However, honey sells for approximately $8lb, sugar is $.50lb.
As a business owner yourself, I’m sure you appreciate the costs ignored in this comparison. First, I would suggest that we should be using the wholesale price of honey…around $2/lb.
Second we would include the labor cost of harvesting that additional honey.
Third we should include the cost of producing and delivering that syrup. Roughly, 2:1 syrup is about 7lbs of sugar per gallon. I usually only give them a gallon at a time to allow them to cure and store it. I tend to leave about 50lbs of honey to get them through the winter….at 20% moisture that equates to about 40lbs of sugar. Which means I need to make around 7 feeding trips.
Third…is the misery factor of it all.
Is it still financially advantageous to take all of the honey and feed them to get through the winter? Sure. Is it 8X more profitable? Not even close.