Mr Holcomb is Mid Tennessee’s resident expert on maximum honey production per hive. If I remember correctly the average per hive production in TN is around 35 pounds (about 10 quarts) Mr. Holcomb’s standard is about 3 times that. If you aren’t producing 100 pounds of honey per hive, you aren’t trying hard enough.
Videos of Ed Holcomb on producing lots of honey.
Spoiler Alert!
Watch the videos, but to summarize the method…
Requeen Now – In July or August. Young productive queens are key to building the large colony populations that max-honey requires. If your queens have already laid a lot of eggs, then you should requeen before the fall build up. By the time you can get queens next spring it will be too late.
Keep your bees fed – it is unreasonable to think that malnutritioned livestock is going to be productive. Never let your bees go hungry.
Keep them from swarming – when a swarm leaves it takes your potential for a honey crop with it.
There’s a lot more to it of course, so watch the videos. A more detailed read on Mr. Holcomb’s method on maximum honey production can be found at this link.
Thanks to Mr. Holcomb for speaking at our July meeting, and props to Matt Phillips for producing the videos.
I was very honored to take a honey production class under Mr. Holcombe in January of 2012 in Hazard Ky. I hope Mr. Holcombe will be able to attend in 2013. I have requeened my hive. Within a 2 day period I could already see changes in attitude, laying of eggs and overall morale of the hive. Thank you so very much Mr. Holcombe. I hope we meet again.
Sincerely,
Larry Howard