# Your starting out story



## Duncan MacLeod (Jul 24, 2014)

Hello all,

I am starting to spin up my sideline to full-time. It's hard work, lots of questions and unknowns along the way. But it has got me thinking a lot about where commercial beekeepers come from (please no birds and bees talks here!). How did you all get your starts? Buy a going venture? Work your way up in an established business? Sideline-to-full-time? Business plan and loan startup? Scratch it out from a few boxes?

I'm asking for current or past commercial beek's stories....would love to hear how you got your start!

Thanks!

Duncan MacLeod
Northwest Bees


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## RAK (May 2, 2010)

Are you retiring your Pastor position? I was born into beekeeping.


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## Keith Jarrett (Dec 10, 2006)

Started with two hives at 14 years old...... always had a couple jobs at a time for about twenty years. Now just doing bees, never any car,truck,forklift or bee loans. Just put up a 25,000 square foot shop with no loans. You can still do it the old fashion way..... work for it..... it can be done.. Best wishes Ducan.


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## Duncan MacLeod (Jul 24, 2014)

Keith Jarrett said:


> Started with two hives at 14 years old...... always had a couple jobs at a time for about twenty years. Now just doing bees, never any car,truck,forklift or bee loans. Just put up a 25,000 square foot shop with no loans. You can still do it the old fashion way..... work for it..... it can be done.. Best wishes Ducan.


Thanks Keith, I appreciate the encouragement,

I am well located for regional pollination and have lots of contacts in the orcharding community, so feel good about getting contracts for next spring for as many boxes as I can get ready. I am planning on bee sales and honey sales to round things out, since I am not interested in trucking all over the country to chase blooms. I have started to establish honey sales, prices are good for local, raw honey, especially if extra care is taken to target buyers who care about that kind of thing (here in the Northwest, luckily, there are lots of such consumers). Good management in our region should produce a sustainable business. I have resources in local relationships that are hard to put a price on....

Yes, RAK, I am retiring from my current job....set to step into this in February of 2016. At 42 years of age, it is hardly retirement, just sort of a radical change of career direction. I am extremely excited and hopeful, but also anxious, of course. Would love to trip out your way and see your operation sometime, pick your professional brain?! Since we are sort of neighbors and all 

Duncan
Northwest Bees


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## HarryVanderpool (Apr 11, 2005)

Duncan MacLeod said:


> I am well located for regional pollination and have lots of contacts in the orcharding community, so feel good about getting contracts for next spring for as many boxes as I can get ready.


Boxes?!!!

You know lots of folks in the "orcharding" community.
Do you know the folks in the beekeeping community that may have longstanding relationships with these growers?
The fastest way to get off on the wrong foot in commercial beekeeping is to ignore your fellow beekeepers and step all over their feet.
On the other hand, most commercial operations in your area need additional hives here and there and can help you get your foot in the door in the business.
The first thing I ask when talking with growers is, "Who have you been working with"?
If they refuse to tell me, the conversation ends.
If it is one of the many great beekeepers of the PNW I will ask them why they want to change. I usually encourage them to work out the problem with the beekeeper if possible.
If they insist that they are going to change beekeeper, I call the beekeeper and talk to them.
The only beekeepers that I am happy to "TAKE" a contract from are the few outliers in the PNW that disregard the beekeeping community in the PNW.
You don't want to fall into that category IMHO.


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## Duncan MacLeod (Jul 24, 2014)

HarryVanderpool said:


> Boxes?!!!
> 
> You know lots of folks in the "orcharding" community.
> Do you know the folks in the beekeeping community that may have longstanding relationships with these growers?
> ...


Thanks for your response?

How did you get your start, Harry. If I recall, you've been keeping bees for more than 25 years now? 

Let me respond to some of the content of your "advice", trying to filter out what felt like a bit of snark in there. Perhaps I'm reading it wrong, tone is tough with text.

You might remember Jim Bach's survey from 2007, citing challenges for the commercial beekeeping industry here in Washington state. Among other things, the average age of the commercial beekeeper was cited at 55....that was in 2007. Indeed, some of the fine beekeepers of the PNW are retiring and selling out. Rod Jackman and Eric Olson among them, from here in the Yakima valley, long time operators, and Eric, of course, on a massive scale with great contributions to the industry. They are not alone - there is not just room for new commercial beeks, there is a need for new beeks. And unless we have the capital to buy a business like Erik's (don't have millions lying around, perhaps you do), then starting out as a small regional operation is how to do it. Relying upon relationships with local growers is a good idea, and it's good business. Any and all of us are expected to earn our contracts, I would assume. A grower I know here now has said he'll fill contracts with me because he is unhappy with one of his beeks (he utilizes several). He's willing to give me a try, because of our relationship, but I'll have to deliver, as will anyone (and he feels like one of his current beekeepers isn't). I also live down the road from him, a relationship a bit different than the contract filled with a California almond pollinator who is parking bees here in the PNW (and subsequently keeping our prices low, as you well know).

And no, I don't feel like my first line of work is to reconcile the grower with the other beekeeper. If a consumer told you that they liked your honey over another beeks honey, would you say, "sorry, please don't buy this honey....I really think you can work out your taste preferences with the other guy. Please go back and give that relationship another chance." I'm not out to steal anyone's business....but to earn my own.

There's no way that I can know everyone that you know, Harry, you've been in the business a quarter of a century. Your relationships with people go back, and so you work to honor them. That's great. But you make it sound like an exclusive club that a new beek should bow at the door before entering.....that's how your "advice" came across, anyway, and a  at the end doesn't quite change the tone to friendly. Washington state alone has more than 220,000 acres of orchards that need pollinating, and counts of resident colonies fall well below that. There is room for new folks, that's just math. I'd love to become a colleague, and perhaps one day I will be, but it wasn't on my mind to ask for your permission, nor anyone else's (except my wife's) to enter the market.

What I was really asking for was how you got started....and would still enjoy hearing the story if you'd like to tell it.

Kind Regards,
Duncan


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## Qvox (May 21, 2015)

I think this thread is a great thread topic. I'd like to hear the start-up stories of beeks that have successfully gone full-time. I'm sure there are many different ways people have done it. 

Unfortunately, in my experience in and around agriculture I find most successful farmers tend to be a little closed lipped about their successes, or they outright poor-mouth. Yet, people can and do make a living at it. Some actually make a very good living. In agriculture it seems like there is little middle ground. Most people don't have the drive, business savvy, organizational, or marketing skills needed to move beyond hobbyist to serious sideliner, fewer yet have the drive and skill to scale-up beyond sideliner.

Duncan, I'd like to hear your story. 

Making the jump form hobbyist to serious sideliner is probably just as interesting.


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

Householder Apiaries

Worked for my Dad helping him with his bees. At the age of 8 I had my first bee yard and produced over a ton from it that first year and sold it for $.43 a lb. Bought mated queens for $3.75 shipped and packages when needed for $13.75 back in those days. Oh the good old days. Extracted with a 4 frame extractor and hot knife until we was producing over 5 ton. Bottled and sold everything to big box stores. Parents up scaled to a 80 frame Hubbard with a Maxant uncapper and install a 300 gallon holding tank to barrel honey. Started wholesale to packers. Worked 87 farms in Ohio for honey production and 300+ hives for pickle pollination (all by hand no forklift). 

Worked along side of my Mom and Dad until I got married. Worked the bees and a fully time job until I got divorced 12 years later. 

Got remarried and bought my parents out two years later when they retired. 2010 crop of 196 lb avg. at $2.25 a lb bought me a new factory w/warehouse and all new honey house equipment. NO MORE LOANS. 

I run my whole operation with new packages every year. 7 year avg. is 152 pounds per hive. Shake and sell my bees off in the fall. Company track is a 1500 cub cab Silverado 4X4. Yep a 1/2 ton pickup. 

Now Ohio's largest honey producer and wax producer/ broker. Custom extract for other honey operations.

Wilbanks queen and package dealer.

Two years ago started producing nucs for sale.

Three years ago wife open her retail store for honey. "A Drop Of Honey"

I have 4 daughters and 4 sons and hope one takes over this operation when I'm ready to retired like my parents did (my parents spend more time in the shop then I do now at days).

Still an out of control hobby. Honey production is in my blood and one day I might keep bees for a living too.


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## Qvox (May 21, 2015)

Householder, it looks like you married a great business partner. The website looks great!

Forgive the newbie question, but every year you sell your bees in the fall, and start all over in the spring? I know a lot of commercial beeks do some variation of this, so obviously it's a profitable practice. How much money do you think you save doing this? 

It seems counterintuitive. Where are the savings I'm not seeing coming from?


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

If I may speak for the Householder:, He can harvest more honey if he does not have to leave any for the bees. He also has no wintering feed cost, and knows exactly how many hives will make it though the winter.

Crazy Roland


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

Some extra truck loads of honey to sell and truck loads of feed that don't need to be bought. $$$$$$$$$

As a comm. operator you can spend $$$$$$$$$ and make $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Or you spend $$ and make $$$$$$. Which one do you need to be. 

I truck packages not hives. My truck in the business is new every 7-8 years at $30K. I do have a used HI/LO forklift ($3K) for the warehouse for loading and unloading trucks. My warehouse and honey house combine is only 5000 square feet, but my concrete parking lot is 6000 square feet. I custom extract for other comm operation and broker there honey. 80% of the honey is bucketed and palletized and sold off to dealers, not large packers. It's all in the #'s and how you spend and make your $ work for you. With honey prices over $2.50 in the bucket and the operation paid off years ago it's good being a honey producer now at days. 

Bees are already contracted and will sell for 45% of what I paid for them this year. 

35 years in the business and might bee doing something right.:scratch: Which is good because I'm starting to feel my age.


Yes I did luck out. She is my best friend and she keeps me hopping. Kinda forgot how to bottle honey until she opened her store. She retails about 5% of our crop, but if my ex-wife ask she makes it all.:shhhh:


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## 707tothe907 (Mar 20, 2014)

Thank you for spending the time to share with us. It's much appreciated by those of us who commonly only lurk and don't post.


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## Qvox (May 21, 2015)

707tothe907 said:


> Thank you for spending the time to share with us. It's much appreciated by those of us who commonly only lurk and don't post.


ditto this


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## Jacobee (Dec 27, 2011)

ok I will be the glass half empty .

business plan, loan , aspirations. I could go on with this forever.

the comment about don't tell you about the birds and the bees. what does that mean. if you know it all why ask us.

I can type here all that you want to here and make you warm and fuzzy if you want or I can tell you the reality. I will know by your response.


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## Duncan MacLeod (Jul 24, 2014)

Jacobee said:


> ok I will be the glass half empty .
> 
> business plan, loan , aspirations. I could go on with this forever.
> 
> ...


Well, Jacobee, it's pretty simple. I am hoping to hear some stories about how commercial beeks got into the business. The comment about "the birds and the bees" was a little joke, which obviously didn't land for you. See, I sort of asked aloud "where do commercial beekeepers come from?", which sort of sounded like I was asking about how your mom loved your dad very much, and then they had a commercial beekeeper. Since I didn't really want to know THAT MUCH about where commercial beeks came from, I made the joke. No joke survives an explanation, neither does this one. Too bad, it sort of gave me a chuckle. 

I may not know it all about the "birds and the bees", but I know enough to have three kids now....so I'll will humbly suggest that I don't need to ask you any more about that subject. All I really wanted to hear was how you got started. Your profile suggests that you got started a year ago? Are you a commercial beek? Did you start by way of a loan and a business plan? I am not asking about the best way to get started, or advice about how to do it....just asking for your starting up story. That's all. Relax. Have a drink....there....better? 

Thanks to others who have shared their stories, it really is fascinating and very educational....keep it up!!!


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## Qvox (May 21, 2015)

I appreciate the spirit of this thread. I think it's everyone's fantasy to do what they love to do and make a living at it. Which is why you see so many questions about commercial operations. 

Transitioning from a hobby into a viable sideline operation is one step, but turning it into a viable commercial entity is altogether another level, and one that will remain nothing but a dream for most. Put people like to read stories about those brave, hardworking, dedicated, and talented souls that turn their dreams into reality.


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