Taking the first step beyond hobby....$$$$....now or later

[JoeMcc]

Hi again,

I have the bug to take my bee business beyond hobby. A veteran keeper gave me quite a bit of good wisdom. One of his suggestions is pretty straight forward. "Don’t go out and buy all the fancy new equipment before you get the bees. The bees make the money."

I would like to go into the winter with 20 colonies and expand to 40 next year. Right now I have about 40 hive bodies and need to get more if I'm to grow. To run 40 hives next year I need at least 160 boxes if I go all deeps. Should I take out the old credit card (or line of credit) and purchase 120 more boxes and work on getting them assembled and such all winter.... or wait until my 20 hives "make me the money." I’m thinking people that have done well didn’t worry about up front costs and just went for it. I myself tend to sit back and over analyze....and that’s prob why I’m working for someone else. I’m willing to take the risk now and go for it.

Anyway.... I’m open to ideas.

JoeMcc

[Dan Williamson]

Lets face it... it takes money to make money...

I only buy what I can afford to pay for NOW! I'm not saying that you might not need to take out some debt to pay for a big jump.. say forklifts etc and bldgs for a big operation might be necessary....

But to go from 20 hives to 40 hives isn't that much money in the big picture... why not save up the money from your salary or whatever your OTHER income source and make a "capital investment" into your bee business.

I'm not opposed to using credit cards... .as long as you pay them off every month. :cool:

[JoeMcc]

Dan, Thank you for the post.....

I love those trailers....Good way to take care of local polination needs. Also where I live we have a mountain flow....be nice to haul up there...take the tires off and go.

:)

Joe

[Chef Isaac]

Are you taking about the fireweed flow? If so, it is iffy... like this last year :)

There are some good deals around for boxes. For example, this year a friend of one of the guys in the bee club runs a wood working plant and over winter, it is slow so they make woodenware for the beekeepers. It is good stuff and it is local so no shipping is needed.

I think one of the best moves was to covert a deep into two nucs, side by side. Convert all deeps that way so you can run nucs if needed.

I talked with Bjorn for a long time a while back and he has a lot of advice for me. One thing that stuck out was to take all your colonies in mid summer and identify which ones are doing ok/ poorly. Break those into nucs, kill the queen, requeen and over winter. Test them come spring and break them down to three catagories.. the ones that display great traits you are looking for, the ones that are ok, and the ones that need some help. the ones that are ok are sellers and the ones that are poor (in the traits you are looking for that is... not poor like unhealthy) are allowed to build up and then are split into late summer nucs with new queens to go into winter.

For me, this works awesome. Overwintering nucs is great.

To make money, in my opinion, one needs to diversify into different areas. What that means to you is up to you but that is important to my wife and I. We believe that the bees should make the money. At first, they will not but it will equal out some time and hopefully they will start to pay for themselves.

[Chef Isaac]

Are far are you away from me Joe? Maybe you and I am Jason, another beesource member from our neck of woods should get together sometime and have some breakfest or lunch and BS for a while.

[JoeMcc]

Are far are you away from me Joe? Maybe you and I am Jason, another beesource member from our neck of woods should get together sometime and have some breakfest or lunch and BS for a while.

Yeah we could do that... We could meet in Everett or lynwood some time. Just give me a cuple weeks heads up. A Sat would be great.

Joe

[ScadsOBees]

.. or wait until my 20 hives "make me the money."

You might be waiting for a while...

On the other hand, if you buy now, you might be saddled with a credit card debt if you don't have "other" money to pay for it.

I agree with Dan.

[JoeMcc]

You might be waiting for a while...

On the other hand, if you buy now, you might be saddled with a credit card debt if you don't have "other" money to pay for it.

I agree with Dan.

Im going to do something... I might lose my butt...but at least ive made an effort...lol

I dont want to look back anymore and wonder what I COULD have done.

Joe

[HVH]

My wife and I have expanded our business with demand. Word of mouth and a yearly increase at the Farmer's Market have allowed us to grow. Growing slowly is frustrating if you want to become self employed, but in retrospect, all of those stupid mistakes on 5 colonies made for fewer mistakes on 10 colonies which went a long way towards 20 colonies and so on. I am trying to expand 50 colonies into 50 colonies plus 140 nucs this year, which will be 190 colonies next year. The honey business has paid for the expansion and I didn't have to dip into savings.
I understand chomping at the bit, and have considered a more rapid approach, but it seems like you have to be willing to sell wholesale to move large volumes of honey, or build up a retail base which usually takes some time. Has anyone on this thread ever ended up with more honey than they could sell (to the retail market) because they expanded too quickly?

[jasontatro]

I'll chime in here...as an accountant. There's nothing wrong with taking on the debt if the return is going to be higher than the expense. If not, write it off as a business loss.

The saying is true....it takes money to make money (or maybe it shoud be, it takes honey to make money :))

A future meetup sounds good to me.

Jason

[Joel]

"I dont want to look back anymore and wonder what I COULD have done."

I have a friend who works for Hospice. She says the most consistent regret she hears from terminally ill patient is the thing they really wanted to go for and never did!

Joe as someone who has gone that road here's a couple of pieces of quick advice.

While your small start looking for your niche. That took me almost 6 years. If you want to run it as a business accept up front you're going to comprimise some of the fun hobby part because once you have customers, production deadlines and responsibilities the clock is always ticking, you will feel times winged beat at your back many days. A good day in the bee yard is like heaven, a bad day in the honey house can be miserable and discouraging. Look at your business where it is now and where you want to be in 10 years. Do a business plan every year. You won't often meet your goals but you'll get further than if you don't have a road map. Don't focus on making money, focus on being a good beekeeper and grow your hive numbers with your experiance. A satisfied customer who got a good product at a fair price is worth $1,000 of newspaper advertising. You'll never make selling wholesale and always set your prices fair and have a good product.
Be prepared for many challenges and failure along the way and be willing to slog through bad crop year.

If it's something you really want to do, go for it. Don't let uncle naysayer or brother never make it impact your decision. Life is too short to stop chasing dreams.

I happen to think our industry is in a time of great opportunity for good, dedicated beekeepers.

[JoeMcc]

"I dont want to look back anymore and wonder what I COULD have done."

I have a friend who works for Hospice. She says the most consistent regret she hears from terminally ill patient is the thing they really wanted to go for and never did!
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I happen to think our industry is in a time of great opportunity for good, dedicated beekeepers.

Joel... Thank you!

JoeMcc

[JoeMcc]

Thank you everyone for the good info.... i really appreciate it!!!

JoeMcc

[bigeddie]

JoeMcc, chase that dream, but pay as you go. You can do it and won't have payments hanging over your head. Trust me, when you have to start making payments, it won't be near as much fun as having your operation debt free. I'm sure some here will disagree, but,paying intrest is not the way to get ahead. For example, if you could set up what you need for, say, $100.00, if you pay intrest you may wind up paying $120.00 per hive. Now if you pay cash, save the intrest, you could have 4 more hives bought and paid for. Now you have 44 hives, no debt and ALL the profit will be YOURS!!
I know its hard to wait,but you'll be glad you did.
What ever you do, I wish you the very best of luck. :D


Eddie

[Tim Hall]

I have to agree with Eddie. I'm not into bees for profit, but I am self employed in other ways. My philosophy is to keep your liabilities as low as possible...don't rely on banks or technology to get you what you want. You'll never be Fortune 500, but you'll likely find your work more rewarding and less stressful than when you're tied to a note or some type of fancy technological investment. Simplicity offers the most flexibility and room for creative growth.

[Barry]

I have the bug to take my bee business beyond hobby.

[snip]

Anyway.... I’m open to ideas.

Did you catch Jerry Hayes' Classroom article in the April ABJ?

I thought it was excellent.

http://www.beesource.com/pov/hayes/beeratrace.htm

[jean-marc]

Joe:

Borrow the money and get the stuff. Make the purchase just before you need it. I personally purchase it assembled and treated (paraffin and rosen). I don't especially like assembling the stuff. I'd rather do little all winter and save it for the beekeeping season. That's what I do best. Now for the bad news, if it takes you all winter to assemble 120 boxes you'll have a hard go commercial beekeeping.

Remember it's the bees that make/earn the money. Spend all the money on boxes frames, tops and bottoms. Double the size of the outfit every year. Sell 25% next spring. That will finance the equipment cost to double up again. When you absolutely need a truck then sell hives. Do not get the truck first, that will kill you.

If memory serves me right I had about 150 before I got one. I had more than 1000 hives before I got a extractor and that was only because the buildings I bought came with one.

Jean-Marc

[JoeMcc]

Now for the bad news, if it takes you all winter to assemble 120 boxes you'll have a hard go commercial beekeeping.

Jean-Marc

LOL.... I guess that does sound bad. What I should have said is assemble the equiptment and get them treated before I need them...not wait and scramble at the last minute because next spring creaped up on me. I have been debating assembling frames myself too. I cant decide if it's worth the extra $.50 a frame to buy them assembled. Considering the possible blowouts ect.... I think I will just order them assembled. I have a stapler and brad nail already....but think I will order them assembled. The commercial guys I know buy them assembled and put their labors somewhere else. Boxes go together quick and I have my own dip tank...so thats not a problem.

JoeMcc

[Chef Isaac]

That is why black plastic pierco frames are the best... for me that is.