Quote Originally Posted by OakLeaf View Post
Really? I only know what I've read, but I'd understood that honey is a break-even proposition at best, and commercial apiarists make their money by renting the hives to farmers who need them for pollination? That one of the many stresses on bees that they're thinking contributes to CCD, is the hives getting moved all over the place all the time?
Yes, that's true...I've read that as well (about moving the hives).

Maybe it's not that they actually make more money on the honey, but that it's just more cost efficient to risk letting the bees die each winter. If a beekeeper doesn't get greedy for honey, a bee hive will make enough to last them all winter. The problem is that many commercial keepers take too much, putting too much stress on the hive, figuring that they can just replace the bees when the time comes. Honey is definitely more expensive than bees (but it seems really stupid to me considering how much work goes into establishing a hive). Of course, if you are in it for commercial gains, then you have to figure in costs for distribution, disease control, overpopulation, etc....things a small producer doesn't really need to worry about.

I honestly haven't studied all the economics of it since we didn't get our bees as a money-making venture.