Subject: From 2 to 10 Hives...Part #3

From 2 to 10 Hives: Scale Smart & Invest in the Right Equipment

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From 2-10 Hives - Part 3 of a 4-part series!

From 2 to 10 Hives: Scaling Up Your Honey Harvest the Smart Way
[Part 3/4] Following our first post of four...

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🏆 Step 3: Invest in the Right Equipment for 10+ Hives

As your apiary grows from a hobby into a more serious side venture, the challenges multiply. More bees mean more inspections, more swarms, and more honey to harvest. Without the right tools, you’ll quickly become overwhelmed — and so will your bees.

Here’s exactly what you need and why it matters:

1️⃣ As you scale up, your workload increases—so investing in the right gear is key.

✔️ Extra Hive Boxes & Frames — Have enough for splits and honey storage. Also as replacement boxes and frames!
✔️ More Hive Stands & Spacing — Prevent overcrowding and reduce the risk of drifting.
✔️ Protective Gear — More hives = more chances of getting stung. Get a high-quality bee suit and spare gloves.
✔️ A Honey Extractor — With more hives, manual honey harvesting becomes a time sink.

✅ Pro Tip: A small beekeeping operation (5-10 hives) can be profitable, but only if you invest in time-saving tools.

EXPAND YOUR APIARY

Let's get into more detail for each point:

✔️ Extra Hive Boxes & Frames

Why it's needed:
With more colonies, you need to be ready to manage colony growth during the spring and summer nectar flow. Having extra brood boxes and supers on hand means you can:

Prevent overcrowding (which leads to swarming)
Provide space for honey storage
Support splits or catching swarms
Avoid rushing to find gear when your bees need it now

Tip: Aim to have at least one spare catch box and super per hive on hand at all times.

✔️ More Hive Stands & Proper Spacing

Why it's needed:
Proper hive stands elevate your hives off the ground, protecting them from:

Dampness and ground moisture (which causes wood rot and disease)
Predators like ants, frogs, or mice
Back pain from bending over during inspections!

Spacing matters too:
When hives are too close together:

Bees drift between hives, weakening some colonies
You risk spreading diseases and pests like varroa
It’s harder to maneuver during inspections

Solution: Use stands that offer at least 50 cm between hives, and raise them to knee-height or higher.

✔️ Top-Quality Protective Gear

Why it's needed:
With more hives comes more chances of:

Opening an agitated "defensive" colony
Dealing with a queenless or defensive hive
Being stung during a rushed or late-day inspection
Spreading diseases between colonies

A cheap or low quality suit won’t protect you — or make inspections enjoyable. Investing in a durable, well-fitted, and thicker suit means:

More confidence during inspections
Longer working hours in hot weather
Less distraction and fewer stings

Don’t skimp on gloves and boots either — consistent protection builds trust in your handling.

Health and Safety: When working between apiaries - at the very least - it is good practice to use separate sets of gloves and to wash and disinfect hive tool equipment t lower the risk of transmission of any diseases like American or European Foulbrood for example.

Best Practice: I have found that using PVC gloves for rough work like harvesting honey is best suited. Moreover, when working with fine handling, like when dealing with the queen bee, I prefer leather gloves.

The RED PVC gloves are much easier to clean and wash for reuse than leather is when dealing with wet and sticky frames and comb while harvesting honey. I tend to wear cotton inner gloves underneath the PVC gloves which provides more control and lowers the amount of sweating while working.

The leather gloves allow for more dexterity and 'feeling' when working with the queen or grafting cells for example. The leather gloves are difficult to clean as they get damaged with wet treatment during any water exposure.

✔️ A Honey Extractor (Manual or Electric)

Why it's needed:
Crush-and-strain works well for 1–2 hives. But beyond that?

It's messy, slow, and sticky
You lose valuable drawn comb (which bees need to rebuild)
It’s inefficient for large harvests
You miss forage from nectar flow continuation

A manual extractor speeds things up. An electric one? Even better — especially if you're harvesting more than 5–6 hives at a time.

Bonus benefit: You preserve your comb, allowing your bees to refill frames quicker in the next flow — meaning more honey with less energy spent by the bees.

✅ Pro Tip: Scale With a Plan

Running 5 to 10 hives can be profitable and deeply rewarding. But only if your tools save you time, protect your bees, and make your job easier — not harder.

🛠️ The goal is simple:
Spend less time struggling and more time enjoying your bees… and bottling your own honey.

Plan ahead: Develop a calendar for nectar flow spanning throughout the year.

With more hives, you may require moving your bees to higher quality apiary sites during certain times of year to:

1) take advantage of higher nectar flow yields or

2) to ensure there is enough food to sustain your bees without too much feeding and

3) to ensure you are feeding your bees when appropriate whilst also removing supers to avoid making fake syrup honey in them.

What can you do with 10 hives?

Manage them well in the same spot if your apiary site survey can handle the density with regards to forage quantity and quality available
Ensure safety risk profile allows for access, exposure to animals and public areas
Move them to and from farms, plantations and or sites to track and chase nectar flows within 200kms at night [for honey production with 1 hive / 2 hectares roughly]
- Another way of looking at this ratio is that for 10 hives - you require a very strong supply of local nectar and some pollen within 1.5km radius from your apiary
- You also require a regular nectar flow during each month from different varieties of plants, trees and weeds etc.
- Consider if and when any other bees are in the vicinity of other beekeepers or wild swarms as they will impact overall demand on the local supply of food!
Make splits to sell to other hobbyists / beekeepers
Provide very small-scale pollination for 2-3 hectares on crops
Harvest the national average of 15kg of beautiful raw honey per hive - without applying more experienced knowledge from intermediate level bee course skills!
Make mead or honey wine - personal consumption
Make candles, balms and salves with the excess beeswax
Have a small extra income from R24,000 - based on 150kg x R160 retail per kg.
- The above excludes any cost of bottles/jars & lids and labels.
- It also does not include any costing for your labour of love
- It also assumes you produce the national average of 15kg
- It also assumes you bottle and sell at the average price of R160/kg
- You also are not doing any other income generating ideas as mentioned above
  - Lip balm, creams and salves can sell from R30 - R150 per tin and use very little beeswax
  - To sell honey wine requires a liquor license so that is not really worth the cost however for personal use it is kiff!
  - If you make splits, these can be sold when they fill up 4/5 frames and generate at least R600 per colony for the bees and frames alone with a swap arrangement -buyer provides their own catch box
These abovementioned ideas are just the tip of the iceberg for what is possible with bees and beekeeping even on a small scale!
We cover many of these on our Intermediate Bee Courses in some detail which run monthly in Midrand, Gauteng.

Online Beekeeping Academy For Southern African Beekeepers

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