Honey Business Plan, With a 12-Month Projection

A honey business plan sets out how many hives you'll keep, how much honey they're likely to give, how you'll sell it and at what price, and the first year month by month. What sets honey apart is that the hives cap the business: you can only sell what the bees make, and the hives cost money every month whether the honey sells or not. In the example below, a beekeeper with 20 hives sells jars at markets and to shops and bulk honey to a bakery, reaches about 65 jars a month by month 11, and roughly breaks even in the first year, about $90 short, with cash at its lowest, about $1,150 down, in month 6. That's an honest first year for 20 hives. The plan's real question is how many hives, and how many outlets, make it a business. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the projection, and a free template.

The short version

• Start from hives: how many, and a cautious honey yield per hive.
• Treat hive upkeep as a fixed cost: it's paid whether or not the honey sells.
• Cost a jar from extraction, jar, label and bottling time.
• Sell three ways: retail jars, wholesale jars, and bulk to bakeries.
• Project 12 months with sales ramping up after the harvest.
• Work out how many hives, and outlets, the business needs to pay you.
• TaroStack treats every extraction as a lot and keeps the cost per jar real. More below.

Part 1: the business description

Mauka Hives, a made-up beekeeper I use in these examples, keeps bees on a farm on Oʻahu. Its description reads:

Mauka Hives Honey is raw wildflower honey from 20 hives on a farm on Oʻahu, extracted and jarred by hand. We sell 12 oz jars at two Saturday markets, wholesale to gift shops and cafés, and bulk honey to a local bakery. Every jar is labeled with its extraction lot and best-by date. In our first year we plan to sell about 700 lb of honey, and to grow to 50 hives by the end of year two.

Part 2: what a jar costs

In how to start a honey business, the hive costs are spread across the honey, about $3 a pound. In a plan they're better as a fixed cost, $120 a hive a year, or $200 of upkeep each month for 20 hives, because they don't stop when sales do. What's left per jar:

Part 3: customers and prices

The market jar includes a 3% card fee; bulk honey carries a share of the pail. At full speed that's about 59 lb of honey a month, a little over 700 lb a year, inside what 20 hives at about 40 lb each might give. How to set a wholesale price is in how to price handmade items for wholesale.

Part 4: operations

What an extraction record looks like is in how to create lot numbers.

Part 5: the first year, month by month

Sales start at 15% of full speed after the first extraction and reach 100% by month 11, against $400 of fixed costs a month: hive upkeep for 20 hives, two market Saturdays, insurance, the website and the vehicle.

The year ends $88 short, and the $800 of working cash runs out in month 4, about $350 short of the low point in month 6. At full speed, each pound of honey sold in this mix leaves about $11.75, so each hive's 40 lb is worth about $470 a year against its $120 of upkeep. Fifty hives in this mix would leave about $15,000 a year after their upkeep and the other fixed costs, if there were outlets for 2,000 lb of honey. That's the plan: more hives, and more places to sell.

Part 6: the startup budget

The hives themselves are assumed already in place; a plan that starts from no hives adds their cost and a year before the first harvest.

Get the template

Download the honey business plan template. Type your products with their price, variable cost and monthly volume at full speed, your fixed costs, including hive upkeep, and your startup budget; it works out each month's sales, profit and cash, the first month with a profit and the lowest cash point. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Where this stops working

With one extraction a year, a notebook works. Then there are three apiaries, four extractions, jars in two sizes, pails for two bakeries, and shops reordering at different times. Which extraction is in which shop's jars, how much honey is left in buckets, and what a jar really costs from this season's extraction aren't in the notebook.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack treats every extraction as a lot, and every jar as part of one.

Every extraction, a lot. Each extraction goes into stock as a lot of honey by weight, with its own code, date, best-by date and notes. Bottling is a batch: it takes honey from the extraction lot, with jars, lids and labels, and each jar carries the lot of the honey inside it, costed from what was used. Units convert: honey in pounds, jars by the each.

The right jars out first, and every jar traced. Jars are picked first-expired-first-out by default, and one report walks any lot to the shops and bakeries that got it, with what's still on your shelves.

And the outlets, with their margins. Each shop and bakery is a customer with its sales orders. Margins are reported by product and by customer, so you see whether a pail to the bakery or a jar at the market pays better for your honey.

Lots, receiving, recalls, bottling batches and margins are on every plan, from $49 a month; planning and more than one site, like three apiaries, are on Standard at $99. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.

Questions people also ask

How do I write a honey business plan?

Start from your hives and a cautious yield, treat hive upkeep as a fixed cost, cost a jar, price it for markets, shops and bulk, describe extraction and records, and project the first year month by month.

Is a honey business profitable?

It depends on the number of hives and outlets. In the example, 20 hives roughly break even in the first year; each hive's honey, sold in that mix, leaves about $470 a year against $120 of upkeep.

How many hives do I need to make money?

Enough that their honey, sold through outlets you really have, covers upkeep, fixed costs and your time. In the example, 50 hives would leave about $15,000 a year, if there were buyers for 2,000 lb.

How much does it cost to start a honey business?

About $3,435 in the example, with the hives already in place: extraction equipment, jars and labels, label design, a refractometer, a license, market gear, a website and $800 of working cash.