Ready to take your beekeeping skills to the next level? In Business with Bees provides the answers you need. This book takes serious beekeepers past the beginning stages and learning curves and offers practical, useful advice to move your passion into a part-time or full-time career with measurable results. This beekeeping business how-to guide offers all of the in-depth advice you need, in one place.Writing a business planFinding the best sources for fundingDetermining what your facilities will be and how to acquire themGetting and installing the right equipmentCooperating with other local businessesStocking inventory and managing warehouse spaceFinding customersRaising and selling queens, packages, and nucsExpanding pollination, including contracts to protect youMaking and selling peripheral products from wax, propolis, and honeyOrganizing teaching, speaking, and planning eventsHiring and managing your growing teamPromoting your businessMeasuring your successThis book provides solutions for all your beekeeping business questions, from start to finish. With this knowledge, you can become as knowledgeable, confident, and successful in running a business as you are in beekeeping.


Kim Flottum brings a background of more than a decade of plant science, honey bee research, and basic farming to his 30 years as the editor of Bee Culture magazine, where his main occupation is finding the answers to the multitude of questions that beginning, intermediate, and even advanced and experienced beekeepers bring to the table. He teaches beginning and advanced beekeeping courses, travels extensively to educate and lecture, and contributes to a variety of other publications on the basics of honey bees and beekeeping biology, the business of bees and pollination, producing and using varietal honeys, and a host of other subjects. He is the author of The Backyard Beekeeper, The Beekeeper’s Journal, and In Business with Bees. His books, magazine articles, interviews, and blogs are widely read for both their fundamental and advanced contribution to beekeeping knowledge. His magazine platform gives voice to his social commentary on topics ranging from genetically modified foods to pesticide abuse to both good and bad government regulations in the industry. He is beekeeping’s leading advocate for fundamental honey bee safety, including insuring excellent honey bee health, providing extraordinary forage, and minimizing the use of agricultural pesticides.