Record Keeping
It is always a good idea to keep good records and I've attempted this over the years with my bees. I have seen beekeepers have bar codes on their hives and they keep really good records of each visit to the bee year. The only record I keep is how much honey was produced each year. I don't keep track of how many colonies I kept each year so my stats are somewhat flawed, but it does give me my bottom line of production. I don't keep track of the income and out-lay because I'm sure I'd get depressed over only making a few cents per hour for my efforts.
This year was a particularly poor year for honey. Most years I get around 250 pounds; this year the yield was a mere 60 pounds.
2012 was the first year I kept track of the daily egg harvest. During the year my hens laid 2273 eggs of which 67 were broken and had to be thrown away. This comes down to nearly 190 eggs per month or a little over 6 eggs per day.
I'm doing a little better than breaking even on the eggs I sell, or at least I will after a few more years considering how much money I spent building the coop. The honey price will need to go up this year. I've been charging the same price for about 13 years now, so it is time to boost the bee economy.
This year was a particularly poor year for honey. Most years I get around 250 pounds; this year the yield was a mere 60 pounds.
2012 was the first year I kept track of the daily egg harvest. During the year my hens laid 2273 eggs of which 67 were broken and had to be thrown away. This comes down to nearly 190 eggs per month or a little over 6 eggs per day.
I'm doing a little better than breaking even on the eggs I sell, or at least I will after a few more years considering how much money I spent building the coop. The honey price will need to go up this year. I've been charging the same price for about 13 years now, so it is time to boost the bee economy.
3 Comments:
Dang. Now you need to grow some wheat to grind into flour and a few cows for milk and you could be selling "Miz Guy's World Famous Honey Flapjacks."
I bet they'd sell like hotcakes. (grin)
How many chickens do you have?
Darev, oddly I have some wheat I was going to plant last year and I may do it this year.
g, good question. I've been meaning to count them. We did lose two in the last month. I think I have 15 adult hens of which half of them are 3 and a half years old. Then we have 8 three month old chicks who will start laying in two months. So best guess is 23...
It's hard to have an egg count that we can count on with several being over 3 years old and all raised at different times of the year, so five groups of chickens on different molting schedules and throw in untimely deaths.
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