Direct Costs

$175 - cost to purchase bees
$300 - cost for a beehive

There are various costs like suits (you and your spouse?), tools, small pieces of equipment, base building for the beehives to rest on, various things that can be variable depending on what you are doing (e.g., I purchased a oxalic vaporizer for Varroa treatment for $150). Another large cost for me - I am paranoid about liability and want to protect my assets, so I spent $350 on a liability policy and set up an LLC for my beekeeping. That is a very large annual cost that most hobby beekeepers don't incur. The problem with America is that anyone can sue you (even if it has no merit) and insurance buys a very good defense...

The honey containers cost just under a dollar and I sell my honey for about $7 per pound (other people sell it for more and for less).

I planned on three colonies and I am into it about $2,900. My honey sold for about $300, and I sold two swarms I caught for another $300, or net out of pocket of about $2,300. In other words, I spent about $60 a pound making honey and sold it for $7. The good news is that I plan on taking that as a loss this year on my taxes, so the after tax cost will be a lot less.

What was huge for me is my friend has all of the extraction equipment - that would probably cost another $1,500 to $2,000 that I didn't have to spend, but probably will sometime in the future.

Next year I probably won't spend much money in terms of cost, so I don't know if I will break even or not. Starting with the $350 liability policy as a fixed cost, it makes it pretty difficult. Like I said, most beekeepers don't get the liability insurance. If I do make a profit, it will be due to selling swarms I catch, with the honey contributing. I am debating whether to have four full sized hives next year (I started with two and caught two swarms to make four), but if I got 400 pounds of honey, that is a lot of honey to sell!