>I am not sure this is a true statement but setting the two apart serves no
>useful purpose. All modern
beekeepers are trying to keep bees alive and reduce chemical input.

The beekeeping industry has made three divisions for as long as I have been
keeping bees. The number of hives is not the best way to divide. here is a
better way.

Hobby:
usually not for profit but many do make money from their hives

Sideline:
 usually beekeepers with a daytime job and expect the enterprise to make
money

fulltime.
Those like me for which beekeeping is a full time endeavor. A larger
operation than one person can handle.


My point is those which are hobby.

Dictionary Hobby definition:

"for pleasure during ones leisure"

 is quite different than what I do. I always like to remind new bees that I
live in a different world of beekeeping so to speak. A tough competitive
business. One wrong move can bankrupt you or at the very least be very
expensive. I need to make pollination money and produce honey to pay
operation costs.

The U.S. department of Agriculture pamphlets i have read say most large 
farms
only make a profit one out of four years. The USDA issues farm numbers (of
which I have a number) and the sixe of farms is not decided in acres (
that's right !) but in the amount of gross agriculture sales.

Also there has been an increase in the number of family farms in the U.S.
over the last five years. Also 90% of the farms in the U.S. are family owned
farms. Less than five percent are corporate farms. Although a small
operation I fall into the corporate farm category because I incorporated
years ago.

Commercial beekeeping fears:

Lose your pollination contracts( another fellow beek undercuts your price)
and you are in trouble.

drought hits your area and you do not produce a honey crop (and instead
spend thousands of dollars to feed your bees) and you are in trouble

Lose most your hives to CCD in 2005 & maybe 2006 and you need several
hundred thousand to rebuild
and you are in trouble. Many beekeepers still owe on loans from back then.
The government never gave those CCD beekeepers a hand up. Instead they
helped private universities with professional lobbyists.

If I were hobby I might do beekeeping very different because I would be
keeping bees for pleasure. I would not move bees all-night, work bees in
rain, fight muddy fields to work bees and so on.
I might experiment as Allen does.

 I like to gamble but only with what I can afford to lose. I learned as a
kid watching western movies never to bet the ranch in a poker game. Watch
out for the evil banker placing the girl on the railroad track.
The evil banker appeared in many silent movies!
I really did not understand those movies as a kid but I do now!

bob

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