How much would you charge for picking up a box with 50,000 stinging insects in it and carrying it a buncha miles and setting it down in a farmer's field? And then going back after a month or two and picking it back up and taking it home?

Obviously, whatever you can get, if you're doing that for money.

What do you tip a waitress for carrying a plate from the kitchen to your table? Well, the effort to bring you bees is about 100 times that hard.

I'm glad you've found a beekeeper who is willing to put some hives on your property, I assume on a full time basis.

Most pollination hives don't make much honey from the plants they're pollinating.

You know what Steve....I came to this forum because I did not know anything about beekeeping services. I didn't come here for your sarcastic reply...I am sorry if I offended you.
Like I said this was the first time I was told there would be a charge for placing bees on our property and just wanted to know if the price was normal to other beekeepers.
The guy who had placed bees on our property before had his hives here for nearly 5 yrs. with no complaints or problems.
He had hives all over this part of the state so I guess he didn't mind "carrying it a buncha miles and setting it down in a farmer's field"

Guess I will go back to the pumpkin forum where I usually reside....

Sue, I read your page and it sounds like were doing the same thing, although you are on a much bigger scale. Are house is an old mill house that runs along the river across from an old mill on a dead end street, so we have houses on both sides, but the woods kind of flow into the back yard. Most of the level part of our yard as well as some of the sloping part has been turn into garden space for vegetables and flowers.Our front yards are entirely flowers. My wife did a splendid job, planting poppie,wild geraniums,coreopsis,sunflowers,evening primrose,lavender, and much more. In the back we have our beehives at the top of the hill. We are constantly working to improve the soil and will definitely leave this little patch of earth better off than we found it. As far as your bee questions, some beekeepers will charge you for pollination. In these cases, it's a way of earning part of their income. When that's the case, the beekeeper will promise you a strong hive, bring it before the crop blossoms, and pick the bees back up after the bloom, then find another crop to pollinate. $75 to $100 per hive is not unusually high for that service. On the other hand, as you have done, you can often find an agreement that is mutually beneficial to both of you. A beekeeper is looking for a place to put a hive or two and your looking for some bees. This situation works when there is enough forage for the bees, besides the pumpkins you have, and they can get a good balance and variety of pollen and nectar sources. In that case, the hives can be left there year round and it's a win-win situation.
I have a question for you which I've posted on the pset forum and haven't gotten a good reply to. Do you know of anything that prevents vine borers other than chemical sprays? And also,one of my hives is near a field where pumpkins are grown. Are any sprays typically used during the bloom when my bees would be working the flowers? Tony

Thanks Tony...I appreciate your help in this matter.
Switching the subject....
As far the dreaded vine borers...I have read LOTS of books,articles, webpages and methods used to deter them.
I read that if you planted onions or radish around base of pumpkins that would repel them....we tried but did not work.
Heard that if you let radishes flower out the flowers deter the vine borer moths....that didn't work either.
I know some growers wrap base of pumpkin plants w/tin foil...we have 1700 hills of pumpkin and squash so that is not possible.
Also read that growers sprinkle garlic salt around base of pumpkins it will deter bugs....never tried that one.
One thing I did the last two years was concentrate on the moths and try to kill them. My two teenagers and I went out every morning and afternoon armed with small cans of bug spray and fly swatters. Middle of June we found the moths mating on the leaves and they were easy to kill. After we have seen moths we counted out 2 weeks and did spray the ground and bases of pumpkins with rotenone to kill the emerging borers. We have had less of a problem....we still are out in garden in July and August performing surgical experiments extracting the borers from our vines.My husband is obsessed about getting the vine borers out. He spends a lot of hours out in garden on his belly with his exacto knife.

If we do have to spray I do it really late in day and stay away from the flowers or leaves.
Hope this helps
Sue

Sue
Why dont you see if there is a beekeeping club in your aera and see if any one is looking for a place to keep hives ( some aeras have restrictions and new beekeepers are looking ) see if the club offers classes who know U mabee the next beekeeper on your property.
Yes Sue there are some of us that do this for fun not profit!!

Sue, thanks for the answers. I've also heard the foil thing and tried placing around the plants on the ground without much luck. Recently I've read to wrap it around the stems. I may try that. If I had plenty of plants, I wouldn't mind losing a few, but I don't have that many and they sometimes seem to get them all

Honeyman....funny...I did buy a couple books on beekeeping.
Am looking into that possibility for future. We just bought my grandparents 5 acre farm a year ago...have been raising pumpkins in it for last 5 yrs but now that the acreage is ours we have been doing a lot of cleaning up and clearing more land...super busy this year...so thinking maybe next yr or two before we really get serious about raising our own bees.

We have two hives being delivered tomorrow morning to our farm by older beekeeper who only had 2 hives to spare but my parents need a couple hives. They raise 5 acres of pumpkins on their farm. The same guy who kept hives at our home also had some at my parents. Because of his illness he took them all out.

That is why I came here to ask how much is normal rate for placing bee hives...my parents may have to buy the services and we were wondering what is normal rate.

Thanks for the feedback..I appreciate it!

Well, I'm sorry you thought that was sarcastic. I was trying to get you to look at the problem from a beekeeper's point of view. You seemed incredulous a beekeeper would ask $100.

Probably that is about $25-$50 above the going price, but like I said, I'm glad you found the other solution, which is win-win solution, where somebody needs a place for their bees which you provide. Still, pumpkins produce pollen but I don't think they produce honey.

Sometimes it seems like the stings are undeserved, we know that for sure.

Steve ...like I said I didn't come here to disrespect beekeepers. You assumed that I was second guessing the hard work and committment that beekeepers have to provide.
Your comments were sarcastic and uncalled for.
I was ready to pay the guy $100 apiece for the hives because we do need the bees for pumpkin production.
Like I stressed I just wanted to know if that was the rate as I have never had to pay for the service. The pumpkin flowers may not produce a lot of honey but our neighbor's red clover fields and all our fruit trees,sumac,honeysuckle and our neighbor's 2 acre wildflower plot will ensure good honey production.

This morning the bees were delivered. The beekeeper simply backed his trailer up to a protected glen in our fruit trees and had the hives set up within 15 minutes. The beekeeper was polite and glad to have a good spot to leave his hives. I told him to bring his wife and grandkids over during pumpkin season and get some good squash and pumpkins for the kids.

oh and Steve as far as you " trying to get me to look at the problem from a beekeeper's point of view".....I don't need a lecture on what is deserving of beekeepers or tipping a waitress.
It wasn't a problem....it was a question.

Everybody else...thanks for responding and for decent answers.