Is beekeeping profitable? Free apiary profit planner

Will your bees pay for themselves?

Enter your colonies, winter loss, honey yield, prices and costs. The planner projects colonies, honey, nuc sales and pollination income year by year, shows what happens at 10% to 60% winter loss, compares honey-only against nucs and pollination, and finds the number of colonies where the yard covers its fixed costs.

Planning arithmetic on your own numbers and stated assumptions.

1. Your yard

Colonies you start with

Most colonies your yard can hold

Years to project (1-15)

Winter loss (% of colonies that die)

New colonies made per surviving colony

Splits that fail (%)

Splits are new colonies made from surviving ones each spring. Colonies beyond your yard limit are sold as nucs. New splits do not make honey in the year they are made.

2. What you sell

Honey per productive colony (lb)

Share sold retail in jars (%)

Retail price per lb ($)

Bulk/wholesale price per lb ($)

Jar, lid and label cost per retail lb ($)

Price per nuc ($)

Surplus splits sold as nucs (%)

Colonies rented for pollination

Pollination fee per colony ($)

3. What it costs

Mite treatment per colony ($)

Feed per colony per year ($)

Other supplies per colony ($)

Queen cost ($)

Boxes and frames per new colony ($)

Extractor, suit, tools, setup ($)

Equipment life (years)

Insurance, registration, other fixed ($/yr)

Hours per colony per year

Selling time per lb of honey (hours)

What an hour of your time is worth ($)

Queens: every split needs one, plus 30% of surviving colonies are re-queened each year.

Questions people ask

How many beehives do I need to make a profit?

It depends on your winter loss, honey yield and selling price, because fixed costs (insurance, an extractor, registration) are spread over the colonies you keep. The planner shows the break-even number of colonies for your inputs and projects colony count and profit year by year.

Is beekeeping profitable?

Often only at the margin: honey alone rarely pays for a small yard once equipment and your time are counted. Selling nucs, renting colonies for pollination and selling retail rather than bulk usually decide it. The scenario table shows what each line adds to honey alone.

How much does winter loss matter?

More than yield. Each colony lost must be replaced by a split that needs a queen, equipment and a season to produce. The sensitivity table re-runs your plan at 10% to 60% loss.

Is this beekeeping advice?

No. It is arithmetic on the numbers you type in. Colony health, disease and mite management, local regulations and food-safety rules for selling honey are out of scope.

Not decided

Colony health, disease and mite pressure, swarming, drought and forage, local registration and inspection rules, food-safety and labelling rules for selling honey, insurance, and tax. Yields, loss rates and prices vary hugely by region and year; the defaults are placeholders, not forecasts.

Also running a small farm business? See the backyard honey profit calculator for a single-season view, the maple syrup profit calculator, the mushroom fruiting room planner and the u-pick farm profit planner and the sheep and goat flock profit planner.