What do you really make on a pound of honey?

Enter your hives, honey yield, costs and hours and what you sell a pound for. You get your cost per pound, your profit per hour, the price per pound you need to pay yourself a wage, and what a poor honey year and winter hive losses do to all of it.

Your numbers, not advice. Prices, costs and times are yours to check; every value is editable. Nothing is uploaded: inputs are used in this browser tab only.

Your apiary

Hives going into the season Honey per hive per year (lb) Selling price per lb ($) Honey lost or kept (%) Jar and label cost per lb ($) Mite treatment and feed per hive ($) Equipment per year ($) Other cost per year ($) Winter loss (%) Replacement colony cost ($) Hours per hive per year Your wage per hour ($)

Your apiary for a year

Line	Per year

If your selling price moves

Price per lb	Profit per hour	After wage, per year	Margin, per year

If the honey crop is poor

Honey per hive	Cost per lb	Profit per hour	Price you need

If more hives die over winter

Winter loss	Cost per lb	Profit per hour	Price you need

Weigh a season's honey, count winter losses over a few years and time one full year before you trust the numbers. A hobby that looks free can pay a few dollars an hour; the work does not shrink when the bees do badly.

What's recognised

Input	Handling

More: How much to charge for a pound of honey: hives, winter losses and your hours.

Common questions

What does it cost to produce a pound of honey?

On the default numbers $3.88 in cash per pound sold: $450.00 to replace winter losses, $400.00 of equipment, $250.00 of mite treatment and feed, $495.00 of jars and labels and $150.00 of insurance and fees, plus 0.44 hours of your time per pound. Jars and labels is the largest cash line at 28.4%. Enter your own figures; the defaults are invented.

How much should I charge for a pound of honey?

$12.77 a pound to pay yourself $20 an hour on those numbers, against a cash breakeven of $3.88. Selling at $10.00 leaves $6.12 a pound and $13.78 an hour before any wage is deducted.

What happens in a bad honey year or a bad winter?

A poor honey year (20 lb a hive instead of 50) costs $8.04 a pound and needs $30.27. Losing 60% of hives over winter lifts the price you need to $14.17.

Is this advice or market data?

No. It does arithmetic on the numbers you type. Prices, costs and times are yours to check, nothing is uploaded, and it is not financial, tax, legal or food-safety advice. Check your state's rules on selling honey and labelling.