It is early, but Adam at AZapiaries.com has posted the spring schedule for bees. The bees delivery, stopping by the Palisades Mall in West Nyack, is always the earliest date so I can expect to get my 5 packages of bees on or about April 8, 2012.
The bees never arrive on time due to weather. There has to be a month of good weather in Georgia for the Wilbanks Apiary to grow enough bees to make the packages. They are often two or three weeks late.
The price did not go up. It’s $95 a package plus tax. That should be about $500, plus I ordered 3 queens so I could make splits. This will be just shy of $600. Beekeeping is expensive. If I don’t make any money this year it will be my last year.
Over the winter I will be studying up on Queen Rearing, and I will make various NUC boxes and queen castles out of plywood when the weather permits. I can sell queens for about $35 each and I hope to be able to sell a dozen or so every month. Selling queens makes more money than selling honey ($500 a month), I’ve heard. Queen rearing is an arcane science and I am trying to learn its secrets.
