Beekeeping is a very cheap hobby

[divemaster1963]

poplar wood.jpg
missed photo

[beeware10]

divemaster
good to hear from an old school beekeeper. sometimes things are better if you work for them.

[quevernick]

How do you like the chainsaw mill, I've been thinking about building one.

[NW_Mark]

Dont even get me started on the money that I have spent brewing beer........


At least with a lot of luck, skill, and time you can re-coup some of the investment of hobby beekeeping by selling honey. I may even break even some day. None of my other hobbies have the ability to pay me back.


(Did somebody mention "Reef Tanks"? I got over 4 grand in one of those )

All of my reef new would have cost me over 10 grand. most was used. Now lets add up the cost of fish and corals.I still fork out about 2 grand a year to keep it running (light bulbs, food,elect bill.

So far with bees I might have a grand in it. Should have dones bees a long time ago and would have saved some $$. And if all goes right (fingers crossed) I might get something in return for my hard work.

[Gypsi]

My coral raising failed, so I'll second this.

At least with a lot of luck, skill, and time you can re-coup some of the investment of hobby beekeeping by selling honey. I may even break even some day. None of my other hobbies have the ability to pay me back.


(Did somebody mention "Reef Tanks"? I got over 4 grand in one of those )

[Gypsi]

So as usual you are providing information that you yourself have no experience with and is patently false (not spending a dime).

I thought he said he was a "kept" man
.

[Nabber86]

Well I guess it is all relative. Compared to hobbies like salt water aquaria, compitition BBQ, scuba diving, golf, snow skiing, etc., beekeeping is inexpensive, but not free. Compared to knitting, crochet, and belly button lint collection, beekeeping is outrageously expensive. Beer brewing is somewhere in between, depending on how many extra fridgerators, soda kegs, 3-tier brewing systems, stainless steel, and recirculating mash systems you have.

Anyway, the point I was trying to make earlier is that the idea of beekeeping for free (not spending a dime) is ridiculous. For those who make all of their own woodenware, that is awesome and I applaud you. But aside from cobbling some boxes together with a circular saw (which I have done), building the frames requires a little more skill and woodworking equipment than most people have. If you already have that kind of skill and equipment, how much have you spent on your woodworking shop already?

Also consider - How many hobby beekeepers start out by building their own equipment and then going out and trying to catch a free swarm to save money? From all the newbie posts about which is better (nucs or packages?), my guess is ziltch.

Can beekeeping be done for little money? Heck yeah, for some very few prople. For free (less than a dime)? Hell no.

In conclusion, Ace asserts that anyone can start up and keep bees for free, yet he remains silent as to how much he (or his wife) has spent on the hobby. Nice diversion, but I suspect it wasn't free!

[Nabber86]

My coral raising failed, so I'll second this.

We actually sold a few nice pieces of coral on e-Bay in the beginning and made a couple of hundred dollars, but then the tank got invaded with aptasia and now it is a total wasteland. Continual O&M costs for the electricity of metal halide lamps, and pumps, and salt, and RO/DI top-off water isn't helping the initial capital investment either. Although from some of the attitudes displayed in this thread, I guess it would be easy to just hop on a plane to the south Pacific and load up on as much "free" livestock as I can using my cobbled together scuba equipment, and off-set all of my livestock costs thus making it a "free" hobby.

Again, I am not saying that beekeeping a really expensive hobby. But it is nowhere near free, or even relatively cheap for most people.

[lazy shooter]

I'm in the process of building trebuchet out of treated lumber. When finished I will be able to sling a 10 lb. object 200 plus meters. A profit will never be made with this machine. I probably have a $1,000.00 in my three bee hives after the first year. They could eventually be profitable, but I don't care one way or the other. I have worked long and hard and the bees and the trebuchet are my toys. To my way of thinking I am a hobbyest, but that doesn't mean I want to learn any less than the rest of the beekeepers.

[D Semple]

I netted about 5 k my first year by doing cutouts and catching swarms. This year I hope to double that.

[quevernick]

I did start catching swarms instead of using a package or nuc. Langstroth hives are a little more complicated to build but a Top Bar Hive is incredibly simple to build. Building a Top Bar Hive could be done with just a handsaw and some scrap materials. One of the plastic blue 30 or 55 gallon drums cut in half and some pieces of wood placed on top. I built my TBH out of an old fence my folks had just torn down. In my case I didn't actually keep bee for free I actually made about $50 doing it. I understand that what I did is not the norm but it is definately possible.

[Gypsi]

Those that don't have time or a lot of shop tools spend money.
I'd have done better last year to spend time, maybe. But I
Would have had to just skip bees, and books are no substitute
For hands on experience. I had no free time in the spring.
Either way it would not have been free.

[BeeGhost]

Sure, a person could get into bekeeping for next to nothing if they spend all their free time scrapping. But, if you have four young kids and a full time job, free time is hard to come by. I do make some of my wooden ware, but to me, making frames and hive bodies is too time consuming and are easier to purchase and assemble. When the kids are grown and I am bored as heck, i'll make my own stuff just for something to keep my mind and body busy, but until then, Mann Lake is getting my business.

Hunting and fishing and 4-H are my other hobbies that I really enjoy as well, and each has its own return on investment, but beekeeping is something I wish I would have started years ago, its addicting to me. I havnt seen my bees in almost a week and I am going through withdrawls!!!

[Specialkayme]

I netted about 5 k my first year by doing cutouts and catching swarms.

How much was the equipment that you need to properly do a cutout?

Some cutouts don't require much equipment (a ladder, a multi-tool, and a box to put the bees in) but others will require much more (scafolding, permits, a truck, gas, ect.).

Even if you had the equipment given to you, how much was the labor involved in removing them?

To say you made $5k your first year from doing work, sure. To say you didn't spend a dime to make that first $5k is a beast of a different color.

[Specialkayme]

A guy in TN that I met (and bought some bees off of) was having a similar conversation with me. He told me that you could get into beekeeping for zero dollars (while he was selling me bees, which I thought was hilarious). He told me how I could get the wood for free and make the equipment if I wanted . . . if I had a table saw, a band saw, a router . . .

He went further to explain to me two similar examples. He said I could build a house out of used pallets if I wanted to. Even showed me a drawing of how to do it. He hadn't done it, of course, but theoretically it was free. Then he went on to explain why he was getting out of keeping bees. It cost too much in medications, equipment, time, ect. He started a new hobby, gold panning. He built a bunch of traps and had them laid out in the creeks. He didn't have time to keep bees and watch his gold traps. He said he made most of the traps himself, so saved a crud ton of money. He said you could get into that for free too. I asked how much money he made in gold. He said $5.42. I asked how much he spent on his equipment. He said "probably between $200-$300." Still not free.

Many people will look at it and say you can do it for free. Sure, it's possible, but the time and money you spend on making it "free" negates the point. Even if you get free wood to make hives, free bees from swarms, and get free equipment to make the hives, you still spend money on gas, nails, queens (when you crush one from learning), medications, sugar, pollen sub, ect. Sure you don't have to buy all that stuff, but it's unrealistic to say everyone doesn't have to by any of it.

Anything can be free . . . if you spend enough time on it . . . even building your own home. But the time you spend is still worth something, and if you have a job you can use that time to work, get paid, then buy equipment. Using that rationale, it's cheaper for me to work and buy than it is to make. If it's cheaper than free, it works for me

To say you can make money in the end is a different issue though. Yes you can get paid back for your investment, but to say you don't need to spend a dime isn't the same as saying you re-coup your investment.

[bluegrass]

Anybody know what it cost Al Avitabile to get started? A swarm landed on a bush outside his office window and he took it home in a borrowed trash can and installed it in a borrowed hive box. I think we would all agree he makes more than he spends

I don't know what I have spent in beekeeping over the years, but I know I am not in the red. If it were not a cheap hobby I would not be doing it... I am the most frugal person I know. I have been know to drive around and pick up pallets and cut them up for firewood so I didn't have to buy heating oil or cord wood.

[Nabber86]

I netted about 5 k my first year by doing cutouts and catching swarms. This year I hope to double that.

Some of those swarms probably came from my yard!

[Kieck]

I think the title of the thread should be, "Beekeeping can be an inexpensive hobby." That title would be more precise.

"Cheap" and "inexpensive" are too different things. They shouldn't be confused.

And "can be" fits far better than "is." For most folks, beekeeping isn't inexpensive. I've had a number of people tell me they want to keep bees to "get some free honey." Then they invest hundreds of dollars into equipment and bees and maybe, hopefully, get a little honey back. I usually recommend that if inexpensive honey is their only objective, they would be better off buying honey in bulk.

Also, any number of hobbies or pasttimes can be less expensive than beekeeping. Birdwatching comes to mind. That's a hobby that is enjoyed by millions of people and requires nothing more than watching birds, if one chooses. Like most hobbies, though, people that engage fully in it will likely spend money on guide books and binoculars and feeders and other paraphernalia in their pursuit of the hobby.

[Acebird]

Compared to knitting, crochet, and belly button lint collection, beekeeping is outrageously expensive.

Do you knit or crochet? The yarn will cost you more than the garment is worth.

In conclusion, Ace asserts that anyone can start up and keep bees for free, yet he remains silent as to how much he (or his wife) has spent on the hobby.

You really do have a problem with reading comprehension or maybe it is just that you like to twist the words of other people. I suspect the latter.

Does anyone care that we spent more than 300 on our hobby? It is enjoyment for us. A lot of people blow that for two months of thumb crack.

Some of the previous posts proves my point but you keep arguing that it is false. Is everybody doing it? No, I didn't say that.

Barry, that is cool that you can strip an off topic from another thread and make it separate.

[Nabber86]

You really do have a problem with reading comprehension or maybe it is just that you like to twist the words of other people.

From Ace in the opening post od this thread: "It is the only hobby that I know of where you literally do not have to spend one dime to get into. "

Reading comprehension?!