfits that appear to be targeting just manuka?

 

[tristan]

You get a few dead hives coming off your pollination work?

rarely get dead hives. but swarming for us is a big issue. but also depending on orchard type hives can get knocked back a bit, lack of food or covered kiwi fruit, spray damage, etc. a lot of hives in one area is not a good thing.

There must be still money to be made in manuka as see a few outfits that appear to be targeting just manuka?

hard to say. probably got their supply chain well sorted, and probably a lot of money behind them to weather the storm.
unfortunately i hear of stories of buyers who stopped paying for the honey they bought. companies sold out and reneging on contracts. its a bit of a mess.
a lot of small guys are in a tough position because many buyers don't want the hassle of dealing with them.

i think the really big problem is many people overpaid for sites, run way to much staff, run very inefficient business that was making ok profit when they should have been making huge amounts, and putting that back into the business to get them setup for when the prices dropped.

 

[Wildbee]

rarely get dead hives. but swarming for us is a big issue. but also depending on orchard type hives can get knocked back a bit, lack of food or covered kiwi fruit, spray damage, etc. a lot of hives in one area is not a good thing.


hard to say. probably got their supply chain well sorted, and probably a lot of money behind them to weather the storm.
unfortunately i hear of stories of buyers who stopped paying for the honey they bought. companies sold out and reneging on contracts. its a bit of a mess.
a lot of small guys are in a tough position because many buyers don't want the hassle of dealing with them.

i think the really big problem is many people overpaid for sites, run way to much staff, run very inefficient business that was making ok profit when they should have been making huge amounts, and putting that back into the business to get them setup for when the prices dropped.

Yeah it'll be interesting to see what happens this season, its a fickle industry to be in. If i wasn't passionate about beekeeping and having faith in making it work i would have pulled out long ago.
Bees are looking good hear in canterbury with some hives with 2 boxes, if it keeps up for another 3 weeks it will be another harvest for us.

 

[Wildbee]

rarely get dead hives. but swarming for us is a big issue. but also depending on orchard type hives can get knocked back a bit, lack of food or covered kiwi fruit, spray damage, etc. a lot of hives in one area is not a good thing.

We've been lucky this year to have open pollination, i won't go back under nets unless they pay twice the price of open pollination, its just to demoralizing seeing good hives go backwards