# a start towards a sideline/commercial business



## Ben Little (Apr 9, 2012)

Hello i would like to know if there is anyone who could shed some light towards what i should do to grow into a larger scale honey producer and other hive products, this being my first year, i love it. ( Other than a business plan ) I am working on that. my concern is what type of schooling does a person require to get into this scale of beekeeping?

Ben


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## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

Ben all the threads I have seen on this report the value of a mentor, and working in a successful operation to gain experience. If you are talking about being a large scale honey producer, do you reside in (or could you move to) an area capable of producing large yields per hive?


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

How about offering Stan Sandler some free help. He's one of the larger apiaries on Nova Scotia.


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## Ben Little (Apr 9, 2012)

I wish he was closer, he's in Prince Edward Island : ) i have heard of him a while ago , but never really thought about taking the 4+ hour drive to the island to meet him. 

Ben


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Ahh, sorry. I thought Stan was on Nova Scotia. No other commercials around?


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## Ben Little (Apr 9, 2012)

there is 2 i know of , but they are too busy to care about me . oh well i will do things as i always have, by myself and knowledge from books. And now from beesource too : ) 

by the way i made a double nuc from your video you put up on wintering nucs, i made it out of regular 10 frame deeps and the second deep is divided too, but i put a queen excluder on the bottom box and screened both dividers with a 2 inch hole , both sides were screened so the queens couldn't reach each other, and i also have a medium honey super on them without a divider and you are right they don't fight, so i also have them sharing a Fat Bee Man top feeder. Seems to work fine, i was worried about drainage though, do you have issues with that or do you have screened openings?

Ben


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## simplyhoney (Sep 14, 2004)

Hi Ben,
Its great to see new young enthusiasm in the commercial aspect of beekeeping. I can offer you a plan to make one million dollars in the first year of beekeeping. First you must have capital of no less than two million dollars. Buy bees, run bees for one year. By the end of that first year you should have 1 million dollars. LOL LOL
But seriously grow slow!!! You can apply the best business plan in the world but you are at the whem of many uncontrollable factors. If you grow slow, keep costs low, and don't go into debt, most anyone can make a living from bees...........beekeeping is a lifestyle not a job.


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## Ben Little (Apr 9, 2012)

yes i wish to grow into it , that is my goal . 

i was just wondering if there was a way to plan for it , so i don't make too many mistakes : ) i need lots of knowledge to even think about doing what i plan to do. i wish i had a mentor around that would help me, but i don't, so i have to gather most of my ways of beekeeping from just doing it and seeing what happens, most of the things i have done are from youtube videos and books i have read, and this is my first year in beekeeping , i love it and i hope i can grow the business to nice comfortable level. i started with 4 nucs in may and i managed to get 125 lbs of nice white honey : ) and i have sold most of it at 7.00/Lb without a problem ,also i split 4 more times.
I would also like to start rearing queens and possibly selling them eventually, i have the Queen rearing DVD from Beeworks and it is great. even pollination is something i want to do, because there isn't enough of it around my area and they have to import bees to get it done most of the time, so why not a local beek do it instead : ) It's hard to increase in Nova Scotia , because we can't import packages because of the laws we have, i guess it's to control mites /pests, good enough reason for me !

Ben


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## rainesridgefarm (Sep 4, 2001)

I would go to the two large beekeepers and offer to work for the experience for free. A few days in the bee yards, a few days in the honey house. You will glean a lot of information that way. If you are a hard worker and they like you, it could work into a part time paid position that you can either get paid in cash or bees. But you have to work more then ask questions to get them to take you on.

good luck


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