# Is there a viable business in "Bees Only"?



## mathesonequip (Jul 9, 2012)

I think maybe so. no bee business is easy.


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## cheezer32 (Feb 3, 2009)

Yes, many people do it this way. I will be quiting my day job in ~2 years and only sell hives and queens. Just growing the operation in the meantime, I'm extremely profitable, the volume is simply not high enough yet.


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## mbc (Mar 22, 2014)

Isn't it important for the buyers of these bees that they are selected from a successful apiary?


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## thebeemanuk (Oct 16, 2014)

Thats the way i have being doing it for the last 5 year as my only income. You just have to be very careful in the off season with your spending as i have zero income from September until May every year. I don`t even produce any honey this year i think i had a single 30lb bucket in total


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## drlonzo (Apr 15, 2014)

mbc said:


> Isn't it important for the buyers of these bees that they are selected from a successful apiary?


YES ! The entire point of selling bees isn't just to throw a box of bees together. A person MUST remember why people want bees in the first place. It isn't just because they can pollinate crops, it is also for the honey and their overwinter capability. If you breed queens that have not got all the traits possible, the purchaser is going to get the RAW end of the deal. 

Suppose someone came along and bought many hives of bees from you, and planned for honey crops. The queens you sold didn't come from a good line that was able to produce excess honey, and only produced more and more bees instead. That customer just ended up throwing their money down the drain. And since those bees couldn't produce a crop, they also didn't bother to put away anything for over winter so the purchaser is stuck having to feed them like crazy to get them ready for winter. 

So the answer is YES we are supposed to select from hives that are doing great to further our lines that we sell. If your bees cannot make the honey end of it, or overwinter, or know when enough brood is enough, then soon it's going to fail.

I sell bees myself each year, select from my strongest hives for queen stock, and bring in new stock for genetics each year too to keep up the lines. 

Now as far as a BEE operation only, I think that the model is able to be done, but for it to be done properly you will either end up using your honey to overwinter late splits, or end up selling allot. JMO


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## thebeemanuk (Oct 16, 2014)

drlonzo said:


> Now as far as a BEE operation only, I think that the model is able to be done, but for it to be done properly you will either end up using your honey to overwinter late splits, or end up selling allot. JMO


We spread the honey frames over the hives we over winter to reduce the end of year costs buying Sugar in. I know honey is more valuable than sugar but when you factor in extraction costs and everything associated + time it works out better. There is a lot involved in a bee only business that you need to work out for your own situation + you need to produce bees and Queens of a superior quality as word will some spread if your bees are not and then you don`t sell any. When it comes to selling Queens word of mouth is worth everything!


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## Eduardo Gomes (Nov 10, 2014)

thebeemanuk said:


> When it comes to selling Queens word of mouth is worth everything!


And with the help of internet the world has become a small village , where all we talk with everyone . 
Greetings of one of your neighbor's house down the street from above.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

mbc said:


> Isn't it important for the buyers of these bees that they are selected from a successful apiary?



Important comment here. Seems to me that you need to establish and continually assess that your stock has the things needed to be successful, e.g., honey production, low swarming, gentleness, and pest and disease resistance. Not quite sure how you can do this well if the bulk of your bees are being sold off. Seem like you'd need a significant number of colonies that are in the fields being tested on how they perform against these metrics. Evaluation is critical particularly if you're a sole-source operation, i.e., producing queens and bees from existing stock and not importing genetics from breeders who are evaluating the "big picture". I suspect not adhering to good overall evaluation metrics has led to the less than stellar reputation within the package bee industry.


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## Honey-4-All (Dec 19, 2008)

Possible yes........ Also a great turn off of the bee highway into the poorhouse from my vantage point. 

If you have the best of business plans and the best of a customer base and can pinch pennies harder than my mother you might get away with it. In the short run that is! 

Diversity is a headache but can sure CYA when one portion of the business takes a hard turn south.


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## cheezer32 (Feb 3, 2009)

It's amazing the different viewpoints people have on the same topics.... I choose to only sell bees over honey and pollination, because in my experience, and my opinion obviously. It is the least work and most profitable.... But that's just one small timers opinion.


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## camero7 (Sep 21, 2009)

cheezer32 said:


> It's amazing the different viewpoints people have on the same topics.... I choose to only sell bees over honey and pollination, because in my experience, and my opinion obviously. It is the least work and most profitable.... But that's just one small timers opinion.


Works until you have a winter like I did last year with big losses of my overwintering nucs and I needed to split everything to recover. had no bees to sell.


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## cheezer32 (Feb 3, 2009)

Heavy splitting is part of my business model, there was a guy only 15 minutes from my house that lost roughly 85 out of the 100 hives he had last winter. I'm not saying it isn't possible to have huge losses, but I'm confident enough to take those chances; mainly because I'm confident in my ability to replace a loss like that from would survive.

There is risk in everything, I just manage that risk so it's as low as possible. I have enough saved back that I could replace my hives if it ever did happen.... Not to mention I always profit my first summer from a package anyways... So that's ok with me.


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## beeware10 (Jul 25, 2010)

the farther north you go the harder it is to raise queens and packages. that's why most queens and pkgs come from the south. that's why nucs have been more popular in the north.


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## johng (Nov 24, 2009)

I think there are a several operations that specialize is selling mostly bees. Horace Bell, Jester, and some of the package producers in S. GA. come to mind. But, I don't think any of them get by on bee sells alone. Specializing in one aspect of bee keeping is fine but, like Honey4all said being diversified can often be your only saving grace when the unpredictable happens and lets face it bee keeping is an agricultural business so the unpredictable is the only thing you can predict.


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## Heintz88 (Feb 26, 2012)

Just thinking here. But in a bee only business don't you want hives that will keep producing bees? Unless our sole target to sell to is pollinators aren't you selling the wrong bee? If you have a queen that produces good honey aren't you sacrificing profits?


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## scituatema (Aug 30, 2014)

Would such a business plan be possible in New England area? Making a lot of nucs and selling them locally? 
I bought 2 packages in 2013 may, split them in 5 and all 5 survived last winter and this year I split them in 22. We will see if I can overwinter all again


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## cheezer32 (Feb 3, 2009)

Heintz88 said:


> Just thinking here. But in a bee only business don't you want hives that will keep producing bees? Unless our sole target to sell to is pollinators aren't you selling the wrong bee? If you have a queen that produces good honey aren't you sacrificing profits?


Don't you want hives that keep producing bees? - Yes
Unless our sole target to sell is to pollinators aren't you selling the wrong bee - No, not to mention that there is an awfully lot of pollinators out there. 

When I buy bees, I don't purchase based on what they can do, because (against the grain of how most people think) I have never seen much difference in any bee strain I have bought no matter who I have bought it from. I have never in my experience seen a strong populous hive not put honey away during a flow, granted how much honey is based on how big the flow is. No matter what it's origin came from. In my eyes if the hive is healthy and populous, everything else will take care of itself. 

One of the main reasons packages are not largely produced in the north is not because it's hard, because it's the exact same in Florida as Ohio. The only difference is in the timing, if you want packages in May and June, well that's easy, if you want them the end of March, it won't happen, the beekeeping is the same it's the markets that differ. Most people I talk to want them early, many times on dates there's still snow on the ground around here. Which is why nucs are becoming increasingly popular in the north, there not easier or harder to make, people are just willing to wait longer to receive them, and you can overwinter them. It's just adapting to your clientele. IMO the beekeeping is all the same respectively.


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

Yeah, I think one can pretty safely make some business from selling bees, but the question is whether or not you can sustain yourself on just that. Of course there are many variables, but I'm talking generally. I keep coming back to the fact that you really have to make a lot of bees to make a real business out of it, and once you have that many bees, it just seems crazy not to capitalize on the honey and/or other products of the hive.

The honey business does come with more work and equipment, but significantly more revenue as well.

I just thought it would be interesting to hear your take on it.

Thanks,

Adam


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## mathesonequip (Jul 9, 2012)

beeware10 said:


> the farther north you go the harder it is to raise queens and packages. that's why most queens and pkgs come from the south. that's why nucs have been more popular in the north.


 the truth is that a lot of these "northern nucs" are actually started, often by local to you bee-keepers in the south. it is difficult to fight the calander in northern areas.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

There are a number of commercials out there who eschew honey production in favor of pollination and bee/queen sales but they are mostly migratory and primarily keep their bees in the south or California. I know one older gentleman who makes his living off of one load (400+ hives) doing pollination of almonds, apples and blueberries and complains if his bees start getting too heavy.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Adam Foster Collins said:


> Is there a viable business in a bees only operation selling just bees and queens, or do most require additional products or services (honey, pollination, etc) in order to sustain themselves? I know there are plenty of bee breeders and sellers, but I wonder if they all do more than just bees.
> 
> Does anyone do bees only in a full-time capacity?
> 
> ...


The right person could do such a thing. But it seems like there will always be some honey to extract. Do queen rearers and package bee folks do nothing else? I don't know, maybe so. If they manage things just right.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Can someone make a living selling queens and bees only? Ask Reg Wilbanks. Ask the Hardemans. It obviously can be done.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Of course it can, but...

Will you be raising the queens you use? How do you select breeders from your most productive colonies if you don't have production colonies producing honey? How do you select stock that will winter well in Nova Scotia if you don't winter production colonies in Nova Scotia? 

So, you can do it but I think you need a more balanced apiary to do the job well.


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

Mike, you mbc and Astrobee raise solid points.

But if you're focused on raising bees, don't you still see how the bees perform as honey producers, winter survivors, spring build-up, temperment, etc etc? If you're focusing your business on bees and nothing else, that shouldn't stop you from breeding bees that are tested in all typical functions of the apiary just like anyone else should it?

Particularly in the North - where you really would depend on raising and wintering nucs as a core business. That would require bees to perform well in order to succeed - unless you want to spend all your money feeding and buying bees to fill your orders. Isn't that right?

Your points are well-taken, but I wonder if that would not be so hard to accommodate - the testing of the stock. Especially if you had it in mind as you worked. Of course, people want the bees that do well in typical uses. You have to satisfy those needs, or you're never going to make it.

Adam


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Back in the 60's and 70's, the Jensens of Mississippi bred queens, and co-operated with a Wisconsin(?) beekeeper that did honey production. The Yankee would evaluate the stock, and send the best queens south as breeders. The Jensens would then raise the queens way before we could up here. They also did honey production, but did not select from their stock for sales to us northerners.

crazy Roland


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

>>But if you're focused on raising bees, don't you still see how the bees perform as honey producers, winter survivors, spring build-up, temperment, etc etc? If you're focusing your business on bees and nothing else, that shouldn't stop you from breeding bees that are tested in all typical functions of the apiary just like anyone else should it?<<

I guess it depends on how you are "raising" bees. Are you shaking packages? Are you making splits? Will de-populating the parent colonies mask what the colony's...queen's... performance would have been? I say yes. And what about swarming propensity? If you're splitting strong colonies or shaking packages, how do you track a colony's propensity to swarm? And, how do you find the colonies that are the best honey producers? While most of the colonies in an apiary will "make honey", some will make significantly than the others. I want to identify those colonies.



>>Particularly in the North - where you really would depend on raising and wintering nucs as a core business. That would require bees to perform well in order to succeed - unless you want to spend all your money feeding and buying bees to fill your orders. Isn't that right?<<

To some degree, I guess, but they're performing in a nucleus configuration with brood being removed to make additional nucs. You only get a partial view of performance.

>>Your points are well-taken, but I wonder if that would not be so hard to accommodate - the testing of the stock. Especially if you had it in mind as you worked. Of course, people want the bees that do well in typical uses. You have to satisfy those needs, or you're never going to make it.<<

Well of course you have to satisfy your customers, but I look at it this way....


I'm raising queens. The bees are merely support staff. I want to track the performance of the daughter queens in a configuration that I and others will use...namely, full sized colonies. I want to track their total performance over time, with minimal interference by me. Keeping the daughters in nucleus colonies and harvesting brood from them to "make bees" isn't going to accomplish the job.


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## vernonpurcell (Jun 1, 2014)

Reading your reply Mike, what percentage of brood would you harvest from a hive?


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

I would remove enough brood to take the brood count from 8-12 combs of brood to no less than 6.


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