My beekeeping involves two partners, including the landowner where we keep the bees. We all share in the costs and in the rewards. Labor is "catch as catch can" and I tend to do a lot of the work. I don't consider that a negative because it is so dad-gum interesting.
We have caught 4 swarms this year, but one was so weak we just combined the 4th swarm with it. In all, seven hives. We were hoping this year we would be collecting honey enough to recoup some of the infrastructure expenses, because so far it has been all going out and nothing coming in. Instead, we ended up having to invest in a lot more infrastructure for the three new hives.
So we have kicked the can down the road for several years and held off buying a honey extractor. Just yesterday we all voted to buy the extractor and be done with it. We argued out the finer points of three different units and finally arrived at which one we wanted. When I went to order it today, it's backordered. #2 on the list is also backordered. #3, the most expensive was the only one available. We bit the bullet.
Fifteen minutes later we get a call from a friend that found a used one for CHEAP! Too late to cancel the order, so we told the guy we'd take the used one, too. With over 50 new hobby beekeepers in the area in the last year, we may be able to turn a little profit on the used one to take away some of the sting (pun intended). Heck, we might even keep it and rent it out!
