Beekeeping in Russia has always been popular and brought considerable income to apiary owners. This type of business remains in our top ten most common types of home business, along with breeding rabbits or chickens. Unlike breeding animals and birds, breeding insects does not take much time, but still has its own specific features and characteristics.
The benefits of beekeeping or why you should do it
Before breeding insects, you need to clearly answer the question of what capabilities and initial basic resources you have and what kind of profit you would like to receive in the near future after you start breeding bees.
Bees are absolutely independent. They lead their natural way of life, which in no way intersects with human life. Bees do not need to be fed morning and evening by the hour, they do not need to be treated (only treated for varroatosis), and, most importantly, they do not need to be killed. But the bees will bring a lot of different products of their vital activity. Having collected honey, wax or propolis, you will already have positive dynamics in your business, and if you are lucky, you will establish sales of bee venom, which is so necessary in pharmaceutical companies.
Beekeeping, of course, should be practiced by those people who have already completed the school of working in an apiary. From scratch, that is, starting beekeeping from scratch is too difficult, but there are exceptions.
For an experienced person, beekeeping as a business can pay for itself within a season or even begin to make a profit, but a beginner will not achieve such results in the first season. Therefore, if you are already an experienced beekeeper, then do not be afraid to become an independent beekeeper, you will be great at it. But if there is not enough experience in communicating with bees, but opening an apiary and installing hives, proceed at your own peril and risk, but if you have good basic conditions, you can try.
When answering the question about profit, it is worth noting that the beekeeping season is on average six months. That is, the apiary will bear fruit within six months, but the profit from it should be counted on for a year. If you want your apiary to become your only source of income, then do not forget about the short duration of the beekeeping season.
In rural areas, fur animals are also relevant: profitability, costs and income, possible problems.
It should be located in an ecologically clean area, as far from the city as possible. When arranging a place, it is important to provide storage facilities for finished products.
Important nuances of apiary placement
- the ideal site where it is planned to breed bees should be located in a rural area, but at a sufficient distance from the residential sector (to avoid bees attacking neighbors);
- the houses should be located at some distance from the ground;
- fields with honey plants should be located on the site and next to it;
- there should be no ponds or swamps nearby (humidity negatively affects the health of insects);
- it is necessary to divide the apiary into two components: one for the reproduction of bees, the second for the production of products.
Beehives and apiary equipment
Bees- demanding insects, so choosing good housing for them is very important. The quality of the hives directly affects the productivity of the farm. We select their type based on the breed of bee and the size of the apiary.
The design of hives can be horizontal or vertical. When choosing, you should give preference to models with a small number of tiers.
For beginners It makes sense to give preference to horizontal hives. They are more convenient to maintain, do not require lifting the housings, and in winter they require minimal insulation, unlike vertical models.
You can make houses yourself. Suitable materials include wood, polystyrene foam, plywood, and polycarbonate. The feeder is made of a special dense mesh. After assembly, you need to paint the hive.
Necessary equipment for an apiary
- spool holder;
- booth;
- drinking bowls;
- pattern;
- thermometer;
- storage devices (tanks).
All this can be ordered online or bought in a specialty store.
Buying bees
There is such a thing as a bee family. This is a complete bee colony, which includes the queen and other bees (about 50,000). Provided that we open an apiary with 20 houses, it will take about a million bees to completely fill them.
Regarding the breed: for the middle zone, the optimal and most productive are Caucasian, Krajina and Italian bees. They are disease resistant, live long, and collect pollen well.
Organization of work in the apiary
When you first start, you need to carefully examine the families. If they do not have a uterus, it is necessary to attach one. Small or weak colonies should be united with each other, and dead bees should be removed.
The first feeding is carried out in early spring and includes the following ingredients: 2 kg granulated sugar with 2 tbsp. spoons of vinegar. These components are mixed and heated, and after cooling they are brought into the houses at night.
You need to do apiary work all the time, once a week monitoring the composition of the family, checking the presence of the uterus, preventing flight. Good theoretical knowledge is required, which can be gleaned from specialized forums dedicated to beekeeping.
The first honey selection is carried out in June. To do this, the beekeeper takes out the sealed frames and sends them to the honey extractor.
So that the bees don't get sick, the hives must be insulated for winter. It is worth starting preparations at the end of August. Houses need to be insulated from the sides and top. It is necessary to ensure good ventilation between the buildings of the houses.
Initial Investment
The idea of opening an apiary is suitable for those who have minimal starting capital. Approximate investment and operating expenses for one year will be about $11,500.
This includes preparation of premises for the cold season, purchase of bee families and equipment, arrangement of houses, wages for a beekeeper (per person), business registration and taxes.
Sales of products
You can sell products either through friends, at honey fairs, or by placing advertisements in newspapers or on the Internet. The specificity of honey is such that once you deliver a quality product, customers will no longer refuse you and will recommend you to their friends.
Beekeeping products and prices for them
- honey 9$ per kg;
- wax $7 per 100 g;
- propolis $7 per 100 g;
- stranding $600 per 100 g;
- bee venom $10 per 100 g;
- beebread $30 per 100 g;
- royal jelly $14 per 100 g.
If you sell only honey, the net income from an apiary with 20 houses will be $6,200 per year. When selling other beekeeping products, another 50% can be added to this amount. In this case, the income will be about $9,300.
The number of families and, accordingly, hives can be gradually increased by 10 pieces per year, which will allow more and more over time.
We found out how to breed bees and get a stable income from the sale of beekeeping products. and allowing for constant development.
Fragrant, sweet honey is not such a simple product as it might seem at first glance. And we are talking here primarily about its production, in which the usual scheme “buy equipment - buy raw materials - make a finished product” does not work.
To make honey, you will have to get out into the fields, closer to flowering plants, and set up an apiary. This task, frankly speaking, is not an easy one, because although the bees work without days off and without smoking breaks, they require certain conditions of maintenance and care.
Where to start?
The first thing to remember if you decide to get into beekeeping is the fact that agriculture (and this is the industry you will work in) carries very high risks. This is precisely the area of activity that largely depends not on the efforts of the entrepreneur, but on unpredictable weather conditions. For example, if the spring turns out to be cold, then the bee colony will develop more slowly and may not have time to gain strength in time for the main honey harvest.
As a result, the main bribe may bring less honey than originally planned. In this situation, as you can see, there are a lot of “ifs,” “maybes,” and “woulds,” which eloquently hints that it is extremely difficult to predict.
And yet, to some extent, you can protect your business by properly preparing for the start. First you need to evaluate the food supply, i.e. what honey plants are there in the region, how many there are, when they release nectar. This can be done using special plant flowering calendars. They contain information about when honey plants bloom and how much nectar they produce per 1 hectare of area.
Next, you should get to know local beekeepers and find out from them how much honey they collect on average per season. Moreover, it is better to ask 5-7 people and find out information about more than one year. It is advisable to collect statistics for 10 years to again reduce risks. Find out what method of beekeeping your colleagues use - a nomadic apiary or a stationary one.
Consider what breed of bees is best to work with. The ideal option is to choose those bees that are most adapted to local conditions. For example, Central Russian bees tolerate frost well, are resistant to a number of diseases, and are effective in late, strong honey harvest. They are recommended for the Central, Northwestern, Volga, Ural, and Siberian federal districts. But bees of this breed are considered very aggressive, and many beekeepers do not like to work with them.
Another breed of bees - the gray mountain Caucasian - is recommended for use in the regions of the North Caucasus, Central, Volga and Southern federal districts. It has a distinctive feature - a long proboscis, thanks to which the bee can collect nectar and pollinate those plants where other breeds of bees cannot reach.
But it’s not enough just to purchase bees of a suitable breed; you also need to take care of the commercial component of your business.
There are two ways here: wholesale sales and sales to retail consumers. The first scenario assumes that you need fairly large production volumes, a large number of bees (at least 60 families), and therefore significant investments.
For those who have no experience in this area at all, it is better to start small and tune in to working with retail customers. Conduct a little marketing research, look at where and how other beekeepers sell their products: who does it successfully, who does not, and why?
You can also try to take honey from someone and sell it, call potential clients, find out the price, terms of cooperation, and preferably develop your own sales channels. This route is more troublesome, but the margin is much higher than with wholesale sales.
It must be remembered that in addition to honey, the bee colony also produces many other useful products: propolis, wax, beebread, royal jelly, pollen, etc. Some of these products can be obtained without harm to the main honey collection and, thereby, increase the profitability of the apiary.
Everyone knows that honey comes in many different types: flower, buckwheat, chestnut, linden... Those types that are the least available on the market usually cost more. The type of honey a beekeeper produces depends on which honey plants grow in abundance in your region. But you can get rarer varieties into your collection by organizing migrations over long distances for the necessary honey plants.
Investment size
The costs of organizing beekeeping can be as high as you like. The amount of investment depends mainly on the goals of the novice beekeeper, so
Decide what you want: an industrial professional apiary with 1000 bee colonies or an amateur one with 10-15 hives.
The main costs at the start will be for the purchase of the bee colonies themselves, and for the purchase of various equipment and supplies: hives, frames, sushi, wax, honey extractors, containers for honey, etc.
But the matter will not be limited to a one-time purchase of equipment and bees. The apiary needs to be periodically replenished with “fresh blood”, ordering varietal queens that will renew the apiary, purchasing foundation, medicines, and equipment. You can optimize costs by breeding queens yourself, but this is hardly possible for a novice beekeeper.
When starting an industrial apiary for 60 or more families, the expenses can be quite significant: the cost of one family alone is about 5-8 thousand rubles. Thus, the purchase of bees alone (60 families) can cost up to half a million rubles, and to this should be added the costs of the hives themselves and equipment.
You can save up for a small apiary on your own by gradually increasing the number of hives and production volumes. If you decide to take on a big business, you can attract individual investors or take out a loan. There are specialized banks that are engaged in lending to projects mainly in agriculture.
There are also now government programs to support beginning farmers, for example, one of them is called “Beginner Farmer.” You can receive up to 1.5 million rubles in subsidies.
Step-by-step instruction
So, you have decided on your goals, studied the market, outlined product distribution channels, and even found financing. It's time to start purchasing equipment. What exactly to buy again depends on the number of colonies and beekeeping method. If you are planning a nomadic apiary, you will additionally need special carts for transporting bees, and if the number of families is large, then loaders, machines and pavilions for transporting bees are also used.
Let's consider the option of organizing a stationary apiary for one family. Here's what you'll need:
- Bee family (1 piece);
- Hive with a lid, 12 frames (1 piece);
- Housings for the hive. They are used during honey collection so that the bees have somewhere to carry nectar and process it into honey (1 pc.);
- Frames for the hive. For example, let’s take Dadan’s frames. One hive will need 12 of these frames. Plus 12 more of the same frames are needed in the case (Total - 24 pcs.);
- Dry - dry empty honeycombs. The queen lays eggs in them, the brood develops, and later the bees store honey in such frames. One hive needs 13 such honeycombs; they are added as the family develops;
- wax. They put it on frames. They substitute it when the family begins to develop, the honeycombs are whitewashed. At this time, bees secrete a lot of wax, so you need to replace old ones that are discarded with new frames.
- Wire. Used for laying foundation onto a frame (1 skein);
- Device for waxing. A roller that presses the foundation to the wire, and a board according to the size of the foundation to make it easier to spread (1 pc.);
- Canvas. Cotton fabric that covers the frames in the hive on top (1 pc.);
- Cushion or insulation under the hive cover (1 piece);
- Stands for the hive (2-4 pcs.);
- Portable boxes for frames (2 pcs.);
- Honey extractor 4-frame manual or automatic (1 pc.);
- Knife for unsealing honeycombs (1 pc.);
- Gloves for working with bees (1 pair);
- Smoker. A special device for fumigating bees with smoke. Used in beekeeping to pacify bees when inspecting bee colonies (1 pc.);
- Beekeeping suit with mask (1 pc.);
- Sieve for straining honey (1 pc.);
- Brush for sweeping bees from frames (1 pc.);
- Containers for honey, for example, 23-liter cube containers (2-3 pcs.);
With such volumes, it makes no sense to contact equipment suppliers directly; it is better to contact large specialized stores. When choosing, you can rely on a variety of criteria: price, proximity to your region, product availability. But the most important thing is not to damage the equipment during transportation. Some transport companies even make special frames to ensure its safety.
Where to buy bees and how to care for them?
The bees themselves can be bought in specialized bee nurseries, for example, in the Maykop beekeeping stronghold.
In the south of Russia, bees develop earlier and faster, which means they have time to increase their strength by May.
You can also buy bee colonies from private individuals who professionally breed bees of a certain breed. Usually they do not sell the hives themselves, but bags of bees. A package is a small wooden box containing several frames (3-4 pcs.). Please note that such a package must contain brood, a flying bee and a queen. To ensure that the bees you purchase are healthy, you need to conduct a visual inspection of them, and also require an apiary passport with notes on the diseases of the families.
But buying bees is only half the battle; delivering them to the apiary is equally important. There are certain rules for transporting bees: the bag must have holes for ventilation, drinking bowls with water and a sufficient amount of food. During transportation, the boxes with the colonies are well sealed so that the bees cannot get out.
Bees live collectively and do not require special care, as they are adapted for life in the wild. Nevertheless, it is worth familiarizing yourself with the rules for their content in advance. As a rule, the beekeeper carries out inspections several times a year, not counting the pitching, sets up frames for expanding the bee nest in the spring, completes the nest for wintering, makes sure that there is enough food for wintering, and insulates the hives.
Bees can get sick; the most common disease is nosematosis; varroa mites are also dangerous. The beekeeper in the fall and spring treats bee colonies with special veterinary drugs or natural substances (garlic, pine needle decoction, etc.).
Collection and sale of honey
Beekeeping does not require a large staff. For example, for an apiary of 50 families, 1 person is enough. For pumping (honey collection) and transportation of bees, you can hire seasonal workers - 2-3 people. However, such auxiliary work does not require special knowledge.
Honey is collected when it is ripe. It is important not to miss this moment, since unripe honey can turn sour due to high humidity. The “readiness” of honey is determined by sealed combs. Usually honey can be pumped out several times during the season, but if the honey flow is short or weak, then it is pumped out only once.
As already mentioned, finished honey can be sold both wholesale and retail. In the first case, your clients will be resellers, honey processing enterprises, and confectionery factories. In the second case, you can offer honey to neighbors and friends, take part in fairs, or open your own retail outlet.
The placement of the apiary plays a particularly important role. For those who intend to start beekeeping in their own apartment, it is better to abandon this idea. Bees need a permanent honey supply, which, as a rule, does not exist in the city. In addition, there is a high probability of being stung by people who are allergic to bee venom.
Therefore, it is still better to take the apiary outside the city. In this case, the first site that comes across will not work. There are sanitary standards for keeping bees, which you need to rely on when choosing a place for hives.
If we are talking about a stationary apiary, it should be located at a distance of 500 meters or more from roads and railways, as well as power lines and sawmills. It is also necessary to take into account the distance from chemical and confectionery factories, television and radio broadcasting stations and airfields. It must be at least 5 kilometers.
There are also certain rules for nomadic apiaries. First of all, they should be located close to sources of honey collection and “close” to each other - at least 1.5 kilometers from one apiary to another. You cannot move more than 3 kilometers from stationary apiaries.
How to place hives inside the apiary itself is also regulated by sanitary standards. In particular, they must be 10 meters away from the border of the land plot. Otherwise, there should be a fence, building or bush two meters high between the hives and the neighboring area.
In the hives themselvesconditionsmust be close to wild nature. Therefore, wooden hives used to be very popular, but now more and more people choosepolyurethane foam (PPU) hives .
It is important that the hive has good ventilation, insulation and several entrances in the right places. And of course the hive should not be crowded; remember that it is designed for only one bee colony.
Don’t forget also about utility rooms for storing equipment, frames, cases and honey. In addition, you will need a special winter hut for bees. All premises must be dry and free of rodents.
Documentation
An apiary requires a fairly large amount of documentation in order to operate in accordance with the law. First of all, you need to coordinate the placement of the apiary with the veterinary service and obtain a special conclusion from it - the apiary passport. A veterinarian is assigned to the apiary, who must monitor the health of the bees, their processing, and inspect the apiary.
In addition, registration is required with the administration of the rural settlement to which your site belongs. The administration issues a certificate stating that you have bees and enters information about them in its business book.
If the option of a nomadic apiary is being considered, you also need to coordinate its placement with the farmers whose territory you are entering.
In addition, an apiary is a business, which means it needs to be registered accordingly. In my opinion, it is better to register the apiary as a peasant farm (peasant farm). In this case, you can receive preferential conditions from the tax authorities.
Personal experience
Many economists, political scientists and successful businessmen unanimously argue that agriculture today is the most promising area. The relevance of its various branches is growing by leaps and bounds. In the modern world, there is even a tendency for the population to migrate to villages away from the noise of the city.
If you intend to start a business in the agricultural sector, boundless horizons open up before you. Beekeeping is one of the most popular niches in this industry. It is suitable for those people who are ready for quite a significant investment of labor and time. True, the profit more than justifies all the efforts. This business offers many undeniable advantages, but there are also risks and negatives.
Pros and cons of this type of business
The demand for tasty and extremely healthy honey will never decrease. And this makes beekeeping a very attractive and promising niche for your own business. And besides, the resulting product is easy to sell through a variety of channels, and the business itself does not require large start-up capital, paying for itself in the shortest possible time.
Judge for yourself, to start beekeeping, on average you need a thousand US dollars to buy bees, as well as starting equipment.
You can expand your business not only by purchasing new hives and bee families, but also by organizing the production of carved wax candles. If you have an apiary, you receive considerable income not only from the honey itself, but also from the sale of pollen, propolis, bee bread and royal jelly. Although collecting propolis and pollen is a very labor-intensive process, the price of these products is very high. In addition, in this case, production is practically waste-free, which is the most profitable option.
But keep in mind that you must have relevant experience and deep knowledge in this field. Bees require certain living conditions, are very dependent on weather conditions and get sick from time to time. There are also unprofitable years when these insects require special care and feeding, without bringing much income. The lack of a certain amount of knowledge about all the nuances of beekeeping can lead to the loss of the entire business overnight. True, you can hire an experienced beekeeper who will look after the apiary, but this will force you to incur additional expenses.
Another option for such a business also involves the presence of an apiary, but beekeeping products are sold to wholesalers. The pitfall is the low purchase cost. You risk losing a lot of money, as a result of which the business will simply generate extremely little income.
Drawing up a business plan
Before writing a business plan, carefully study the market and the characteristics of competitors in your area. This will allow you to understand all the difficulties that you are at risk of encountering and will help you to clearly define your goals. The experience of competitors will also show all the points that need to be emphasized so as not to burn out at the very beginning of your career.
First of all, you will need:
- Availability of an appropriate plot of land. It should be located in a dry, non-swampy, quiet area away from farms with animals and dirty water bodies. An equally important point is the proximity of forests, flowering gardens or fields.
- Next, you need to think through your work space down to the smallest detail. Be sure to take care of having a special “cubicle” for the cold season. It must be insulated and reliably protect the apiary itself from wind and frost, providing the beekeeper with easy access for feeding insects.
- You will also need a special room for pumping out honey and a working extension for working with frames (gluing foundation and cleaning the frames themselves), storing various equipment and a place to store honey.
- There should also be an office on site for written work, where you can keep a beekeeper’s diary and read specialized literature. Be sure to include specialized books and magazines in your expense item, since successful beekeeping requires constant self-education.
- It will be a huge plus if you have your own transport. If you don’t have one, it is highly recommended to buy a car, preferably a large one. You will need it to transport hives for medical examination, to transport honey and bee packages.
- The very first expense item is the purchase of necessary raw materials. It represents 70% of the total investment. This refers to the purchase of queen bees, as well as frames with bee brood. The price will vary depending on the bee breed. One bee colony will cost about sixty dollars. You can buy hives new or used to save some money. Their average cost is about eighty dollars apiece.
- It is also necessary to purchase certain equipment, which includes a honey extractor, cans for storing honey, chisels, wax plates, special clothing, gloves and much more. The purchase of equipment will cost a fairly decent amount.
- You should definitely buy thermal chambers for dissolving honey, as well as mixers for blending honey, which are somewhat expensive.
- If you have a significant amount of money, you can build your own laboratory. It allows you to analyze honey, but it also costs from two hundred thousand dollars. If at first you cannot afford this, you will need to take into account the costs of a quality certificate, which can be obtained from specialized laboratories.
- The expense item must also include medications. Preventive treatment with sanapin occurs twice a year.
As for the staff, a small private apiary can be managed alone. But during the period of active honey collection, as a rule, at least one assistant is needed. For this, it will be possible to hire a seasonal worker. If the territory is quite large, or you do not have sufficiently deep knowledge in this area, you will also have to take into account the monthly salary of employees.
A separate expense item is provided for the preparation of all necessary documentation for opening such a business. All additional costs, in addition to the purchase of the bees and hives themselves, will cost about four hundred dollars.
The business plan must be written down to the smallest detail and strictly adhere to each point. This is the only way your success will be guaranteed.
The profitability of the business will be influenced by many factors: the presence of competitors, your experience in beekeeping, the available material resources, as well as the method of selling the products produced.
During the season, which lasts from May to August, on average, up to seven tons of honey can be obtained from a standard apiary. One kilogram of this product is valued at about four dollars. Accordingly, the annual profit is about thirty thousand dollars, of which half will go to costs associated with production.
There are two types of apiary: nomadic and stationary. Each type requires a certain type of hive, and also provides requirements for the territory itself.
A nomadic apiary can be transported from field to field depending on the flowering time of certain plants. It requires the presence of assistants, but, as a rule, allows you to get many times more honey.
In case of a large number of honey plants in the area, it is recommended to install a permanent apiary. When installing it, keep in mind that the optimal distance to the flowering field is two kilometers.
Deciding on the type of honey
In order to decide on the type of honey, you need to understand which variety is popular in your region. To do this, you can conduct your own research and also seek advice from a specialist.
Varieties vary significantly in price. The source can be mint, linden, clover, buckwheat, heather, sunflower, coriander and many other plants. The price is determined by the beneficial properties of honey and taste characteristics. Given your geographic location, you can choose the type of honey that will bring the most profit.
Which bees to choose
This choice is influenced by the climatic and botanical characteristics of your region. In protected areas, for example, only a certain breed of bees is allowed.
The main types are:
- Experienced beekeepers recommend that beginners start with Carpathian or gray mountain Caucasian breeds They are quite peaceful and easier to care for. In addition, they make better use of weak honey flow and very energetically collect pollen from blooming flowers. The downside of Caucasian bees is pain and poor tolerance of cold weather. The Carpathian breed, in turn, is characterized by weak swarming and great endurance during wintering.
- Central Russian bees more evil and require the approach of an experienced specialist. They can withstand cold weather more easily and are also less painful, but full equipment is required to work with them.
- You must be extremely careful when purchasing foreign breeds, which include Italian, Ukrainian, Buckfast. These queens are sold only abroad, are very expensive and are subject to lengthy checks.
Experts unanimously say: it is advisable to give preference to bees that are traditional for your region. This is especially true in cases where the duration of cold weather in a given area reaches five or more months.
Is certification required?
The requirements for certification are very flexible. In order to obtain the right to sell honey, you must obtain an ordinary permit, which is issued in veterinary laboratories. It is inexpensive and is issued after examining samples to determine the quality of honey.
The special certificate includes a long list of indicators and values. It indicates the content of water, tin, sucrose, reducing sugars, toxic substances and impurities. Also, a separate category is devoted to the rules for storing and transporting honey, which must meet certain sanitary standards. Requirements apply to both storage temperature and packaging containers.
It’s a different question if you want to sell your products in supermarkets or abroad. In this case, it is necessary to register an LLC. After this, the apiary, finished products and production workshop must undergo full certification.
Product sales channels
In this regard, the beekeeping business has the broadest prospects. Small entrepreneurs who own 10-20 bee families mainly sell their products on their own.
For larger entrepreneurs, it is possible to sell honey through large supermarkets, which purchase products in large wholesale quantities.
About prospects
According to reviews from experienced beekeepers, this business has truly enormous prospects. The beekeeping market is not yet structured, and honey prices are increasing every year. And demand is only growing, both in the domestic and foreign markets. People are gradually coming to understand the value of a natural product, and in conditions of poor ecology and low quality of life, an increasing percentage of the population is actively interested in a healthy lifestyle.
The domestic product will be valued higher and will be in greater demand among buyers than the Chinese product, which is now abundant on the market. After all, the quality of the latter is under huge question, due to the active use of genetically modified crops. For example, the United States, which until recently was the main buyer of Chinese honey, has already limited its supplies to its country.
The most profitable time to start such a business is the beginning of May. At this time, the gardens are just finishing blooming, and the weather is warm, so bee colonies become the strongest by this period. The market price for these insects increases slightly in May, but the costs, as a rule, are justified already in the first season.
About the development of business in Russia and the honey market in the country as a whole - in the following video:
Today there are many different artificial substitutes for natural honey. Despite this, real honey continues to be in great demand. Therefore, beekeeping as a business can be considered very profitable.
Beekeeping as a business is a very promising and quite profitable activity. Based on statistics from recent years, the profitability of beekeeping is 15-25%. However, significant profit can be obtained only if you have at least 100-150 bee colonies in your apiary.
Possible risks and losses
Keeping bees has a number of risks that can be divided into two categories:
1. Risks that are beyond the control of the beekeeper:
- cold or very hot summers;
- frequent rain, hail, strong winds;
- thefts, fires, intentional sabotage by strangers;
- natural disasters.
2. Risks that are possible due to human intervention:
- accidental loss;
- the state of the bee swarm is neglected;
- rough inspection of bee colonies.
Features of doing business
The first thing you should think about is where to organize the farm? The main conditions for choosing a place for an apiary are a flat, fairly large and dry piece of land with a slight slope. It will have a good effect on the apiary if trees grow densely around its territory; they will serve as protection from strong winds and direct sunlight on a hot day. If this condition cannot be met, then a high fence will need to be erected around the apiary.
At a distance of about 2-3 km from the area allocated for the apiary, different types of honey plants should grow. It is desirable that their flowering periods differ from each other. A positive aspect would be the growth of early flowering honey plants near the apiary. This circumstance will allow the bees to quickly recover after the cold season.
It is important that today rent for setting up an apiary on working farms is most often not charged. Farmers are interested in placing beehives with bees on their plots, since this results in additional pollination of crops. In addition, the forester will also approve the breeding of bees for business if you want to set up an apiary in the forest area under his control.
As for the hives and bees themselves, the latter, together with the former, can be purchased from experienced beekeepers. Of course, you can buy new hives, but if you prefer to save money, then used ones will do. Using used hives will not affect the productivity of the apiary in any way. We recommend using the Dadan or Ruta hives that are already familiar to everyone.
Business plan
Before you start selling bees, it is necessary, based on the estimated size of the future apiary, to calculate the approximate costs and benefits, as well as profitability - an apiary business plan. Below we have provided calculations that will help you draw up your production and sales plan. The figures are given for the minimum size of an apiary at which it can already be called a profitable business - 30 hives.
The beginning of the day will indicate the costs:
- 1) will cost 3800 rubles. We get – 30x3800=114000 rubles;
- all kinds of beekeeping equipment, equipment and a number of necessary veterinary drugs. They will demand to allocate about 15,000 rubles more for all this;
- veterinary support will cost 7,000 rubles;
- We recommend that bee colonies with hives, as is now customary, be insured. Insurance for one bee colony costs on average 400 rubles. We end up with 30x400=12,000 rubles.
Adding up all the numbers, we get an amount equal to 148,000 rubles.
Now let's talk about the profitability of the farm, which is expressed in considerable income. On average, about 30 kg of honey can be collected from one hive during the first year of apiary operation. Later, the annual honey requirement, with proper beekeeping management, will reach 50 kg.
You can sell 1 kg of honey on the market for at least 250 rubles (the price rises every year). Therefore, from 30 hives your annual income will be 225,000 rubles. And we only calculated the profit for the main product of beekeeping, without taking into account additional apiary products (beebread/pollen, propolis, royal jelly, etc.), which will bring additional money (about 30%).
Loading...