Honey-nomics

I suppose most beekeepers are hobbyists and not particularly concerned about making a profit.  But even then there are costs to consider that might give some folks pause.  Thus, many of us make a lot of our own equipment (and can have a lot of fun there, too).  For me, I like to learn all I can about beekeeping and the economic side is of interest too.

I've often heard that drawn combs are like gold (that seems like monetizing wax).  I'm beginning to recognize that drawn comb has great advantages in splitting hives to gain new hives and to help get new hives started, for example.  Old comb can make swarm traps more effective.  It takes time for the bees to draw out the comb and that could mean missing some prime time for various nectar sources  (to paraphrase an old maxim, time is honey!).

If one is just starting out, you're sorta stuck with waiting for the bees to make comb that the queen can lay in and, hopefully later, store excess honey.  But I got to wondering what is the cost?  I tried to find references on the Internet to how much wax is in a comb (medium size for my interest) and I came up with an estimate of 2 ounces.  Maybe someday I will be able to actually weigh a finished comb (or maybe someone else out there has already done it) and can refine that estimate.  But one can also find references that the bees have to digest about 8 pounds of honey to produce one pound of wax.  That means for our drawn medium frame with 1/8 pound of wax in it, about one pound of honey was consumed to produce it.  Currently (Spring 2014) honey can be sold for 6 dollars per pound or more.  Hence, we can conclude that one medium frame of drawn comb costs about $6.  Drawn comb for an 8-frame super would then cost about $48 (more than the cost of the super and frames!).

This really comes home, even for the small producer, when it is time to harvest that honey.  If you use the crush and strain method (or even sell comb honey) you will be destroying $48 worth of comb to get whatever honey you get.  If you can extract it, thereby saving the comb for re-filling at no extra cost, it will only take 4 or 5 supers to save enough money to buy one of the smaller extractors listed in the catalogs (ie, the extractor would pay for itself with only 4 or 5 supers).  True, you would get about one pound of wax from each super that you could purify.  I don't know for sure, but I doubt greatly if you could sell that one pound for $48?

I'm going to look hard at buying an extractor (or making one) even from my anticipated low honey surplus in the early days.  If I can grow my operation, it will be a real money maker.  It would also be good if an extractor "co-op" could be formed to share the capital investment.

Please comment if you find anything wrong with this analysis.  I'm always ready to learn.