neil
Couple of questions I forgot to ask was how much honey would you expect from 7 colonies.
do you feed them during the winter?
Overall time it takes to keep them healthy and thriving?
bob
Hard to say depends so much on the weather as no two years are the same, as they are static they vary from year to year. Not all are honey production colonies as they may be swarms or splits made to prevent swarming.
I can only generalise as for me I don't need to make a living out of them 40lbs - 100lbs is usaually the harvest I can expect or 300 - 500lbs p.a.
Some beeks move their colonies to different crops and can get about 250lbs a colony, like Lavender, Borage, Phacelia, OSR, Heather.
No feed during winter I leave them with 15 - 25lbs of stores after Autumn and wait for the Ivy to flower which can bring in another 10 -15lbs or more by early Dec if mild. occasionally I top up any shortfall with sugar syrup in early October to supplement them. During the year a colony will collect approx. 250 - 300lbs of nectar just for survival and the feeding of the brood reared.
40 - 80k of bees at any one time will be present in the hive, most excess nectar is collected mid late June to early August. Each day hundreds thousands of summer bees die/expire as there short life span is only 6 weeks from Feb to Aug , the queen in full flow will lay up 1000 - 2000 eggs a day and a new bee emerges from it's cell after 21 days. Then after Aug winter bees are raised to bring the colony through the dark & cold months.
My routine is a seven day inspection routine though it can be six to nine depending on weather, initially when colonies are still building up about 10mins . Later on end of May/June onwards for a thorough going thru 20 - 30mins once a colony is about 4' - 6' tall. Main work is to inspect the colony for space to expand, swarm checking, disease checking and stores quantity. The main husbandry year has already began and it will continue till early late Oct or early Nov with various tasks of disease/pest treatment, store checking.