Ken Foster can’t remember a time in his life when he wasn’t surrounded by honeybees. “I remember running around my father’s honey house, watching him extract honey, with no shoes on. It was just a part of life,” he says. The Foster family slogan, “Honey runs in our veins,” translates into Foster’s son being the fourth generation in their honeybee business.

Many beekeepers’ reason for existence focuses on keeping the tradition alive, and this is no different for Foster, a Purdue University agricultural economics professor and owner of Wildcat Creek Apiary, Lafayette, Ind. Over the years, his family has kept the care of the honeybees at the forefront of their business decisions, while being flexible as customer preferences and profitability opportunities have changed.

Their initial motivation was income from providing pollination, not honey. But recently, locally grown honey has developed a great reputation within the local food movement, making it potentially more profitable.

Prior to the last 15 years, it seemed as if consumers didn’t view local honey as anything special, according to Gary Keesling, owner of Pappaw’s Hunny Farm, Hagerstown, Ind. This meant that local honey producers were competing directly with other producers around the world for consumers’ dollars. Foster considered this increased profitability of honey as a factor when shifting his practices from primarily pollination to producing more honey.

In 2009, Keesling saw the potential of adding honeybees to his farm. While visiting the Indiana State Fair’s honey booth, he thought, “What is more natural than honey?” After conducting research and attending the Indiana Bee School, Keesling could see where he could add some income from honeybees, while also providing his grandchildren exposure to another agriculture practice.

Keesling believes that expanding into honeybees is an investment that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Your approach to considering honeybees as a business venture should be specific to you, your abilities and your resources.

Time investment

If you’re curious about adding honeybees, Foster suggests you “consider what you are good at and if you should distract yourself from your operation’s core competencies to focus on this new expansion.” You should decide if you want your honeybee business to be your top focus or a smaller component of your overall operation.

Commercial beekeepers have thousands of colonies that add up to millions of honeybees. This requires a larger capital investment to purchase proper equipment for processing such a large quantity of honey, as well as employees to care for the hives.

Keesling suggests that if you want to add honeybees simply as a diversification to your operation and you’re not interested in hiring help, consider 50 colonies or less. When he managed more than 50, he felt he didn’t dedicate adequate time toward the other parts of his farm.

Best fit

Keesling believes it’s important for individuals to evaluate if adding honeybees fits within their abilities, and if it’s the best use of their time. The recent harsh winters, diseases and colony collapse disorder have led to a decline in honeybee population, which Foster thinks has resulted in higher prices for pollination services.

He has witnessed that with fewer honeybees available to do this service, pollination prices are high enough that some farmers are realizing they can pollinate their produce themselves for less than what they would pay for contracting for honeybees. If these individuals have an avenue for selling their honey alongside their produce, Foster views this as an attractive synergy to the business operation.

Brock Harpur, Purdue University entomology assistant professor, says common specialty crops such as apples, squash and watermelon are pollinated by honeybees. However, these crops can be better pollinated by native species.

“If you want to branch into beekeeping only to increase yield of your specialty crops, beekeeping might not be the best option, because some crops do better when pollinated by native bees instead of honeybees,” he says. On the other hand, if you’re interested in the financial benefit of honey, Harpur agrees this could be a profitable business decision.

Market availability

Foster encourages all honeybee enthusiasts to evaluate if they would have a customer base within the market for honey. An analysis of honey producers in your area will give you a better idea. There’s only so many people in your defined local market. It becomes a challenge if your honey production increases significantly as you add more colonies.

Most growers who want to produce on a smaller scale like Keesling would be in a good position to sell their honey locally without the concern of surplus products. Harpur says you should evaluate your investment in your honey business compared to the amount of honey you get as a benchmark for this new venture.

Another thing to consider is the limited food source for honeybees. When you place too many bees in an area, Harpur says bees become unable to produce surplus honey and have a higher chance of disease. Spreading your colonies out would allow your operation to produce more honey while also providing appropriate nutrient sources.

Key guidelines

Foster’s rule of thumb is no more than 12 colonies in one area and keep each group of hives outside of a 6-mile radius. “Since Indiana is a large corn and soybean producer, I place my colonies in creek beds and areas with many wildflowers to ensure an adequate food supply,” he notes.

Keesling says one honeybee will produce only one-twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime. “A water source within a half-mile is essential to honeybee health,” he explains. If you want to make pounds of honey, you need thousands of bees and an environment that will allow for these honeybees to be at full production capacity.

There is no perfect substitute for locally produced honey today. Consumers who buy local honey don’t typically go to a large retail store to buy it because they don’t value it as the same, making it a truly segmented market.

Both Wildcat Creek Apiary’s and Pappaw’s Hunny Farm’s missions were never about making money, but Foster and Keesling have found that beekeeping can be profitable if you work to grow the business efficiently. They found success through different scales of honeybee populations and business focus, which is evidence that there are many ways to join beekeeping.

Your willingness to learn combined with your financial investment will prepare you to be successful if you believe honeybees fit your operation, experts conclude.

If you decide to pursue a beekeeping enterprise, here are five tips to help you through your first year.

Combs is a senior in agricultural communication and agribusiness management at Purdue University.