Beekeeping

I've had this idea for awhile now.
What are the general pros and cons of starting a bee farm business.
Is there a market for honey?
Does it require a sizeable initial investment?
Is it lucrative as a whole?

Because of inbreeding and humans, bee genetics have been getting weaker over the years. Many groups of bees are more aggressive than others. Many groups still, only produce low-quality honey. If you live off the land and like honey you may consider some for yourself, and then sell the rest to a local general store with not much returns.

I would only consider it if you want to preserve bee culture from becoming extinct.

I was thinking more like a large scale thing, like maybe get a contract with some company to buy the honey from me while I produce it in large quantities.

I do this as my job.

It's not lucrative. It's best as a hobby, unless you want to be a traveling beekeeper, which is where the money is.

Can it be pulled off not as a hobby, but as a large-scale business?

You're going to run into some major scaling issues *if* you don't want to travel. Traveling is where the money is -- since the cash is in the pollination services, not the honey.

There's a chance you could pull it off if you market yourself well in your area, but it would take a hell of a lot of work.

What about initial investment?
I was initially thinking of hiring someone to look after the bees, since I live in eastern europe where labor costs are very low.

robot bees are the future

Oh, I assumed you were in America. Initial capital investment can be low if you build the boxes yourselves (which you should).

You don't need a smoker/beekeeping suit if you read about it before you begin. So that's some saved cash.

Not sure if hiring someone is the way to go. I'd recommend you doing it yourself. Looking after the bees hardly takes any time at all (

Every village has a beekeeping guy in it.
Also been thinking about same shit and living in Eastern Euro too OP.

Alright, I know nothing about that market.

My simple advice would be to save money by building the boxes yourself. You don't need a smoker or a suit if you're careful when handling them.

Most of your $ will be spent on initial bee colonies, and processing equipment. I think you can manufacture filtration stuff, but haven't looked into it.

Also see if you can sell pollination services to local farmers for extra margin.

bump

Look into placing beehives near farms. Nearby beehives can increase yields.

Good thread OP. Thinking of starting a bee colony at my father's farm, I live in the D. C area where the money is, I could probably sell the honey and mark up the crap out if it if it's "100% organic, maryland pride, made in USA no gmo etc. Etc.

Organic blueberries are where it's at if you live in the south and want to farm.

Yes. With proper managing and marketing, your product will sell. With trump in charge, business tax will decrease. Now is the time to earn profits. After profits are earned you must consume surrounding businesses. It is the only way.

The downside is you need a year for the colony to fully establish, and sometimes the hive just fails. My dad's queen bee keeled over recently.

My dad is a beekeeper. I grew up selling honey.

You need a large access to land... bees travel pretty far and towns typically freak out when someone has a large concentration of bees.

My dad makes about $140,000, he's been at it for about 20 years and started as a hobbyist. He sells his as the "organic, locally owned" stuff at farmers markets and stuff. He also sells to a couple bakeries.

>travelling beekeeper

I'm picturing a black and yellow chariot pulled by thousands of reined bees

M E A D
E
A
D

is beekeeping something that's easy to start up and maintain on a small scale? My dad is retiring soon, and he always wanted to do beekeeping since he was a young adult

it's a strange business. if you take honey out of the hive you need to feed them sugar water or they'll starve. their reserves are well calculated and even taking only part of their honey may disturbe the balance. so in essence a hive is a machine turning commercial sugar into honey.

if you take it slow enough your colony will expand by itself. new queens hatch, move out and can be collected into new hives if you're vigilante enough. usually your neighbours will alert you anyway, since young queens move out with a shitton of bees and clinges to the next tree which usually frightens locals.

you have to be careful though. bees need a ton of health care. there are some nasty nits that can kill your whole hive if a single bee drags them in. certain species of wasps attack and eat bees and can even invade hives. certain kinds of herbicides and insecticides can kill bees or cause neurological damage. so if you have a shithead farmer next door you may come to your hives one day to find them all dead.

also look into your local laws. sometimes you need a permit or you need to show you've got some sort of certificate for handling bees to set up a colony of your own.

doesn't seem worth it, imho.

>100% organic, no gmo
is there any way to guarantee this in the US? since they use gmo crops pretty much everywhere and since you can't exactly train your bees to ignore them - wouldn't any hipster with half a weed-soaked brain realize you're bullshitting them?

its easy to setup and maintain but there is a decent chance your bees will die off to varroa mites. Start with atleast 2 hives that way you can use one hive to reinforce another if mites strike.

I also recommend russian bees to anyone just starting out, they are much more resistant to mites than italians.

Yeah it's not sold as "organic" honey like he said. "Raw" honey is the cash cow term, meaning non pasteurized. In my locale I can sell a pound of raw honey for ~$13, and half pound for ~$7.

The true secret to beekeeping profitability though, is to turn your honey into a refined product. Demand for mead (honey wine) is growing in the US, especially among millenials, and most meadery's are regional at best. There is a lot of money to be made in that space.

I'm not really sure what has attributed in the resurgence of mead as an alcoholic beverage, but if I had to guess it would be the rise of games like Skyrim and TV Shows like Vikings that are driving millenials out to their nearest renaissance faire to drink the stuff like it's going out of style.

This is the most reddit post I've ever seen.

Kill yourself.