Making Money at Beekeeping
The only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you’re a bee…The only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey….and the only reason for making honey is so I can eat it. ~ Winnie the Pooh in A.A. Milne’s ‘The House at Pooh Corner’
As in any agricultural profession, making a living at beekeeping is a difficult prospect. There are good years and bad years; beekeepers are dependant on the weather just like other agriculturalists, and they can’t always control their costs. In fact, most beekeepers in the United States and worldwide are hobbyists; they keep a certain number of hives, but also have day jobs. It’s a labor of love. There are so many variables from year to year that figure into beekeeping that there is no established number of hives that you need to turn a profit. Most beekeepers recommend not going into debt to establish your business; it can take years to climb out of debt, if you ever do. Start slowly with a few hives, learn the business (and learn whether you like it), and move on from there. Four square feet of land is enough space to contain one hive; with a little luck and a lot of effort, you can shoot for having 50 to 100 hives, at which point the business might become successful. Some sideline beekeepers make US$20,000 a year with a hundred hives. The primary cash crop from beekeeping is honey, and a hive with a good honey flow can produce up to 150 pounds of honey in a year. If you sell your honey at wholesale prices to an agent, you will get about a dollar a pound. However, if you jar your honey yourself and sell it locally, you can make from $3.00 to $6.00 a pound. Set up your own shop and create your own brand; take advantage of local farmers’ markets. Many consumers will be eager to purchase locally produced products, and a little bit of local advertising will go a long way. You can also sell honey by arrangement through local shops, though these shops may take 50 percent of the sales price, significantly cutting into your profit.
Honey isn’t the only product you can harvest from your bees. You can collect bee pollen, propolis, and royal jelly, all of which are sold as health food products at premium prices. It takes special equipment and knowledge to harvest these byproducts from a hive, so it involves some up-front costs. And, because most customers for your honey will be unfamiliar with bee pollen or propolis, you will either need to educate your customers or market and sell through a local health-food store. However, if you can establish regular production of these byproducts and find a steady market for them, they do command premium prices, and can significantly add to your profits. And there’s beeswax. This can be used to make candles or simply bars, which can be used as a lubricant. If you purchase small molds, you can produce beeswax knickknacks. These kinds of sideline activities will not bring in significant profits, especially if you consider the labor you put into them, but can help you through a period of limited honey flow. Many beekeepers establish colonies and then rent them out for crop pollination. For this purpose, it’s helpful to establish a business in an agricultural area, where local farmers rely on bees for pollination. Many farmers rent beehives for a short period of time; these hives might travel from farm to farm before returning to their owner during the offseason. Fruits and many vegetables are commonly pollinated by bees; blueberries and apples are just two examples. Typical rental prices for one hive for a period of two-three weeks might range around $40; however, some California almond growers have paid as much as $100 to rent a hive for a few weeks, given precipitous drops in honey bee populations as a result of colony collapse disorder. If you have healthy beehives in a distressed area, you can profit significantly. Some beekeepers develop other specialties, such as raising, packaging, and selling queen bees. Firms that sell bee colonies to prospective beekeepers and hobbyists always include a queen in the package, and if the queen arrives dead, the firm must then send a replacement. So there’s always a need. Beekeepers must first develop a reputation in this area, as well as industry contacts. Finally, beekeepers can specialize in bee removal as another sideline. Homeowners frequently find nests of bees in unwanted areas — inside their walls and ceilings. Pest removal companies, however, may staff only specialists in ridding houses of termites and other more common creatures, keeping bee removal specialists on call. Beekeepers can earn good money in this activity, and they can take the unwanted bees back to their farms and establish new hives with them. Beekeeping as a profession does not promise the most predictable income stream; for that reason, it’s mostly practiced as a sideline. However, with a hundred hives or so, some marketing savvy, and an ability to adapt to changing circumstances, one can turn a small profit and even make a modest living.
Making Money at Beekeeping
