2021 Spring Farm

Page 24 2021 Logan County Farm Outlook LINCOLN DAILY NEWS March 18, 2021 C ommercial beekeeping may be a valid central Illinois grain farm add- on to generate supplemental income. The husbandry involved may utilize your on- farm labor profitably between planting and harvesting. It will certainly be one of the most interesting endeavors to which you ever put your hand. There are three businesses you can run as a commercial beekeeper. 1. You can take the classic approach and produce bee products for either retail or wholesale markets. These would include (of course) honey, beeswax products, pollen and propolis, as well as selling packaged bees, queens and beekeeping supplies. Sasse’s Apiary near Chestnut is an example of this first classic approach. 2. A second approach would be to hire out your bees for regional pollination for crops like pumpkins and fruit crops that are grown here in central Illinois or as far away as California and Florida. 3. A third approach would be to breed and propagate bees and sell them to other beekeepers. A hybrid approach might be to combine two or three of these aspects of commercial beekeeping, because different seasons seem to bring different successes and failures. Bees are considered livestock by the USDA Bees are curious creatures, always searching for food and seem to need to know everything that is going on all the time. [The University of Newcastle https://www.newcastle.edu.au/ newsroom/featured/showcasing-the-latest- engineering-solutions ] Is beekeeping a potential side crop? and the agency regulates beekeeping. A farmer entering this market must license his/ her apiary and it must be regularly inspected. The fees are minimal and the inspections are easy to pass. Inspectors can help regulate bee health and practices for best outcomes. Keeping bees requires significant investment in “wooden-ware” (hives), tools, equipment and time. You can make your own hives, but often the expense for wood is about the same as buying a pre-made hive. In addition to the investment for hardware, keeping a stock of healthy bees here in central Illinois, where we have real winters, is also an ongoing struggle and expense. Our Continue 4