# Can't wait to dive in



## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

I didn't realize there was despair and stress in the commercial beekeeping business.:scratch:


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## Kingjupz (May 9, 2010)

Lol, neither did I until I started reading the posts about pollination prices, bad weather, and people wanting to quit the business!


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

Well, there are the ups and downs running any type of business, I think beekeeping is most comparable to being in the farming/livestock business, much the same kind of problems to deal with. I am making the move from hobby to sideline/fulltime bee business myself over the next couple years. I studied honey bees in college and worked for a large commercial beek, so I have some background, however making a living off bees is a whole different ballgame. John


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## alpha6 (May 12, 2008)

Hey King,

Glad you are going to get into the business. I think more of what you see here from the commercial guys is less of a despair and stress and more of a reality of what the business is. Unlike working a couple of hives to make money at the farmers market commercial work is just that work. There are bills and expenses every month so when you hear complaints about the weather or it being cold or no flow, it's guys that are talking about things that directly affect their business. Too cold...no nectar and bees can fly. Too wet, same thing. Too dry...same thing. Mites, nosema, CCD...all knock down your hives which knocks down your earnings. I think that this forum is a place for commercial beeks to vent a bit to others that understand what the guy is going through. 

Aside from that it is also a great place to pick up much about working bees commercially without having to relearn past mistakes. Equipment, feeding, moving hives, prices...very important part of the work.

Hope you can learn much here and if you enjoy hot, dirty work that can pay well but most times doesn't then you are getting into the right field. Good luck and let us know how you are getting up and going.


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

_...That is, unless all you care about is money. _

Money isn't everything, but the lack of it is.

There are beekeepers making good management decisions who are quietly and consistently making a nice living.
There are beekeepers making bad management decisions who are bellyaching about how hard it is to scrape by.


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## Bens-Bees (Sep 18, 2008)

> live at your own pace


You mean at the pace necessary to get everything you need to do done on time? After you put in a few back to back 20 hour days, like 364 of them, then come back and tell us how lazy commercial beekeepers get to be. :lpf:


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## Kingjupz (May 9, 2010)

Haha, well I never said living at your own pace meant being lazy, because I know it's hard work. 

I guess the allure or being self employed is that (hopefully) you're doing something you WANT to do.

...but we'll see


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## Beeslave (Feb 6, 2009)

Run a couple hundred hives while keeping your fulltime job. When those bees are run efficiently and are profitable then jump up to 1000. Make the bees pay for your expansion and not the bank.


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## Kingjupz (May 9, 2010)

Yeah thats the plan: Expand as aggressively as I can each year, with minimal costs. I don't want to take out loans, and I plan to do this over several years. Just trying to set up a foundation now.


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## Beeslave (Feb 6, 2009)

Your extracting equipment and honeyhouse will be the most expensive part to begin with if you don't plan them accordingly.


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## wolfpenfarm (Jan 13, 2009)

I think as in any business, folks get into trouble when they think they have to go buy brand new equipment and have top of the line stuff. I have seen people spend more on equipment than they do on the product. It doesn't make any sense.

When i started, i couldn't afford anything but the bees. Bought them, cobbled together some lumber built the hives, got me some camo mesh and made a veil that i tied on, wore sweats and started working them.

I eventually bought a veil but quite frankly what i have found, the screens break in less than a year. I am going to make my own since i can use better mesh, and tougher canvass. I finally got a smoker and that helped some. Was cheaper too as i didn't have to spend money on sugar water. I jsut use my sawdust from the wood i use to make my hives as fuel. 

At any rate, next year will hopefully be my last year to buy bees, and i will be producing my own for my own expansion. I am growing slowly to get used to caring for the number of hives instead of jumping in and getting a ton of hives and getting frustrated.

Just takes time is all.


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

Countryboy said:


> _
> There are beekeepers making good management decisions who are quietly <snip> making a nice living.
> There are beekeepers making bad management decisions who are bellyaching ..<snip>._


_

Yes, so true.
But, Kingjupz, don't be fooled by all the "gloom and doom". Things are not always as they seem at first glance.

There are also many who make bad decisions that either talk up how well they are doing or quietly drown in the red ink. 
Of course, the latter usually don't last too long. As some have inferred, driving the new trucks and having new buildings and equipment not justified by their colony count/income can be the downfall. Putting your income into your own pocket and not the bank's is important in any business plan, but especially important when one wants to plow money back into the business to support growth. Once a beek gets to the point of needing to chose between feeding the bees, feeding the family or paying the bank, well, let's just say the bank likes to influence that choice.

On the other hand, some of the most successful commercial beekeepers out there are the ones who run their equipment into the ground before replacing it, and who work hours more consistent with slavery. 
This type often falls into the category of making good decisions, consistently making a good living and still bellyaching. 

Sheri_


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

Boy it is so much easier to take over a business that was built up by the last generation. My Perants started with one hive and built up to about 500 hive before Dad was layed out from the full time job. My Dad worked as a pipefitter for many years in a shipyard, while working the bees. Ofcourse the layoff time in almost always in the winter time. We spent most of our winter cutting and building equipment for the next season. I remember working a table saw until the motor overheated. While waiting for the motor to cool. I would build boxes or put frames together. 
Times and things have change alot since I started 30+ years ago in the business. The mites was the biggest change that I can remember. If you talked to any beekeeper that was keeping bees before mite they would tell you that was the good old days. Still had AFB & EFB, but was ease to take care of that.
Over half of my equipment is on or has been on it's last leg for years. With the honey price being up some new equipment starting to be worked into the operation in the last year. I think the bees like the warnout equipment better.

I'm glad that I get to work a job that I enjoy doing and make a good living doing so.:thumbsup:

Good luck and work hard!!!:scratch:


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

I can't take it any longer, I must speak,,,,, Although I agree in the most part with what Contryboy and Sheri have said, I believe it is possible to believe you have made the right decisions, and still not make a living. WE have the good fortune of learning about CCD a few seasons back, and then last year was a cold summer, and this one , a wet(2nd wettest on record) summer. The few hives that we have outside our territory at friends houses did much better than the average production hives, so it seems location was very important. I believe we do an adequate job of managing the bees, being able to usually split packages(from a reputable source), and have both sets on line by July first. 

I guess my point is that although making the right decisions is often critical, it does not ensue success. Weather, crops, and pathogens also play a critical role. To succeed in any one year, there can be only minor hiccups, because if any of the key elements, decisions, weather, plants, or pathogens fail, the whole operation can fail.

Oh, and Honeyhouseholder is right, it helps to inherit an established operation, but no one with established pathogens.

Roland
Linden Apiary, Est. 1852


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

Roland, true, much more goes into success than decision making. And the "right" decision for several years running may be wrong the next when conditions suddenly change. The very concept of "decision making" implies a sort of control over the process that sometimes proves more illusion than reality. How can one control the weather or the new pesticide the farmer in the next section decides to spray? 
Personally, we try to optimize the good years to sustain us through the bad, and hope the bad don't come too often. 
I hear you 'bout the weather the past couple years. We also suffered from last year's cold summer and this year's terribly wet one. I don't know which was worse, having nothing for the bees to forage on or having a ton of flowers but too rainy for the bees to fly. 
We tell ourselves (as farmers say the world over)....there's always next year.
Odds are it will be a better one.
Sheri


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## suttonbeeman (Aug 22, 2003)

Sheri and Roland so true. Thosegood decisions look bad when things dont work out. When I decided to go from a sideliner/packer to migratory when Kroger decided to stop selling my honey as they could buy it cheaper with their label on it how would I know we were going to have 3 one hundred yr droughts over the next 4 years with a 100 year freeze in the middle. Been keeping bees since 1977 and my worst five years of production were in order 2009, 2007, 2006, 2008, 1986. Had good locust bloom in 4 of those years and it rained and rained and rained but it was just a mist. cool and cloudy except the last two years, which didnt solve teh drouht but kept locust flow from happening.. Everything else was burnt up by drought. When you have a drought that starts early(May) and extends thru fall you loose two years of clover flow....that year and the next year. If you get fall rain(Aug/Sept in Ky) then you have a good chance of having a clover flow the next year. Well needless to say everything worked just opposite to what was needed! So this years great crop really hasnt made up the differance....need another one to equalize it out!


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

suttonbeeman,

Those stories of the bad years are scaring the heck out of me. Here I am at 53 yrs. old making the huge leap from hobbyist to sideline/fulltime in just a few years (that's the plan anyways). Didn't have someone passing down the business to me, I'm basically starting out fresh, have 40 hives now and would like to go to 400-500 as quick as I can do it. I build all my own woodenware except frames, buying it new is out of the question for me, I realized I can build the same quality for 1/3 the cost and use the money I saved for other things I need. What scares me is to have a few real bad years in a row when just starting to build the business up. This year was near perfect in my area, would be nice to get a string of these kind of years put together to get me off on the right foot, but I know better. John


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## honeyshack (Jan 6, 2008)

jmgi said:


> suttonbeeman,
> 
> Those stories of the bad years are scaring the heck out of me...
> ... This year was near perfect in my area, would be nice to get a string of these kind of years put together to get me off on the right foot, but I know better. John


And it should scare you. 

It will keep you from getting complacent in your business. It will keep you on your toes and it will force you to always keep that pencil and paper and good eraser with you at all times.

Being a beekeeper is no different than being a grain or oilseed producer or a large or small livestock producer. Farming is farming and we are at the mercy of the weather and the markets.

When you go from hobbiest to commercial/sideliner, your whole mindset HAS to change. No longer can you do things because you want to, you need to cost out every thing you do and go with the best econimic decision for your farm. It will be the only way to survive both the highs and the lows.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Jmgi - don't worry, if you have enough money set aside to make all of your equipment, and to live on for 4 years, you should be able to make the jump no problem. ......that is, until you get CCD.

Roland


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## Duboisi (Oct 7, 2009)

Bens-Bees said:


> You mean at the pace necessary to get everything you need to do done on time? After you put in a few back to back 20 hour days, like 364 of them, then come back and tell us how lazy commercial beekeepers get to be. :lpf:


So you work 20 hours every day, sleep for 4 hours and take christmas eve as a holliday?

I work 22 Hours a day, I don't sleep because I use all my spare time attending college. Next year I hope to be able to afford a bigger and nicer shoebox to live in.


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## alpha6 (May 12, 2008)

I figure I will get all the sleep I need when I am dead.


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## BEES4U (Oct 10, 2007)

Cost per unit of production.

You might as well start keeping good records for accounting purposes and see how you pencil out your future.
Good luck.
Ernie


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