Make Money by Keeping Honey Bees

For many of us making some extra money on a regular basis can make a big difference in our everyday lives. Aside from simply enjoying the benefits of having your own honey supply, there are a number of ways to make money by keeping honey bees like offering your services to deal with swarms of honey bees and removing bee hives from inside walls and ceilings.

While this is not the thrust of this article a very good friend of mine made a set of six videos on how to become a beekeeper and earned a solid second income selling them via the internet. He had a retired professional NBC-TV cameraman who lived nearby do the actual filming.

Here are a few ways for you to earn some extra income via keeping honey bees, and you may even think of one or two additional ways as you are reading.

If you eventually build up to having a few extra hives you can rent them locally to anyone growing one of the crops that are pollinated by honey bees, such as blueberries, apples or other fruits. The normal rate for the rental of one hive for a couple of weeks used to be about $35 - $40 per hive. This year I heard of almond growers in California paying over $100 a hive. This situation has come about due to the high loss of honey bees due to CCD [Colony Collapse Disorder ] which has been getting a lot of public press lately.

Other opportunities are:

1.Selling your excess honey from your home or at small local stores. You can get a higher price then what it is sold for in your nearby supermarket because it is locally produced honey. Many people believe that eating local honey is very helpful to reducing the negative effects of allergies as it has minute particles of pollen in it from flowers in the area.

2.Excess beeswax can be used to make candles. You can research how to do this on the internet or possibly from a crafts book available in your city/town library. Package them attractively wrapped by the pair with an attractive ribbon. These can be sold to friends and neighbors or through a local store.

3.Recipes are available on the internet for making your own lip balm using beeswax and a couple of other easily obtainable ingredients.

4.You can melt beeswax and make small bars of pure beeswax. Some people just like the feel and smell of the beeswax but it also can be used as a lubricant for the bottom rails of bureau drawers. You can buy small molds and use these to make any number of beeswax knickknacks. One member of my beekeeping association makes a number of beeswax animals, etc., to sell.

5.Some folks collect pollen from the bees to sell in jars as a health food. The equipment to do this is available at any number of beekeeping equipment supply companies.

6.Another big opportunity, if you are so inclined is to make yourself available to deal with swarms of bees. You let the local police in your town and adjacent towns know that they can give your phone number out whenever they get a call from a local citizen about a swarm being in a tree or bush on their property. Collect a healthy swarm and bring it home to start a new beehive relatively free of cost. Packages of honey bees used to start new bee hives are sold by beekeeping supply companies for about $65 per a three pound box.

7.If you have some good carpentry skills you can become available to remove honey bees from inside walls and ceilings in homes and other buildings. Pest control companies charge a good fee for this service.

No doubt I have left off a couple of other opportunities that may well pop into your mind as you are reading.

The trick is to start out small and if you make a good product and market it effectively amongst your friends as word of mouth will bring more business your way. In the meantime you will be learning how to properly operate your burgeoning small business. It can be fun to exercise your creativity and marketing skills and most importantly to start bringing in some extra money!

To learn more about keeping bees, please check the author's web site Beginningbeekeeping.com

By Albert Needham