It takes me a while to get through my ABJ and BC articles, but I recently red Jamie Ellis' December article in ABJ on the time commitment associated with keeping bees. He summarized his findings as follows (pg. 1314 of ABJ):

Hobby Beekeepers (10 colonies)
Spring: 3 hours every 7-10 days
Summer: 3 hours every 2-3 weeks
Fall: 3 hours every 4-6 weeks
Winter: 3 hours every 6-8 weeks
Using my math, approximately 66 hours over the year, or 6.6 hours per colony.

Sideline Beekeepers (250 colonies)
Spring: 50 hours every 7-10 days
Summer:50 hours every 2-3 weeks
Fall: 50 hours every 4-6 weeks
Winter: 50 hours every 6-8 weeks
Using my math, approximately 1,105 hours over the year, or 4.42 hours per colony.

Commercial Beekeepers (700 colonies)
Spring: 120 hours every 7-10 days
Summer: 120 hours every 2-3 weeks
Fall: 120 hours every 4-6 weeks
Winter: 120 hours every 6-8 weeks
Using my math, approximately 2,652 hours over the year, or 3.8 hours per colony.

I run between 30-60 hives a year, so I've never gotten to 250 or 700 hives. But I am running some calculations and projections to help me determine if it makes sense (in dollars and time) to expand. Based on my own calculations, I was assuming I would spend significantly less time per colony (or total over the course of the year) at the 100 and 250 colony base level. I assumed approximately 2.85 hours per colony per year. Even at those levels, based on my state average honey production and nuc production only, it's difficult to maintain a profit. Jamie's numbers don't include time selling product, just maintaining colonies. If I were to use Jamie's calculations, I'd be consistently in the red.

But I have less experience with time commitments over ~60 colonies. So I figured I'd toss it out to those in the know: Do you think Jamie's estimates are more accurate than mine?

I'd be happy to share my calculations and projections, if anyone is interested in seeing them. It's in an excel spreadsheet and runs about 8 tabs deep, calculating profit and ROI on a number of different colony levels taking into consideration several different variables.

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