To start a honey business, check what your state requires of a beekeeper selling honey (many states have a cottage food or honey exemption for small producers, usually with limits), label each jar the way FDA expects (pure honey is called "honey"; anything blended or flavored says so), and treat every extraction as a lot with its own date, apiary and moisture reading. Then price each jar from its real cost, including the hives, the extraction hours and the jar, and sell three ways: retail jars at markets, wholesale jars to shops, and bulk pails to bakeries and cafés. Below is each step, a jar costed with real numbers, and how to keep track as you grow.
The short version
- Check your state's rules for selling honey, and whether you need a licensed honey house.
- Label it right: "honey" only if it's only honey; blends and flavors say so.
- Name the floral source only if it's the chief source.
- Give every extraction a lot code, harvest date and moisture reading.
- Cost every jar: hives, extraction, jar and label, bottling time.
- Sell retail, wholesale and in bulk; each has its own price.
- TaroStack keeps every extraction as a lot, and every jar tied to it. More below.
Step 1: your state's rules
Honey rules are mostly set by states. Many treat a small beekeeper's honey under a cottage food law or a specific honey exemption, often with a cap on sales or hives, and some require extraction and bottling in a licensed honey house once you sell to stores or past a limit. Start with your state's agriculture department, which usually has an apiary program, and ask about registration of your hives too. This is general information, not legal advice; your state has the last word.
Step 2: the label
FDA's guidance on honey labeling, from 2018, sets out how honey products should be named (FDA honey labeling guidance):
| What's in the jar | What to call it |
|---|---|
| Only honey | Honey |
| Honey mostly from one flower | Its chief floral source may be named, like "Clover Honey" or "Wild Flower Honey"; you don't have to name it |
| Honey and a sweetener, such as sugar or corn syrup | Not "honey": a blend, like "Blend of honey and sugar", with the larger ingredient first |
| Honey with a flavor, such as raspberry | Named for the flavor, like "Raspberry-flavored honey", with each ingredient listed |
The guidance is nonbinding, but it's how FDA reads the labeling law. The rest of the label is the usual: the name, the net weight, and the name and place of business of whoever packed or distributes it (21 CFR 101.5), plus anything your state adds. If a shop wants it under their name, see what is private label food.
Step 3: every extraction is a lot
Honey from different apiaries and seasons tastes, looks and behaves differently, so keep each extraction separate and give it a lot code. Record:
| Field | Example |
|---|---|
| Lot code | H-261005-W |
| Extraction date | Oct 5, 2026 |
| Apiary and hives | Windward yard, hives 1 to 12 |
| Season or floral source | Late-summer wildflower |
| Moisture reading | 17.4% |
| Pounds extracted | 512 |
| Jars filled, pails filled | 520 jars of 12 oz; 2 pails of 60 lb |
| Best-by date | Oct 5, 2028 |
Moisture is the reading that matters most: honey that's too wet can ferment, and around 18% or less is the usual target, checked with a refractometer before bottling. Crystallized honey isn't spoiled, but customers often think it is, so the best-by date is a quality date and a lot of makers put a line on the label about it. How to build lot codes is in how to create lot numbers, and date formats are in best by date format.
Step 4: what a jar costs
Windward Roots, the made-up taro business I use in these examples, keeps 20 hives at its farm. This season they gave about 40 lb each, 800 lb in all, though yields vary a lot from year to year and place to place.
| Cost | Per year | Per pound |
|---|---|---|
| Hives: treatments, feed, queens, equipment wear, $120 a hive | $2,400 | $3.00 |
| Extraction: 30 hours at $20 | $600 | $0.75 |
| Honey, in the bucket | $3.75 |
| Per 12 oz jar | Cost |
|---|---|
| Honey, 0.75 lb at $3.75 | $2.81 |
| Jar, lid and label | $0.95 |
| Bottling time | $0.40 |
| Cost per jar | $4.16 |
At a $14 market price, that leaves $9.84 a jar. At $9 wholesale to a shop, $4.84, a 54% margin. A 60 lb pail to a bakery at $5.50 a pound is $330, against $225 of honey and an $8 pail: $97, or 29%, with no jars to fill. Bulk earns least per pound and takes the least work, which is why it suits the end of a heavy season. How to set a wholesale price that a shop can mark up is in how to price handmade items for wholesale.
Step 5: selling
Markets and farm stands pay the most per jar. Shops and cafés want a steady supply, a wholesale price sheet, and often the lot code on every jar. Bakeries and cafés buying pails want the same honey each time, which is where keeping lots separate pays: you can tell them which lot they're getting, and keep back the one they liked. If you also make jam or other preserves, the jar costing works the same way as in starting a jam business.
Where this stops working
With one extraction a year, a notebook works. Then there are three apiaries, four extractions, jars in two sizes, pails, comb honey, and a shop that wants to know whether this month's jars are the same honey as last month's. The extraction log is in the honey house, the sales in a phone, and the leftover jars from spring in a box nobody counted. When a customer says a jar fermented, you can't tell which extraction it came from, or who else got it.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps honey the way a beekeeper thinks about it: by extraction, by jar size, and by who bought which lot.
Every extraction is a lot, with its dates. Each extraction goes into stock as a lot with its own code, its date and a best-by date, and its notes. Lots, expiry and recalls are on every plan, so from the first season you can see how much of each lot is left, in the bucket and in jars, and which lot to sell first: oldest best-by goes first everywhere stock is picked.
Bottling is a recipe. Bulk honey, a jar, a lid and a label come off stock, and each 12 oz jar or 60 lb pail carries the lot of the honey inside it. Batch record forms print with your own checklist fields, like the moisture reading and the strain check, with initials and sign-off. Units convert for you, so honey bought or harvested by the pound comes off by the ounce, and jars are stocked by the each. Every batch is costed from the honey and packaging it used.
Selling knows the lot. Shops, cafés and bakeries are customers with their own orders, picking lists and delivery notes, and every delivery records which lot went out. If a jar ever comes back, one report shows the lot, every customer who got it, and what's still on your shelves. Counting works on a phone, at the farm or the market, with no signal, and TaroStack connects to a Shopify store if you sell online.
And nothing gets forgotten in a box. Stock that isn't moving shows how long since it last went out, and TaroStack forecasts what will pass its best-by before it's sold, so the spring jars go to the market before they crystallize on the shelf.
| The job | Notebook and phone | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Which extraction is this jar? | A guess | The lot on the jar |
| How much of each lot is left? | Count the buckets | Per lot, in bulk and in jars |
| Cost per jar | Worked out once | Every bottling, from what it used |
| Who got the jar that fermented? | Search the sales | One report, by lot and customer |
Lots, best-by dates and recalls are on every plan, from $49 a month; bottling recipes, batch records and costing 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.