The value of your product will vary greatly depending on where you are, what's your competition, quality, and what's your attitude. And are you good at marketing. The one key that I recommend, is that if at possible, cut out the middle man. If you don't have the time to run your own sales point, see if you can sell it on consignment at local stores. That will at least support your profit margin a little more than just selling it to the store so they can mark it up 100%. After all, one can go to Walmart and get bulk honey for $2-3/lb. But that's because a packer somewhere bought it by the barrel for probably less than $1/bbl, from a commercial beekeeper that just wanted to get rid of it. If you have surplus, don't just dump it to a packer at a low cost, unless you absolutely have to. It doesn't go bad, so if you have space, just store it up until you find a more lucrative outlet. As Michael mentioned above, last summer was bad down here, and honey was hard to come by. With the drought, the cost of hay for livestock shot through the roof, and people were importing from as far away as Iowa. Not sure that honey jumped that much, but it's just a good example of how climate is also a factor.
But IMHO, the quality of store honey doesn't hold a flame to the quality of my own, fresh out of the back yard. I harvested out 3 lbs a couple weeks ago, cut it as chunk comb, and sold it for about $6/lb. I sold all four jars before noon, simply by bringing them to work and telling a few friends. I also set out a jar of incidental honey that I had collected when fixing comb problems. It was cloudy with pollen, but the taste was not compromised. I meant to set it out as bait, for samples, but also by noon, someone took the "free" on the lid a little to literal, and swiped the whole jar! Whoever it was didn't even bother to say "thanks":no:
Be proud of your product, and don't waste a drop. Use everything you can from the hive, and you should see good value, as long as the margins and the market is there to fill. I'd also recommend focusing on niche markets. Again, you can go buy liquid honey almost anywhere. But have you ever seen chunk comb on the store shelf? Not I. What's funny to me, is cutting chunk comb is actually less work than extracting (again, IMO), yet I can demand a higher price as it is a hard to come by commodity, and people absolutely love it! In AR and LA you might find the market already saturated with "local" honey, and that is certainly where the biggest gains are. For once I am lucky to live in the suburbs, because very few people keep bees in the city, even with the recent trend in urban beekeeping. The upside to this is higher demand, as well as a more diverse customer base. Plus in the suburbs, so many people have flower beds and flowering trees, my bees basically work from home!
The best thing I believe one can do from a marketing standpoint, is to first establish good will, even if it mean losing a little at first, like my jar of "free" honey. It got attention, and I just left a note beside it to call me for more information.
Then again I didn't even mention apitherapy, package bees, or queen rearing. I think all that will fall under a niche market heading. I'd like to try it all some day. Vertically integrate using what is best for you. I don't know how one guy could spend $175/hive in a year, unless he is feeding a lot, and counting in tangibles like fuel into the cost of a hive. Seems he must be putting in a lot of new packages or something. I spent $135 to get one package and a clipped/marked queen. Another $60 in the hive, and $50 worth of a cheap suit, smoker, and hive tool, and I'm in business. If my splits take, I'll be up to 4 hives in a couple weeks. From an asset standpoint, each established colony could sell for $200-250. A nuc (as they are now) should sell for around $150. So if I sold three as nucs, I'm already over double my original investment. I don't intend to do that, but perhaps you can see the dollar signs.
I don't mean to make it sound like it's too good to be true, because indeed it is...for now. If your serious about trying to make money as a beekeeper, you can't do it because you think you will be cashing in on honey money. Chase those niche markets and you should see better margins. Or again, vertically integrate.
Alright, I've probably put everyone to sleep, I'm out!