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How Much Is Your Apiary Worth$?

32K views 115 replies 42 participants last post by  jim lyon 
#1 ·
how much money do you think your bee-farm is worth? just curious as to what thoughts are on this. so how many hives and how much is your apiary worth? i know someone with around 100 hive and and he says they are worth 30,000$, how bout yours?
 
#84 ·
Between this and my "nunya" response I think that about covers it, unless you are in a position to make me a serious offer and then we will find out what it is worth.

To those who think that someone in business should have that figure at their finger tips, or otherwise available, simply from a business and tax point of view, I would say you don't know or understand many beekeepers or farmers in general. The nonAgribizz kinda farmers that is.
 
#3 ·
In boxes and extracting equipment I have about $6000. It was mostly bought used and I have bought 14 nucs and about two dozen queens, half of which I may never recieve and I have around forty colonies and the equipment to run eighty to 100. I would suppose my assets are worth around $18-20,000 if the right person wanted it. If the drouth continues and I need to purchase a ton of sugar to get these bees thru the winter, it is just a sinking asset! A thing is worth whatever someone will pay you for it.
 
#4 ·
Hey Vance I'll give you $1000.00 for all of it. LOL I actually have a great spot for my hives. They're sitting in the middle of approximately 900 acres of clover and alfalfa that only gets cut twice a year! Pretty Sweet! In all actuality if location and/or contracts for pollination services are included it could be worth a heck of alot more.
 
#8 ·
The op question is a good one.
How much is it worth?
Is this the number I've invested? The number I could sell it for? The number I would sell it for?
Do I have to include my time? A lost opportunity cost?
I don't know the answer to any of these. That is why I haven't decided to go all in.
I would guess that many commercial guys couldn't answer all these question if put on the spot!
 
#9 ·
The question is too vague. Define worth. What something is worth and what someone is willing to pay for it are two intirely different things. What you have invested in your operation, I won't say business because I don't think anyone who has answered this question other than I is actually in the beekeeping business, is not what it is worth. No more so than what a brand new car which you paid $40,000.00 for is worth the moment you drive it off the lot. When you do, it is worth half what you paid for it, on average. Or is that the mean?

I don't know if anyone can truely satisfactorily answer the Thread Title question. But, give it a shot.
 
#10 ·
The market determines what most things are worth. I have invested somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,400 to $1,500 dollars in equipment, three packages and four splits. Hmmmm that doesn't count the sugar I fed the three packages last summer and fall due to the drought. Make that $1,700 bucks, more or less. To this date I have not harvested any honey. Oh, and that doesn't count the BeeWeaver queen that one of my splits killed. I'm glad I haven't done up the books on the bees for this year.

Hey, I'm an old guy with a few extra bucks and the bees are one of my "back to nature" projects. In my mind it's money well spent, and for the fun I've had with the bees it has been cheap intertainment.
 
#12 ·
I have 700$ wrapped up in all my equipment , hives , jacket, gloves. Whats it worth right now? I could proabably sell everything 2 big hives, one deep nuc , extra equipment feeders, frames for 500$ . It is just a hobby for me and always will be. I budget between 100-200$ a year for expenses , this year I will go over due to the drought and having to feed . Apparently alot of non-beeks think honeybees are low maintence and free because they always want handouts : {
 
#13 ·
Nice answers, but from a business perspective, this does factor how secured a market you have for honey and other value added products, contracts ect. the beeking organization for my area says a decent population hive in production is worth Aprx. 250$. but i guess a thing really is worth what you can get for it anyway. that being said, with the Right beeking business i think it could be worth lot more, with secured markets for ur honey and contracts ect+ a good location. dontcha think?
 
#14 ·
If you keep bees as a business. Wouldn't you need to know the value of your equipment for tax purposes? Don't you devalue it etc. Also don't you know the exact value of anything regarding your business the moment you go to sell it? I can see that a business owner would not know the value of the entire business at any given moment. But let them think about selling it and they would not often fail to come up with a number.
 
#15 ·
This is a problem for beekeepers w/ operations of size when they look towards the end of their beekeeping career, if they don't have a next generation to pass the business on to.

Mr.Newbee, were I to sell my business, perhaps the many outlets I service would be of value to someone and maybe they wouldn't. I have no contracts w/ these outlets. Simply their willingness to buy from me and my ability to sell to them. Your question implies an opinion that such accounts make one money, making them valuable assets of the business. This is debatable.
 
#16 ·
Most businesses are worth some multiple of their annual income, say five to eight times their annual income. This only applies if you have a desirable business that others want to own and operate. If your net annual income is say 20 grand then your business would be worth 100 to 160 thousand bucks, assuming there are buyers wanting your business. With all the uncertainties associated with bee keeping, I would not think there would be a large pool of buyers. Bee keeping is a fun hobby and a tough business.
 
#17 ·
My banker once told me that he has never dealt with any other business where that multiple that LS speaks of is so high. It is not at all unusual for a bee operation to gross well over 50% of its approximate value in one year. Of course it may do much closer to zero as well. The OP asks a question that only my banker has ever had cause to ask me, of course I am a commercial operation. The real honest answer of course is I wouldnt have the slightest idea what number the highest bidder in an auction might pull out of the air. Depends largely on a lot of "blue sky" stuff like the price of honey, time of year, the location and condition of the bees, whether locations are included and what the production history of those locations has been in addition to all the usual estimates of what it might "part out for". Dosent seem like that many years ago that estimates of $100 a round for a going turnkey operation was realistic, today it clearly is much, much higher depending on all the factors I listed.
 
#18 ·
Metal ware - extractor, tanks, uncapping tank, etc etc - $3k
Wood - lumber from sawmill, frames, covers, etc etc - $2k
Bees - packages and queens, swarms caught - $?
Time spent in the apiary during a flow, watching the bees like rush hour on a 10-lane urban interstate? Priceless!
Regards,
Steven
 
#20 ·
How much is it worth?
The number I could sell it for?


It's always worth what you could sell it for. How much you've invested is meaningless and what you want for it is also meaningless..well meaningless to everyone else :)

There are two ways to arrive at this number short of actually selling it. First you can do it the way they do houses by looking at comparable sales or you can do it more like a business based on a combination of asset value and history of profits.

I think to most on the hobby end of things the value is very low. What you put into it in purchased equipment is like a car and goes down, probably dramatically, once there are bees in it. That is somewhat offset by the value of the bees themselves.

On the other hand as a hobbyist you have the luxury of selling to an individual that is buying more on "Want" than "Business" so you might be able to sell 5-10 colonies at ridiculously high prices because the people you're selling to just wants bees. That's not going to happen with a business unless you catch someone with more money than brains which has been known to happen. A person buying a business is doing so to make money. If they can't do that there's no reason for buying the business.

~Matt
 
#21 ·
Wouldn't you need to know the value of your equipment for tax purposes?

You depreciate the purchase price, not the "Value". Look at it this way. If I go out and buy a new car for my business tomorrow for 20K I will depreciate that over some number of years. If I take that car and drive it into a wall right off the lot, assuming no insurance, the "Value" of that car is now nothing more thank junk price. I still get to depreciate the 20K purchase price.

Bee equipment is probably similar. Let's say you can throw together a hive, two deeps, two mediums, frames, top, bottom but no bees for an initial purchase price of 200$. Once you get that on your property, assembled, and bees in it, almost no one will give you 200$ for the equipment, it's used. You still get to depreciate the 200$ per hive though. You also get to depreciate the cost of the bees, even if they die and end up with zero value.

~Matt
 
#22 ·
Most businesses are worth some multiple of their annual income, say five to eight times their annual income. This only applies if you have a desirable business that others want to own and operate.

I think the idea that the business is worth some multiple of the annual income is true to a point. The other part of the equation are the intangibles like you list, desirability, potential etc.

We've seen this in the past where stock prices, basically a stock is buying a business, being based on the P/E ratio. During the dot com bubble people where buying stock from companies with negative PE ratios, Facebook was something like 80:1 if I recall.

So if you have a company that people really think has potential they pay a higher multiplier. For bees let's say you have a guy who is a profitable bee keeper. He wants to expand. HE goes and looks at another outfit looking to sell. He sees all sorts of things the guy is doing incorrectly and sees a bunch of things he can do to increase profits. The business will be worth more to him than someone else that doesn't see these things...although he will probably try not to pay that much :)

"Business evaluation" has actually become a market all it's own. We are constantly getting calls for people that want to come in and see what we are doing and see whether we want to sell, manufacturing, not bees. I'm not so sure manufacturing is all that desirable these days either, but none the less there are buyers and evaluators.

~Matt
 
#23 ·
Mr. newbee are you asking about cost or worth? I would think for those running a business and not a hobby fly by night you could just go to your accountant and ask him. I think the answer you would get would be the viewpoint of the IRS or a Bank when applying for a loan. There are rules for depreciation. You can't just buy a 30,000 truck and depreciate the whole thing. You also can't depreciate the whole thing over the allotted time and then sell it for 10 grand without giving back to the IRS. I don't know what the schedule would be for bee wooden ware. I am sure the schedule would be different for the mechanical equipment. Problems do arise if you sell a business and don't know what the value is. You wouldn't want to pay capital gains for 100%. I am not sure what happens when you hand it off to a family member. I am sure some value has to be set.
 
#24 ·
Tax Accounting and Business Accounting are two different things. And, unless one is experiencing Capital Gains, what your business is worth is of no real business or interest of the IRS.

In one of the business classes I took a while ago, making business descisions according to one's annual tax accounting is a mistake.

Business Plans are good indicators of what one's business is worth. They are required by lending agencys for loan approval.

I will stand by my first answer to this question and ask one of my own, maybe two.

Why does the OPer want to know how much my apiary is worth? Does he want to buy it? Seems like a pretty personal question, don't you think?

How much money do you earn at the job you have? What are all of your assets worth? What is the point of these questions?

That's one thing I am curious about.
 
#26 ·
Why does the OPer want to know how much my apiary is worth? Does he want to buy it? Seems like a pretty personal question, don't you think?
Mr Newbee's posts from the thread about going foudnationless to save the cost of foundation included:

"so i'm viciously embarking on a 500-1000 hive business venture, by means of rapidly growing into in from rearing and splitting and drastically cut cost by building my own hives i an effort to make this as profitable as possible. the cost of foundation is going to cost me aprx 33us$ (live in jamaica) at a total of around 15000us$ per 500 hives."

and

"i want to grow into it quickly and then sell it, the bee industry is just begining to boom here and and there are endless contracts from EU countries that are too large for small local holdings to fill. if i can cheaply grow into a large scale it would be worth a lot more than the start up. "

At this point I'm curious too.

Mr Newbee, do you have any hives at present? Are you a beekeeper? Do you want to be a beekeeper? Or do you just want to build an asset to sell it?
 
#25 ·
I just started beeking in March and I tell ya, the information and knowledge that I have gained from these little creatures is totally AMAZING!!! I get frustrated sometimes not knowing what all I am doing, but I tell you, the people here are wonderful and give great advice. I look at the "Big Picture", not at all what it is worth. To me, you can't put a price on things you love to do. Many people have businesses or have jobs that they hate, but when you have something you love to do, it is worth every penny. I started beekeeping for them to help pollenate my orchard and if all they give me is that, then I am satisfied. The honey is like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You give in this world and you shall receive.
 
#27 ·
:lookout: Hobbies and a biz never add up . Para chute ,,6 grand ,15 a lift and a divorce . Duck boat, decoys ,dog food 12 k not including gun or shells , gas, missed work , missed one season in the last 12. Fly fishing ,,au sable river boat, rods , 1000's of hours tiieing flys ,didnt work in the summer for 10 yrs .. ok that was awesome . I did guide ducks and fish but the ppl were a pain , couldnt shoot or fish so i just went with out the income . It was a better day . Lets not start with the dirt bike , the hospital has my records at the ready . I got a skydive next week i cant make because the leg is kinda broken . I started the bike and the wife came out of the house with the crazy look . Bees , This i dig . I just like to watch them ... I dont like getting stiffed by suppliers . The biggest lesson here is finding ppl that you can trust . Im in for about 5k in bees and wood. I make everything but the frames . I got stiffed 3k from a supplier . I can see the good in bad ,,i learned to get a frame of bees threw a mi winter with the help of beesource ..Mike Palmer, Mike Bush , Scottr , Ed , Don , my chat bros and ladies..with boys like these helping how can ya go wrong ? Making money at this is another game . Yes i would like to see some return down the road . Im just not counting on it . The worth of my hives ,,,tranquil sanity .
 
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