Now here's a question for you larger scale producers... Do you actually enjoy it ?
Or, on what they call mature reflection, would you if you could start again pursue a different career , in relation to job satisfaction ?
If you even have such doubts don't even start. Bee farming is not a career, its a disease and its incurable.
I was a ships officer before I took over the bees from my father, and had just been offered my first command. In response I was totally honest with the company and they in turn treated me very well in my final months.
The standard of living bee farming has given me is hugely inferior to that I would have enjoyed if I had remained in shipping.
However the quality of life is incomparable. I am 61 this month and have been a bee farmer for many years now and whilst you cannot say I have loved every minute of it, I cannot imagine a generally more satisfying and addictive life.
However, the thread was about viability...
Those going into bees need to do their sums very carefully though. You cannot work on average crops being the threshold of viability, you need to set the bar at probably no more than 70% of average and work you costs and hive numbers from that baseline.
Most who think of the bees as a profession, especially if it is honey production as their main activity, are actually way too optimistic, and they think they can make a living off far too few colonies.
Too few colonies and you end up having to do everything under the sun to maximise the return from every little thing you produce, and its actually not the most profitable thing to do. The actual cash return from doing candles etc is normally very low, and the costs of packing honey needs very careful analysis or you end up working long hours and hauling your tail round demanding clients for a pittance in reality.
We work on needing roughly 400 colonies per full time employee, and we have heather in abundance to go to. Without it it becomes a non starter around here. You can see some of our heather territory in the albums section.
Unless you can consider doing this kind of numbers (and it varies around the Uk and Ireland) then you have to go into other income generating channels like nucleus production for sale, a bit of queen rearing, maybe some paid pollination work, or the real outlier which is more about farming peoples aspirations and consciences, such as being paid under adopt a hive schemes etc which are now around in significant numbers....but the paperwork is horrendous. (see the recent tender document for 2 to 4 hives to be placed in the Scottish Parliament garden).
Lots of ways to skin a cat but I like to keep it relatively uncomplicated. Play to your strength, hive off your weaknesses to others, and most importantly, get some enjoyment out of it.
It can be both viable AND pleasurable, but it aint ever going to have you especially rich.
I would not want to do anything else, never want to retire (sorry kids!!!), and will die happy if I keel over with a heart attack putting supers on at the heather in a heavy flow.....or just watching the pollen streaming in in spring.
Do NOT go into it with unrealistic expectations or without significant knowledge of your areas forage patterns and seasonal rythms which means have a good level of experience first. I was lucky, being raised in a bee farming family so it is all hard wired into me, but others need to get into the way of it first before risking all.
Always remember that a lot of what others will tell you about how to things is opinion. Forums especially abound with strongly held opinions masquerading as facts and you can easily get mislead. Always keep an open mind and be prepared to steal good ideas wherever you see them, and beware of zealots.
But you MUST do your sums, and do them HONESTLY. The easiest person to mislead is yourself.
ps....also forget the bragging that goes on. Honey yield per colony is regularly overstated and in truth is only of partial relevance. When you are commercial the true measure is yield per pound invested, and that includes costing your time. You may well find that a lower per colony yield on a simplified management system makes you more money than a higher yield on a more complex system (actually you WILL find that). Once you are in it for an income the days of playing with your bees and taking 20 minutes a hive are OVER.
