I am a commercial beekeeper from Oregon and probably the youngest one too, I'm 23 years old and I have around 700 colonies, none of my family members are in the business so every thing I have I started from scratch including a swinger forklift and two one ton flatbeds (95 F350 powerstroke and a 99 F550 powerstroke). I discovered this site a few days ago a have really enjoyed reading some of your old post and even though I feel like I have had good luck with my bees so far there is still lots more to learn from the good people of this site, and hopefully I can be some benefit to others as well.
Thank you,
SCFarms
Welcome to this forum! There are mostly hobby beekeepers around here, so it is great to see another professional beekeeper here too, so we can get a glimpse of the wonderful world of beekeeping from an other angle :-) 700 is incredibly many in Norwegian measures. A professional fulltime beekeeper I know has 430 hives. In Norway there are almost no money in pollination. It is all about the honey, and especially the heather honey gives a good price :-)
SCFarms. Welcome to our forum, so nice that you found this place. This WILL be a place that you can tell us some of your stories and tales, we welcome these and love to read and listen. You have a huge endeavour in what you are doing, I have 10 colonies and I think they are alot of work, I could never imagine that number. Good for you!!! Yes, and I would say at your age, you got something good going on. Stick around, enjoy your stay with us, here you will also make some new friends, a great place to play. Have the most wonderful and awesomely great day, love life. Cindi