Joined
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1 Posts
New member from Texas
Howdy all. A few years back I figured I would start keeping some bees as a hobby for my nine year old son and I. From that point on, it has been a great bit of fun. Being one that loves to learn new things, we have grown to twenty hives. A few still in our back yard, with the bulk of it being located on a friend’s farm. During the last year, word has gotten around about our hobby. Other than all our friends, family and neighbors asking for honey, while making a few bucks on the side, we have been asked to do several bee removals from homes and barns, again, making a few more bucks to pay for our hobby.
Starting this year, we have experimented with some grafting, and setting up a few mating nucs with some success along with spitting a few hives. Again, much of this being a learning process so we have lost a few hives along the way or have had them simply fly off after relocating them to our bee yard. Although we are having better success the more we work at it, it has been and will continue to be fun.
The reason I have taken the step in joining the forum is to gain help and opinions in making our hobby grow.
Selling honey to friends or giving it away as gifts is a blast for now but at some point, maybe in a year or two, I would like to start labeling and selling our honey to the public. We already have two local retailers that are asking to sell our honey for us, but I know there's more to it than that. Other than there being a need for an established company or LLC, a DBA and all the tax work that goes along with owning a small company, I would imagine that there has to be much more when it comes to honey. Within just a few minutes of searching the internet, I realized that there are commercial kitchen requirements and so forth, all of which to sell honey, but we are not there yet. Maybe in a few years.
So for now my questions lay in the area of what do I need to do in order to make sure that I comply with the local or government requirements to have an apiary? At what point do I need to have my hives inspected and how often? The cost and the process? Do I need to be registered with the state? Basically, where do I go from being a simply hobbyist to being and experienced beekeeper.
Thanks,
Joey
Howdy all. A few years back I figured I would start keeping some bees as a hobby for my nine year old son and I. From that point on, it has been a great bit of fun. Being one that loves to learn new things, we have grown to twenty hives. A few still in our back yard, with the bulk of it being located on a friend’s farm. During the last year, word has gotten around about our hobby. Other than all our friends, family and neighbors asking for honey, while making a few bucks on the side, we have been asked to do several bee removals from homes and barns, again, making a few more bucks to pay for our hobby.
Starting this year, we have experimented with some grafting, and setting up a few mating nucs with some success along with spitting a few hives. Again, much of this being a learning process so we have lost a few hives along the way or have had them simply fly off after relocating them to our bee yard. Although we are having better success the more we work at it, it has been and will continue to be fun.
The reason I have taken the step in joining the forum is to gain help and opinions in making our hobby grow.
Selling honey to friends or giving it away as gifts is a blast for now but at some point, maybe in a year or two, I would like to start labeling and selling our honey to the public. We already have two local retailers that are asking to sell our honey for us, but I know there's more to it than that. Other than there being a need for an established company or LLC, a DBA and all the tax work that goes along with owning a small company, I would imagine that there has to be much more when it comes to honey. Within just a few minutes of searching the internet, I realized that there are commercial kitchen requirements and so forth, all of which to sell honey, but we are not there yet. Maybe in a few years.
So for now my questions lay in the area of what do I need to do in order to make sure that I comply with the local or government requirements to have an apiary? At what point do I need to have my hives inspected and how often? The cost and the process? Do I need to be registered with the state? Basically, where do I go from being a simply hobbyist to being and experienced beekeeper.
Thanks,
Joey
