# commercial beekeeping



## babybee (Mar 23, 2012)

Maybe, I assume you will try to retail your honey and other bee products. No migration, no forklift, keep the expenses low. Seems possible.


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## Fire Guy (Nov 20, 2013)

I plan on selling honey and other bee products. Honey in our area in Mid Missouri sells in the $12.00 to $15.00 per quart range (3 pounds). I also plan on trying to raise Queens, mostly for my use but if it goes well I may sell a few Queens.


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## jbraun (Nov 13, 2013)

This is my second year with hives. I went from 2 last year (purchased nucs) to four this season. Due to my inexperience (split to late) I only pulled off 10 lbs from those 4. Are you planning on doing cutouts or collecting swarms to get to 100? How much are you planning to spend on wooden ware? Will you be selling your honey retail or wholesale? How soon will your retail sales saturate your local market? I'm not trying to be a wet blanket. I had great plans my first season. Good luck on your new year in beekeeping.


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## BeeGhost (May 7, 2011)

If you are planning on selling at say $13 for 3 lbs of honey, and say your 100 hives produce 40 lbs of excess honey each, that's 4000 lbs
of honey equaling around $17,000. Now, take out the price of wooden ware, bottles, feed, fuel, insurance, business license, misc equipment, loss of hives, treatments, and other hidden costs and you could make enough to buy a bottle of aspirin at the end of the season using a coupon!!

This adventure is not cheap, and it takes time to catch up with the accruing costs, but there is a penny or two that can be made if everything goes right. 

My main money comes from pollination, and last year almost paid for my wooden ware........but not everything else. I sold honey also, but that paid for this years expansion.


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## BMAC (Jun 23, 2009)

Dave if you are a little creative with your marketing and you work hard at it you could make that much with 100 hives. Especially if you did some minor pollinating of say Apples in Mo. Its a tight retail market for honey in western Missouri, but push your product in farmers markets.

Our experience is that many people in Missouri didn't care about good quality honey so long as it was cheap honey allowing Golden Heritage and others to out sell with the supermarket pricing of the honey. The best pricing we see was in the heart of KC while we were there. We would also sell alot of honey to the true food CO-OPs in KC and mead makers. 

Good luck on your retirement venture.


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## Bees of SC (Apr 12, 2013)

Sale the bees, nucs, hives, splits, swarms, queens and honey. A 100 hives is a lot to take care of just to sale honey. YouTube --FatBeeMan


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## babybee (Mar 23, 2012)

But if you start pollinating then you need to buy a flatbed and forklift plus be palletized. For 100 you can do that in the back of an old pickup I think, and keep all the bees in permanent out yards.


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## BMAC (Jun 23, 2009)

Thats not true. Firefighters should be well adjusted to lifting heavy stuff and with a hired hand for such occassions pollinating on regular BB works fine. I know a local commercial operation of over 1000 hives thats not palletized and they do local pollination. Very doable, it just takes a little more physical work.


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## camero7 (Sep 21, 2009)

I did pollination with a trailer and a dolly. I'm 71 years old and can still do it. You don't need to buy a forklift, etc. But I only pollinate a couple of orchards now because of the sprays. That's what you'll want to watch for.


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## babybee (Mar 23, 2012)

I stand corrected. I am 31 but feel like I have a back of what I think a 71 year old should have!


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## Heintz88 (Feb 26, 2012)

How will you plan to expand your numbers? Are you wanting to run double deeps? That's a lot of wood-ware and foundation that needs to be drawn out. Prepare now it'll help in the long run. If you can find a farmers market with large volume of people now that will start build a customer base and help you get rid of the volume of honey produced in a few years at retail.


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## loggermike (Jul 23, 2000)

A used flatbed truck and a boom (picked up secondhand) will allow you to do pollination with up to a few hundred hives without hurting your back or going broke.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

I would say, get started, but don't quit the day job......


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## johng (Nov 24, 2009)

I heard someone say on here that the best time to start a bee business is ten years ago. It did not make much sense to me then but, now as I grow past 50 hives it starts to make sense. There are so many things to buy and pay for wooden ware alone adds up quickly not to mention upgrading extracting equipment. You may could gross that amount a year but, it will take you several years before you start clearing even half that much.


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## UTvolshype (Nov 26, 2012)

This year I went from 2 hives to 18 by the end of summer. Got a deal on nuc single deeps in October for $150 each and got 25 more, so far I've only lost three of the nucs to robbing from the stronger boxes. All this was easy if you have the money and experience but now comes the hard part, ramping up for spring. Next get +75 supers ready for spring. Finding nearby bee yard locations for spring flow and sourwood after June. Controlling swarms in March through May and doing additional 10 splits in April. I've got the honey room already set up and have a small roadside market already. So will all this pay for itself? Don't know but I'm having fun.


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## Bees of SC (Apr 12, 2013)

with the money-experience and $150 each for a single deep you are all ready.


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## EastSideBuzz (Apr 12, 2009)

Fire Guy said:


> I am getting close to retirement ... My plan is to increase to 100 or so hives in 2 to 3 years. Is it possible to make $25000.00 to $30000.00 a year with this many hives


I read this and did not see there were only 3 zero's. I thought it was 4 and I was laughing. Now it is doable for 3 but, you got a lot of learning to do to make it work. You need more then 3 years to learn and grow. I would plan to goto 50 and stay for 2 years. Then move to 100 for 1-2 years then move larger. If you go to 100 in the next 3 years you will kill way more then if you grow slow. Mistakes are multiplied at that size and you will lose dozens of hives instead of one or two.

Grow slow and keep your ff job a few more years then you wanted.


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## cg3 (Jan 16, 2011)

With 100 hives I could have made *5 times* this much!


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## Specialkayme (Sep 4, 2005)

$25,000-30,000 off 100 hives? So $250-300 per hive? 

Gross, sure. Net, not likely.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

I disagree, figure local sales at 5.00 per lb profit, 60 lb average should be pretty easy thats 300 per hive. Won't be every season unless you get some mad skills.


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## BMAC (Jun 23, 2009)

$5.00 per lbs is a little on the cheap side these days. Of course you have to take into consideration for expenses on bottling labeling and delivery.

However if coupled with light pollination and NUC, pollen sales net can easily be 30,000 annually. Just got to know how to run a business and NOT a hobby.


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## LSHonda310 (Mar 30, 2013)

I believe what he meant was if you had expenses at $3 per pound, then you need to sell at $8 per pound to make $5 per pound profit


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

Fire Guy said:


> 100 or so hives...............Is it possible to make $25000.00 to $30000.00 a year with this many hives?
> Dave


I am assuming that the folks in MO are on the hook for your retirement payments. If not you might want to increase the numbers to fund your future lifestyle to the tune of 30k a year with hives after expenses.

I am going to assume you have the mule already paid for. ( and it will last longer than you) amd you plan on keeping the bees alive in free logs. 


My guess is that unless you are planning on something happening very few of us have figured out I doubt your next 10 year average net will be greater 15 thousand (per year) on a hundred.


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## prs66 (May 3, 2014)

unless you are going to take all year to extract your honey you will need a uncapper and extractor


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## jbeshearse (Oct 7, 2009)

Fire Guy said:


> I am getting close to retirement from my firefighting career {2 to 3 years}. I have 3 hives know with 2 packages and 3 queens on the way. My plan is to increase to 100 or so hives in 2 to 3 years. Is it possible to make $25000.00 to $30000.00 a year with this many hives?
> 
> Thanks for any info
> Dave


Here is the problem I see, even assuming a good harvest and good prices for your honey. You have to retail it. to do so, requires attendance at markets, bottling, labeling, set up tear down. etc. This is all time that you will not have available to work with your now 100 hives, which you are trying to manage to produce the maximum surplus honey and raise queens, and increase or at least replace losses. The cost to get to 100 hives from 3 is pretty steep unless you buy someone out at fire sale (excuse the pun). I run mediums and figure 5 mediums per hive minimum, and that is harvesting three times a year. so that is 500 boxes, 5000 frames, 100 bottoms, tops, feeders, etc.

now, lets start with your $30,000 and work backwards, ignoring expenses. You say in your area Honey retails for 15 per quart, that is about $5.00 per pound, so 30,000/5 = 6000 lbs of honey. Once again in mediums at 35 pounds per super = 170 supers to extract. Running 8 frames per super that is 1360 frames of honey to extract. (plus it means your average surplus per hive is 60 lbs, which is reasonable.

I am not saying it cannot be done, but it will be very time consuming and does not allow for expenses. I imagine most of the commercial guys do a little retail, but most of their bread and butter comes from pollination and wholesale honey sales. 

They can chime in and correct me if I am wrong.


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## NY_BLUES (May 14, 2009)

I have been thinking and planning for a few years on how I can make upwards of 20k a year running around 100 hives. 30k? I dont know for sure, some years maybe, but I wouldnt bank on it. Heres my plan, mind you a rough one, but something I see as fairly doable on a yearly basis.

100 Double Deep Colonies, and approximately 50 or so more nucs or singles to use as back up and support colonies for the 100 doubles. These extra 50 would be used to replace dead outs, requeening and to boost populations of colonies, and as support for queen rearing operations.
The plan starts in November of the previous year, running 150 colonies south to GA to overwinter. In march, head south and split colonies to replace dead outs and to produce approxiamtely 50 nucs for sale.
In april, bring home the 100 doubles and all singles and nucs. Sell off the 50 nucs for $150 each, totaling $7500.
Put the 100 doubles on apple pollination at $75 each, totaling another $7500.
May honey supers would go on, and queen rearing would begin. I would try to produce approximately 10 queens per week, for 10 weeks for sale, at $25 each, totaling another $2500.
Also in may, pull 1 frame of brood from each support colony and plant a ripe cell in a nuc box with 2 frames of brood, creating another 25 nucs. These would be sold in June as summer nucs for $125 each, totaling $3125.
June is a good honey flow month and exraction is usually in July, right about the time I quit rearing queens. So with out even touching a drop of honey, I would have created $20,625 in gross income. 

Honey would be coming off the double deeps, and possibly some of the stronger singles. I figure a 40 pound average wouldnt be out of the question, giving me atleast 4000+ pounds of honey. As I dont like to retail honey, not my cup of tea, I usually sell it in 5 gallon pails. At $3 per pound wholesale in 5 gallon pails, thats $12000.

Take out the expenses, and I am probably close to that 20k figure I am looking for. Is this plan perfect, No, and some things probably wouldnt work out perfectly anyways, but its a rough idea. Heavy winter losses, losses in pollination and crappy honey flow would kill this plan in a heartbeat, but there are more ways to make money with bees than just selling honey. In this plan, honey would take the back seat to producing more bees. 
Mind you this plan isnt being implimented over night, I am building up to the 150 or so colonies and am building slowly, and am keeping expenses down as much as possible. I am also building up my number of boxes and combs, and spreading it out, with a number of new boxes and frames and lids and bottoms being made each year. 
Basically as BMAC said, if you run 100 or so colonies as a business and not a hobby, there is money to be made with that number of colonies. Is it 20-30k? I dont know, I am not there yet, but if building over time and learning from your mistakes, it might be possible to clear 20k.


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## hpm08161947 (May 16, 2009)

NY_BLUES said:


> I have been thinking and planning for a few years on how I can make upwards of 20k a year running around 100 hives. 30k? I dont know for sure, some years maybe, but I wouldnt bank on it. Heres my plan, mind you a rough one, but something I see as fairly doable on a yearly basis.


One suggestion. Instead of taking your bees to GA in Nov, bring them to SC. Then in March, cross the border and pollinate blue berries. At the conclusion of Blueberries, head home to NY. 10 hives would get you about $7500.


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## NY_BLUES (May 14, 2009)

hpm08161947-
that is also an option. running a double pollination, such as carolina blueberries and then to NY for apples or blueberries with the same hives. I am assuming that you mean 100 hives would get me $7500. What is the standard frame count on blueberries? 
That being said, using the same strong singles on blueberries, and then brought to NY and doubled up and run onto apples would gross $15000, and then could be run on honey. Some may be set back in blueberries, and some again in apples, but thats what the back up hives are for. 
More expense to move them from GA to NC for blueberries, but thats part of the cost of doing business. I think if people are willing to put the work into keeping 100 strong hives, and keep their expenses down, and spread it out over a number of years, then making a decent retirement income is very doable with 100 good hives.


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## BMAC (Jun 23, 2009)

Hauling expense for 100 hives from Ga to NC blueberries can be figured in there around $800.00. $1200.00 to include loading and unloading with equipment.

Hauling from NC to NY $1000.00 with $1400.00 loading, and unloading.

So highside would be ~$2600.00 hauling north.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

hpm08161947 said:


> One suggestion. Instead of taking your bees to GA in Nov, bring them to SC. Then in March, cross the border and pollinate blue berries. At the conclusion of Blueberries, head home to NY. 10 hives would get you about $7500.


Herb, math isn't my strong suit, but, isn't 10 hives X $75.00 each = $750.00? You must have meant 100 hives.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

BMAC said:


> Hauling expense for 100 hives from Ga to NC blueberries can be figured in there around $800.00. $1200.00 to include loading and unloading with equipment.
> 
> Hauling from NC to NY $1000.00 with $1400.00 loading, and unloading.
> 
> So highside would be ~$2600.00 hauling north.


$2600.00 to haul 100 hives one way? Including a charge for loading and unloading? Seems reasonable.


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## hpm08161947 (May 16, 2009)

sqkcrk said:


> Herb, math isn't my strong suit, but, isn't 10 hives X $75.00 each = $750.00? You must have meant 100 hives.


Yea.. I'm talking 100 hives.

What if he had a truck like mine...... he could haul the 100 hives himself. How many hives did you and Matthew have on the GMC this spring.... 120? I'm guessing maybe $500 worth of fuel to haul from NY to down south.

He may want to investigate SC..... Awful lot of New Yorkers down there.... must be a reason.

Never heard of a frame count in the blue berries.... they just want strong hives.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Yes, approximately $500.00 in fuel one way. Yes, we had 120 cols on your truck and 120 on my truck and trailer.


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## BMAC (Jun 23, 2009)

What if he dont have a truck that can haul 120 colonies on it? What would a truck cost that can haul 120 colonies on it?
What other underlying expenses other than cost of fuel are associated with a 700 mile trip?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Total costs of owning and using my F-450 run about $2.00/mile, approximately. I actually figured it out one year a while ago and it was about $1.88/mile to $2.10/mile depending on the price of fuel and whatever repairs and maintenance was done that year.


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## BMAC (Jun 23, 2009)

(price of vehicle/total number of planned miles of life long usage) + ((total repairs + total inusrance&registration+ total fuel)/annual vehicle miles) = actual cost of shipping your own stuff.

so Say new F450 total cost = $62,000.00 and you plan to retire that truck right at 130,000 then each mile will cost you a minimum of $.47 per mile added to the annual cost of maintenance and fuel and registration plus tolls in our part of the country.

just to keep it simple we will say truck ave 10 MPG. 

25,000 annual miles = 2500 gallons of fuel at ave $4.20 per gallon = $10,500.00 in fuel

($.47) + (17300/25000) = real cost of shipping

($.47) + ($.69) = $1.16 per mile. Notice this is a fictitious per mile base and cannot be used to really help determine what you should expect to pay in shipping costs. Simply a process for everyone to work their way thru to determine their own. 

For example my truck averages 6 miles to the gallon and I already have 29,000 miles on it and it's not a full year. Means at $4.20 a gallon average I have already dropped $20k in fuel for less than 1 year.

Total repairs inclusive $5500.00

state fees for running vehicle on public roads = $1300.00


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## BMAC (Jun 23, 2009)

Mark what is the fuel efficiency of your F450 loaded?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

About the same as when it's loaded. I haven't ever calculated loaded miles verse unloaded miles. Seven to 10 miles per gallon. Seems like I get around 10 when in SC where it's flat.

One thing the OPer should think about instead of asking how many hives do I need to run to make $X.XX ask yourself how much money can I generate from X,XXX hives? Can you maximize the amount of income from 100 hives? How would you do that? 

Are you keeping bees to make money? Or do you want to make money working bees? Two different questions. There are easier ways of making money other than beekeeping. But if you like working bees and don't like doing those other things, maybe making loads of money really isn't what you want to do. Maybe you just want to work bees to make enough to get by, keep your head above water, and enjoy life now.

Get out and do it and you will figure it out. See the opportunities and take advantage of them.


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## HungryBear (May 28, 2012)

BMAC said:


> state fees for running vehicle on public roads = $1300.00


Can you explain the state fees? I just changed my registration from commercial to ag. It will save me $54 every 2 years. Down side is now every November I have to do the registration instead of every 2 years, but its saving me money still.

I plan on doing that with my other 1 ton soon as well.

The DMV told me some states don't recognize a ag registration. I don't know what that means, but if its legally registered here, it should be good in every state.


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## funwithbees (Mar 27, 2010)

Ben, That depends on your DOT number. I run ag plates on my 1 ton 12000# GVW, have a US DOT # that ends in NY and I am valid only to run in NY. I believe that you have to run commercial plates to get a regular US DOT# that allows you to go anywhere. 
All I know is you cannot get a straight answer from anybody at DMV, DOT etc. I still get calls from DOT wondering about my medical card and who does my safety training. Not required per a DOT trooper we know.
PA does not like NY ag plates I hear.
Nick



HungryBear said:


> Can you explain the state fees? I just changed my registration from commercial to ag. It will save me $54 every 2 years. Down side is now every November I have to do the registration instead of every 2 years, but its saving me money still.
> 
> I plan on doing that with my other 1 ton soon as well.
> 
> The DMV told me some states don't recognize a ag registration. I don't know what that means, but if its legally registered here, it should be good in every state.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

My F-450 is registered w/ Agricultural plates and my USDOT# does not end in NY. (maybe I better check that) Maybe Nick has a NYDOT# and that is why he is only valid in NY. Why did you do that, Nick? Never plan to take it out of State?

Do you have a CDL, Nick? Maybe that's why they keep calling you.

I have never had any trouble w/ PADOT. Never been stopped and never had to go thru a weigh station. I travel the length of 81 all the way thru PA 6 or 8 times a year. What makes you say that PA does not like NY AG plates? They are just a different form of Commercial plate, aren't they?


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## funwithbees (Mar 27, 2010)

Hi Mark,
A beek friend of mine in NE PA said to watch out. might bee a local thing. 
No, I do not have a CDL and I don't plan to go out of state.( today at least) I don't remember why I registered it like that at the time but it seemed to fit what I am doing-pulling the skidsteer and running bees for honey. The flow is on!
Nick
-Its fun getting old-everything is new every day :scratch:


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

I don't know why you would have any trouble going out of State w/ a NYDOT # and AG plates, unless they say FARM on them and not Agricultural.

Don't have a CDL, don't need a drug card. Work for yourself, you do your own safety training.

Nectar flowing here too.


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## chillardbee (May 26, 2005)

Well, considering the initial investmest of the equipment you'd need, the expences of running them, the lack of revenue as your increasing them, I reckon it'll be taking a great chunk out of your retirement saving. Then figure in the bad years (and there will be bad years). If your wanting $30,000.00 after expences and taxes or how ever that works out for you, you'd have explore markets in near almost everything. I guess ideally you'd want to raise queens, sell nucs, pollenation at least 2 contracts per hive per year, plus a good and hefty honey production along the way and It might be acheivable if you can survive to that point and if you do survive, you won't be retiring anytime soon. managing colonies to be at their most productiveness is a full time job.


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