There are, in my opinion, many tradeoffs in selling at a farmers’ market. In my case it is the difference between selling at retail versus wholesale. It isn’t for everyone. It actually takes many more hours than 4 hours per week. If you are already working 40 hours a week at a real job…then the extra time may not be worth it.
Some pretend numbers. Say you produce 12000 lbs of honey. You can pack that into 55 gallon drums and sell it for say….$2/lb. At the end of the day you produced $24000 in revenue (not profit.). Let’s say you could sell all of that at retail averaging $5/lb or $60,000. How much time and energy would you be willing to invest to get the difference in return of $36,000 in revenue? It isn’t totally this simple and these are not actual numbers…but they could be.
At the farmers’ market I attend, I could sell nearly every ounce I produce at retail. I continue to expand but I’m getting old (62) and don’t intend to get crazy with this. I actually find myself turning away business and look to get the greatest return for my time without becoming totally mercenary. 
My sermon to beekeepers asking for advice in this matter is to choose the beekeeping philosophy that suits you best. If your vision is to have 5000 hives, pollinate almonds and sell honey…then wholesale honey it will be……and that’s ok. But…a business term can also be applied. It is called ‘value added’. You decide that you want fewer hives, then package your honey nicely and spend the time preparing for a vigorous market and interacting with customers and having added that value to your product, you can get a return from doing that.
Having said all of this, I can tell you that at the end of the year…when I run the numbers and divide any profit by the hours I work….you don’t do this for the money. You’ve got to have a passion for it.
Good luck.

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