Economics of Hive Management, Part 1
Have you ever wanted to get bees but didn't have the time or ability to do it yourself? Have you thought about having someone else do it for you? (Hey, we do that!)
You might be surprised at how much it costs! So here's a primer. Just to be clear, I'm not going to be giving specific prices, but you will get a concept of the costs that go into hive management at your house.
First of all, the free option: Find a beekeeper who lives near you and wants to have a place to put some hives. Depending on where you live, this might be very easy or very difficult. But in either case, you get what you pay for. The beekeeper will take care of the hives on their schedule, which will likely be defined by their day job, family life, etc. If things go horribly wrong for them, they might not take care of the bees. And we can't blame them for that, but it does put you in a hard place if it happens.
For everyone else, you're looking for a hive hosting or hive management company. If you're in a major city, you may have a choice of a couple different national companies, and you may have a choice of one or more local companies too (choose one of the local ones; I'm not biased at all!).
What hive management looks like in Seattle in 2026:
- Each physical bee hive costs around $500.
- Each colony of bees costs between $160 and $300, depending on many factors (this is a recurring cost since hives die every winter. You're not replacing all of your hives, but you're definitely replacing some.
- 53 hours of onsite labor, including driving to/from the client house/property (what hourly rate do you think your beekeeper should be paid? Seattle's minimum wage in 2026 is $21.30/hour).
- Some companies skimp on management visits, but most beekeepers agree that urban bee hives should be managed weekly during swarm season, and roughly every other week throughout the rest of the beekeeping season to prevent them from becoming a nuisance. Choosing a responsible beekeeper is important.
- Offsite labor (extracting/bottling client honey, equipment maintenance, admin, planning, writing host reports, sales/communications, etc.).
- Medication and feed.
- Everything else (insurance, anyone? Technology, tools, bookkeeping...the list goes on).
All in all, the out of pocket physical materials cost to start and maintain a new client apiary for 1 year (no labor, no insurance, no gas or anything else) is over $1,500. Once you add all of those other things...do you see where this is going? Beekeeping is an expensive hobby, and hive management is an expensive business!
But what about other income? Surely the hosts aren't responsible for all of that! Can't you sell the honey? Check out Economics of Hive Management Part 2!