> ...if I lose half of my hives, make only
> half as much honey but sell it for double the price that I
> used to get for honey, I am better off than before, because
> operating half as many hives means less operating costs. 
> Does this make any sense?

I disagree, but for a more simple reason that the others in
this thread have offered.

While a downsized operation seem "more profitable" at higher 
honey prices in terms of gross revenues, those suddenly-higher 
honey prices are more a function of the reduced buying power of 
a US dollar and low interest rates than anything else, so the
price of honey may not stay "high" for long.  The dollar is 
certain to recover someday, but don't ask me when.

Further, the higher costs of fuel and other beekeeper needs
are ALSO a function of the devalued dollar.  So, while the
price of honey has doubled, the prices of gas, bread, milk,
whiskey, and ammo have more than tripled.  

There's also interest rates to consider.  Jeffrey Frankel
is in Economics at Harvard, and he reasons that low real 
interest rates lower the cost of carrying physical inventories 
and increase the advantages of speculating in commodities 
relative to investing in and holding Treasury bills. 
http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~jfrankel/CP.htm
http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~jfrankel/CampbellM&CPnberNov.pdf

Note the correlation in the diagram here, cleaned up a
bit from Frankel's:
http://www.bee-quick.com/reprints/commod_scatter.gif

In years when the real US interest rate was lowest, US
commodity prices were high relative to other prices.

Frankel predicts that "As the Fed funds rate goes back 
up over the coming year, one can expect commodity prices 
eventually to come back down."

Further still, honey prices have never had much to do with
what goes on in North America's beekeeping operations, so 
one can't expect CCD to have as much impact on honey prices 
as the usual efforts of China and Argentina to find new ways
to sell their honey at any price they can get for it.

So, I'd be working hard to keep my hive count stable, and
cut my costs by not investing so much time and money in
colonies that are clearly not going to produce.  This means
more frequent "self-grading" of colonies, and a triaging 
of colonies to replace failing queens and colonies with 
new genetics.

But that's just me - I'm a hard-nose about beekeeping as
a business with tangible metrics.  Most beekeepers don't
even track commodity prices or the relative value of the
dollar.

****************************************************
* General Information About BEE-L is available at: *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm   *
****************************************************