Selling bees in Florida

[Nwf Bees]

I am currently working on getting inspected/registered , what else do I need to be able to advertise to sell bees and queens in Florida ? Also, for those of you that do sell in Florida how are yall setup with your company name llc, dba ?  Not really interested in selling honey at this point , just bees. Thank you

[BeeMaster2]

Our inspector, Steve will increase the number of inspections compared to a hobbyist.
Keep records of everything thing you buy and sell for federal taxes. You can just bee a sole proprietor.
Jim Altmiller

[Nwf Bees]

Thank you !!!

[Acebird]

Not really interested in selling honey at this point , just bees. Thank you

That is not good advertising.  Most of your potential customers will be looking for honey.  If you do not produce honey in quantities to sell how will you be able to select queens that produce productive hives?  Growing bees that make bees is easy and worthless to most beekeepers.  Growing bees that produce honey is the tough nut to crack.

[Beeboy01]

Most commercial bee keepers that I know of in my area diversify their efforts with a combination of nucs, queens and honey production along with pollination. From what I've seen nucs at $150.00 a piece would be the quick but maybe not the easiest money in the spring and early summer. Fatbeeman on you tube produced nucs and prefers it over honey production, if you watch his videos he has his business model set up that way.
  Selling nucs and queens should be easy if they are quality, just contact any clubs in your area and advertise on craigslist, Bee Culture and other magazines. Commercial honey production is an expense with a dedicated honey house, equipment, state inspections along with finding a market for your product which you might want to move into later. Luck with it.

[Nwf Bees]

My plans are to sell the honey also but not in large volume as i am saving $$ for an extractor , hopefully when and if things go right i can sell queens , bees and honey.

[van from Arkansas]

Not really interested in selling honey at this point , just bees. Thank you

That is not good advertising.  Most of your potential customers will be looking for honey.  If you do not produce honey in quantities to sell how will you be able to select queens that produce productive hives?  Growing bees that make bees is easy and worthless to most beekeepers.  Growing bees that produce honey is the tough nut to crack.

Ace, my friend sells 400 queens at $30 each, that is $12,000 and this is part time.  The money is in the queens, not so much honey, unless you pollenate which goes $145 per hive.  A friend in California sells in the six figure range, grafting queens by the 100?s.  Then there is the II or AI folks that sell queens at about $500 each and sell out before the year starts.

If you want AI queens from top breeders you must order now for 2020, by December they are booked.  I know, I know, $500 sounds nuts but I purchase progeny, $30, from these high breed AI queens and the queens are hard to keep up with: hives full of eggs, larva, pollen, nectar, and honey.

In 2018, I had one 2 year old queen laying 2,000 eggs a day, like, all spring and summer.  She filled 50 deep frames of brood last year, that is over 15 nucs from a single queen.  I had beeks driving 100 miles for her F1 queens I grafted.  This year, that same queen 3 year old, has slowed a bit.

BTW I do not sell queens, I do give away queens for local pick up.
Blessings

[Barhopper]

Faster money in bees. My wife likes to sell honey I like to sell bees. So we do both but we?ll never get rich. As longs as it pays for the hobby I?m good with it. We steadily upgrade equipment. That helps with the overall effort. I do not sell queens but I can see where your reputation means everything if you sell queens. Good luck on your venture.

[Ben Framed]

Faster money in bees. My wife likes to sell honey I like to sell bees. So we do both but we?ll never get rich. As longs as it pays for the hobby I?m good with it. We steadily upgrade equipment. That helps with the overall effort. I do not sell queens but I can see where your reputation means everything if you sell queens. Good luck on your venture.

Some interesting post here. I wish you the best of luck also.
Phillip

[Acebird]

Ace, my friend sells 400 queens at $30 each, that is $12,000 and this is part time.  The money is in the queens, not so much honey, unless you pollenate which goes $145 per hive.  A friend in California sells in the six figure range, grafting queens by the 100?s.  Then there is the II or AI folks that sell queens at about $500 each and sell out before the year starts.

Van I know the financial advantage of selling bees over honey but I also know if you do not produce production hives you cannot select for honey producers.  The likelihood is you will end up with bees that swarm and don't produce anything.  I don't know any commercial beekeepers who produce honey, wax and/or  sell pollination contracts that don't sell bees.  Growing slow with diversification is what usually brings success.  Starting out with the goal of just selling bees I think will end in disappointment.  Most businesses start out with a large investment and run a couple of years in the red.  Beekeeping can start as a hobby with moderate investment and come to a point where you flip a switch and now claim it as a business.  As a hobby you were running in the red supporting the hobby with another income.  Then all of a sudden the equipment comes into a business like it was free.  The IRS doesn't care as long as you don't put all that equipment on the books as an expense that you incurred when it wasn't a business.
No one is starting out selling $500 queens no matter what you paid for the genetic stock.

[Ben Framed]

Van
In 2018, I had one 2 year old queen laying 2,000 eggs a day, like, all spring and summer.  She filled 50 deep frames of brood last year, that is over 15 nucs from a single queen.  I had beeks driving 100 miles for her F1 queens I grafted.  This year, that same queen 3 year old, has slowed a bit.

Very impressive Mr Van. Good job!
Phillip