Last week I had a short conversation with a fellow beekeeper. We talked about the usual stuff (colony strength, varroa management, honey harvest, etc.), but one point came up that I had not really given much thought to: the business of beekeeping. Up to that point, I had only thought of my apiary as a hobby with the added benefit of monetary gain. So, it of course sparked an interest, and I decided to go about viewing my apiary from a business perspective.
When you start collecting up old receipts, and start writing down costs, you rapidly gain an overview at the success or failure of the business. Since starting in the summer of 2015, I have not seen a positive return on my costs, i.e. my honey sales were not covering the losses, not by a long shot. A big fat red bottom line! For me, it is clear why this is the case; beekeeping costs quite a bit of money when you are starting new. If you take into consideration what the costs are of obtaining and keeping a colony for an entire season, that is from March until October, it is easy to understand that a significant amount of honey needs to be harvested to cover the initial costs.
Here is a rough example. Let's say to obtain and maintain one colony, one would have costs around 300€. That includes hive equipment and the bees. So to break even, that colony would need to generate 300€ worth of honey to break even. That is roughly 30kg of the liquid gold. 30kg harvests for a colony in one season are quite rare (at least that is the case here in Germany). Just doing the basic math, would show you that in order for a beekeeper to break even, they would have to maintain the colony for at least two seasons. That is easier said than done, just read my posts regarding varroa mites. Every time you want to expand the apiary, either by catching a swarm, or by created nucs, an added amount of costs and financial risk comes into play.
Sure, there are some very expensive hobbies out there. Hobbies, where a lot of money gets pumped in, with no monetary reward in return. Beekeeping has the advantage of giving some money back for the effort. So the question is, should beekeeping be seen as a business or a hobby that costs money? I guess it really depends on what you want to accomplish with your apiary, but for me I prefer the latter. Honey sales are a nice to have because they finance my apiary. I will never become wealthy as a hobby beekeeper, just look at my math example above. But with proper management, I can at least get money back for my effort.
Commercial beekeeping is of course a whole different ball of wax. The differences are indeed glaring. Hobby beekeepers take more time to nurture their colonies; the focus is on the well-being of the honey bees. Our commercial beekeeping colleagues are of course concerned with their livestock, but more emphasis is put on cash flow and running a profitable business.
A final thought. I suppose running an apiary is quite similar to running a dairy farm. There is a certain level of humane responsibility to the animals while there is also a tolerable threshold of financial burden. The trick is trying to find a balance. The well-being of my bees is priority number one in my apiary. Hopefully, if I treat them well, and take care of them, they will reward me with enough liquid gold to keep things up and running.
When you start collecting up old receipts, and start writing down costs, you rapidly gain an overview at the success or failure of the business. Since starting in the summer of 2015, I have not seen a positive return on my costs, i.e. my honey sales were not covering the losses, not by a long shot. A big fat red bottom line! For me, it is clear why this is the case; beekeeping costs quite a bit of money when you are starting new. If you take into consideration what the costs are of obtaining and keeping a colony for an entire season, that is from March until October, it is easy to understand that a significant amount of honey needs to be harvested to cover the initial costs.
Here is a rough example. Let's say to obtain and maintain one colony, one would have costs around 300€. That includes hive equipment and the bees. So to break even, that colony would need to generate 300€ worth of honey to break even. That is roughly 30kg of the liquid gold. 30kg harvests for a colony in one season are quite rare (at least that is the case here in Germany). Just doing the basic math, would show you that in order for a beekeeper to break even, they would have to maintain the colony for at least two seasons. That is easier said than done, just read my posts regarding varroa mites. Every time you want to expand the apiary, either by catching a swarm, or by created nucs, an added amount of costs and financial risk comes into play.
Sure, there are some very expensive hobbies out there. Hobbies, where a lot of money gets pumped in, with no monetary reward in return. Beekeeping has the advantage of giving some money back for the effort. So the question is, should beekeeping be seen as a business or a hobby that costs money? I guess it really depends on what you want to accomplish with your apiary, but for me I prefer the latter. Honey sales are a nice to have because they finance my apiary. I will never become wealthy as a hobby beekeeper, just look at my math example above. But with proper management, I can at least get money back for my effort.
Commercial beekeeping is of course a whole different ball of wax. The differences are indeed glaring. Hobby beekeepers take more time to nurture their colonies; the focus is on the well-being of the honey bees. Our commercial beekeeping colleagues are of course concerned with their livestock, but more emphasis is put on cash flow and running a profitable business.
A final thought. I suppose running an apiary is quite similar to running a dairy farm. There is a certain level of humane responsibility to the animals while there is also a tolerable threshold of financial burden. The trick is trying to find a balance. The well-being of my bees is priority number one in my apiary. Hopefully, if I treat them well, and take care of them, they will reward me with enough liquid gold to keep things up and running.
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