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Author Topic: small scale income  (Read 1977 times)

Offline vistin

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small scale income
« on: February 08, 2007, 06:31:14 pm »
Howdy ya'll!
I am planning on starting some bee hives and I would like all information on how to make some money along with emjoying this hobby.
How many hives will I need and if you can please share how much you make.
Thanks
Steve

Offline Understudy

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Re: small scale income
« Reply #1 on: February 08, 2007, 08:19:21 pm »
Howdy ya'll!
I am planning on starting some bee hives and I would like all information on how to make some money along with emjoying this hobby.
How many hives will I need and if you can please share how much you make.
Thanks
Steve

You need to do this hobby because you enjoy it. You can make some money but not much. And if being profitable is a prerequisite you will have to be patient or you will end up disappointed.

Telescoping cover w/ inner cover $19.95
Bottom Board                     $ 9.75
Deep Hive Body                   $ 8.60
10 deep frames                   $ 8.25
10 pcs. foundation               $ 8.40
Hive tool                        $ 3.50
Smoker                           $22.50
Veil                             $16.50
Sub Total                        $97.45
Shipping based on where you live
Package bees                     $57.00
Shipping based on where you live
Then there are the extractors ($105.00) and bottles ($7.65 per 12).
Package bees take about a year before they start producing good amounts of
honey.
You can buy a established hive but they aren't cheap either.
If your hive produces 30lbs / 14kg you will get which is just a bit less than
3 gallons / 11.3 liters will make about 129 12 oz/ .35 liter bears. If you sell
the bears for $3.00 usd ea. You should make $387 which will perhaps cover your
costs but not much more than that. You could raise the price on your bears to
offset costs.

These are very rough estimates.

Sincerely,
Brendhan
The status is not quo. The world is a mess and I just need to rule it. Dr. Horrible

Offline Finsky

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Re: small scale income
« Reply #2 on: February 09, 2007, 05:58:40 am »

My experience is that 10 hives is minumum to keep bees. When you get your knowlegge, you get all stuff needed, it is same if you have 5 or 10 hives. 15 hives is easy to nurse.

For incomes it is very importat to get such pastures that you get maximum income for you inputs.

My average yield has vedeloped this way during 45 years. We have here only 1-1,5 yield months:

*First 3 years nothing

* When I got good queens (canada origin Caucasians) average yield was 80 lbs

* I got good italians after 15 years, yild jumped  on average 120 lbs per hive

* With Carniolans it come down to 100 lbs because they swarmed so much

* I returned to Italians and I took special tricks into use, average yild is   160 lbs/hive.

The most important thing for yield are good queens, big hives and splended pastures.

TO get customers and get money meanst that

* honey has better quality than others have or on average: keep bees on such pastures where you get good tasty honey
* you may sell it directly to customers

* use only best methods and measure your succes with honey yield.

Of course you may loose your earnings if yoy trye what ever other tell you to do.

First of all: Keep your wife healthy and keep her in good job! Otherwise you have not money to run bee business :-D






Offline sean

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Re: small scale income
« Reply #3 on: February 09, 2007, 08:20:20 am »
First of all: Keep your wife healthy and keep her in good job! Otherwise you have not money to run bee business

Is this the voice of experience?

Offline wtiger

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Re: small scale income
« Reply #4 on: February 09, 2007, 02:36:43 pm »

My experience is that 10 hives is minumum to keep bees. When you get your knowlegge, you get all stuff needed, it is same if you have 5 or 10 hives. 15 hives is easy to nurse.

For incomes it is very importat to get such pastures that you get maximum income for you inputs.

My average yield has vedeloped this way during 45 years. We have here only 1-1,5 yield months:

*First 3 years nothing

* When I got good queens (canada origin Caucasians) average yield was 80 lbs

* I got good italians after 15 years, yild jumped  on average 120 lbs per hive

* With Carniolans it come down to 100 lbs because they swarmed so much

* I returned to Italians and I took special tricks into use, average yild is   160 lbs/hive.

The most important thing for yield are good queens, big hives and splended pastures.

TO get customers and get money meanst that

* honey has better quality than others have or on average: keep bees on such pastures where you get good tasty honey
* you may sell it directly to customers

* use only best methods and measure your succes with honey yield.

Of course you may loose your earnings if yoy trye what ever other tell you to do.

First of all: Keep your wife healthy and keep her in good job! Otherwise you have not money to run bee business :-D

that last bit is good advise for anyone going into any type of buisness.  In a small and medium sized buisness especially.  You don't have the resources of the really big guys and need to be as stingy as possible during the lean times just to make it by.  There's a reason most small buisnesses fail.  It's not easy.