Expert guides and resources for commercial beekeeping professionals.
How to build a practical record-keeping system for a commercial beekeeping operation covering colony identification, inspection logs, treatment history, and queen tracking.
How to implement consistent varroa monitoring across 500 or more colonies using alcohol wash protocol, calculate yard and operation-wide mite load thresholds, and make treatment decisions efficiently.
A practical guide to structuring pollination contracts for commercial beekeepers: how to price per hive, set enforceable terms, manage delivery logistics, and specify hive strength guarantees.
How commercial beekeepers forecast honey production: calculating supers per yard, reading nectar flow timing, scheduling extraction capacity, and building a season production plan.
How to run a commercial queen rearing program: grafting and cell builder records, mating nuc tracking, queen acceptance rates, and integrating queen production with operational requeening schedules.
A practical winter prep guide for commercial beekeeping operations: protein supplementation schedules, mite treatment timing to protect winter bees, and assessing cluster strength before cold weather.
Operational logistics for commercial beekeepers managing 10 or more yards: how to plan efficient inspection routes, allocate equipment across locations, and build an inspection schedule that keeps all yards current.
How hive requirements, timing, and management practices differ between almond, blueberry, and canola pollination contracts, and how software helps track the differences across your operation.
How to design and implement a standardized hive strength scoring system across your commercial beekeeping operation, covering frames of bees, brood pattern scoring, and consistent assessment across multiple employees.
Managing queen quality at scale: queen introduction best practices, recognizing and tracking supersedure events, and designing a systematic requeening program for a commercial operation.
What commercial beekeepers need to know about legally applying varroa treatments: label requirements for Apivar and Apiguard, oxalic acid vaporizer regulations, and pre-harvest interval tracking.
How commercial beekeepers should track colony losses, attribute causes, calculate monthly mortality rates, and build replacement plans that keep operations at target hive counts.
How to set competitive per-hive pollination rates, structure tiered pricing for different hive strengths, and negotiate contracts that protect your margins across crops and regions.
How commercial beekeepers protect colonies from pesticide exposure during pollination placements, what growers are required to do, and how to document exposure events for loss claims.