He Makes $82,000/Day Selling Honey!

These bees make over $30 million a year in revenue. But it all started with one 12 year old 300 bucks and just a few beehives. Today we're breaking down how to make money from bees. How you could do it even in your backyard. And maybe you can also save the population of bees. Let's go meet the 12 year old that built this entire business based on bees, huh?

Hey, Cody.

Hey, how's it going?

Good to meet you.

Good to meet you too. All right. You're a little tall for 12 year olds.

I know. I grew fast.

This entire business started with one hive, one beehive. That's wild. That looks just like.

Just like this. Yes.

What does that cost you?

About $300.

Break it down for me. Kind of the whole cost of your first bee operations as a 12 year old mogul.

The 12 year old empire started with really just a $300 beehive, you know, a $50 bee suit and bee veil and some basic packaging equipment that maybe cost $100. I got a little bit addicted. And I said, okay, hey, this is the math. It cost me $300 to get a new beehive. Then I got 10 and I said, okay, now I've got all this extra honey, what could I sell it for? And so I started packaging it, selling it to local health food stores, and then, okay, what would it look like to do this commercially for a living?

Why were you like, no, no, I want to, like get stung a lot.

Beekeeping was just something I stumbled upon when I was starting high school. It was a niche industry that no one was paying attention to. The average age was about 65 years old to be in this industry.

So how much money did you do you think you made between like 12 and 14 on honeycombs?

About 10 to 15 grand a year. Whoa. Yeah, but I put every dime back into the business.

And then you started to go more commercial, Right? And that's when you started making couple six figures.

Yeah. So, I mean, I was doing six figures by the time I graduated high school.

Now you guys do. How much?

30 to 40 million.

So sweet.

It is.

I kind of am curious. Like, I've always wanted to see inside of one of those. What does the actual process look like?

I love to show you. Let's go take a look.

So this is what's inside of those hives over there?

Yes. This is a mini picture of what a full beehive would look like.

So I know we're going to get into actual beehive later. Let's break down really quickly all your revenue lines in this bee business.

Yeah. So we sell honey, we sell pollination services, we sell supplies, honey adjacent food products. So food manufacturing, and then we sell some beekeeping services.

What about education?

Education really brings them in to get them to buy the products we're selling. Education is a marketing tool for us.

So you have six revenue streams in this one business. You start small, but you scale hard. He did what most Main street millionaires do. He got in the game with what he had. You don't need permission, you just need to go do it. So behind us right now, we're. We have what's called totes.

Totes of honey. Yes.

And so what. What is that?

So those are empty totes that we get honey in from all over the country, we bring them here, we process the honey, and then the empty totes are cleaned out and sent back to the beekeeper they came from.

How much does one of those cost if it's full of honey?

So if it's full of honey, it's about $15,000 worth of honey. It took half a million bees to make one tote full of honey.

Wait a second.

$3 million of honey. What's this? So these are all barrels of honey. So you can get honey and totes with £3,000 to the tote, or you can get it in barrels with 600 pounds to the barrel.

Wow.

Why the two different beekeepers produce honey in different quantities, different sizes. It's a preference thing.

And where we make the real money.

Is we put them into the little. Into the little jars.

Okay, let's go do this part.

Let's go check it out.

This is a $3 million honey processing facility, and we're going to show you everything inside of here to see how it actually works behind the scenes.

This is the honey sauna. It's about 130 degrees, but we've got about a million dollars of honey right now, and it's being warm to get ready to process.

That's amazing. So without this, it would look like old crackly honey, like when you're exactly.

Out of the jar.

But it actually is totally fine for honey to get really hot or cold.

Yes, as long as it's within proper parameters. We are very careful to make sure it stays within a certain temperature range, which protects the nutrients in honey because we want the good stuff left in it. Ready? Okay. All right. You're gonna need this.

All right, let's do it.

Let's bottle some honey.

Love it. Okay, so talk to me about the entire Process from hive to jar. How does it work?

That's a great question. So we let our bees do all the work, really. I mean, the bees do the vast majority of the work. And then our job, get it into a jar with minimal processing.

I like that.

Some of our customers want every bit of nutrition they can possibly get in the honey. So this is honey that has never been warm. So you can even feel it's a little bit cold. This takes less processing, but we charge more for it because the customer sees it as something that's abnormal, and they'll pay even more, even though it cost us less to produce.

That's wild. Also smaller batch. You're probably not doing as many of these.

Exactly.

But it's a great moment to think about in every single market. Where is there part of your market that nobody else is doing where you might actually be able to make more money, but it doesn't always cost you more.

Exactly. And this is a great example of that.

So I bet the first time you did this, it was nothing like this.

Oh, not at all. It was a mess. So messy. But you get to lick your fingers in this job. So, you know, that's a. That's a perk.

I do love that. I think first you just do it, and then you do it.

Well, that's so true. Generated, oh, 100%.

So now we're going to go to the big factor where there's way more automation. And you guys are really pros, right? Beginners do too much. Pros do only what is needed. I think the easiest way to spot a beginner is busyness.

Yeah.

And I think you're going to see in here, you guys, how pros actually do things.

Step one, bottle goes on the table and get filled with honey, making sure the fill level is where it should be. Then we're getting a lid put on. Last but not least, it gets a label, goes into a box, and then it's all for the grocery store.

How many of these things come through an hour?

About a thousand an hour.

What do you sell these jars for?

Wholesale, $5. In a store, you're going to pay about $9.

So one hour, we make 5,000 bucks. Every single business is an assembly line, no matter whether you're manufacturing or not. You start with an idea, you create a product, you eventually get it to customers, and you hopefully repeat the cycle of them buying from you again and again. So if you don't already know what the assembly line is to your business, that means you don't actually know how you make money. The number one thing you should do while watching this video if you own a business, is figure out where do you start, where do you end, and how do you repeat the process. And cheaper and better. If you guys haven't heard of the Toyota Way or Lean Manufacturing, you should probably check it out. I think every business needs to. And you applied it here. Explain what it is really quick.

Yeah. So it's being able to take all your processes, all of your systems, and apply them in a very cost effective way that is going to really boost your profit margins.

Yeah. The fascinating part is before the Toyota Way was released, there was a completely different way that they did car manufacturing. And with this one methodology, Toyota became one of the top car manufacturers in the world. Japan didn't used to be that, that. Now everybody from Ford to Tesla uses components of it and it turns out so does honey. So whatever your business is, you might want to look on how you can make more by doing things simpler. So when you first start out, like in any business, you're doing this all yourself. But I bet right now you don't even know how to run some of this stuff.

I embarrassed to say, but I don't. But that's okay because I. I'm always trying to work myself out of a job. That's my job.

I don't know why that is so hard for people to understand.

Early on, people have a hard time letting go. But if I'm doing $10 an hour work, my work is only worth $10 an hour. And that's not okay if I own the company.

And you'll never make an obscene amount of money by not being able to hire incredible people. Maybe even some who are smarter than you.

Oh, I. That's the bar for hiring is they've got to be smarter than me. It's a pretty low bar.

I feel the same way. Not the team. I'm like, how do you work these things? Ever have like a Lucille Ball moment where she's like trying to keep up and then the honey is falling everywhere?

Sometimes. Sometimes, yeah.

Wait, you guys, because I got something just for you. I'm going to give the best bee pun in the comments. Gets honey made just for you. You want to wear this?

Real beekeepers don't wear that.

Okay. I want to talk about why you chose this branding and what you learned.

Yeah, yeah. Clean label is everything for us. What we try to do is focus on calling out the core attributes that the customer cares the most about in as quick a way as possible. I mean, we know we have less than a second to catch the customer's eye when they're shopping in the grocery store. They want their honey to be raw and unfiltered and they care where it's from.

Is it also really important that it looks like what it is? Like this looks raw and unfiltered. The label, it almost looks like it could be small batch. It doesn't look big and corporate.

Right, the goal. Yes.

And then why we are beekeepers first.

Because most people that package honey aren't actually beekeepers. They're big packing food companies. And so we want to emphasize our story, which is that hey, we are vertically integrated. We raise the honeybees themselves and then we produce the honey ourselves.

And then you have your story on the back here.

Exactly.

Sundays you were 13 here.

Ah, typo.

Now why did you go with something totally different looking on this one? Why the word honest?

Yes. So we are really going for a different target audience there. We're going for a consumer that is very health conscious. So more health food store esque instead of everyday use that you might see on the big box stores.

Yeah, this does feel a little bit more like I might see this at like sprouts or something or whole Foods.

Right.

Talk to me about hot honey. That seems weird.

It is one of the hottest ingredient combinations in the country right now is sweet and spicy.

Yeah. This is brand like. Why did this start? My husband use it now.

Yes, it's. It's everywhere.

So you basically saw demand for this, created your own product and then have a little markup. No markdown. Because it's smaller.

Yes, it's what. Actually it's a great margin. Yeah. So it's about $9 in retail stores.

Interesting secret. If you want to make a lot of money in business. Stack the value, stack the revenue. What does that mean? If you have just one product line you don't have to a business. You have a single point of failure. You can see he has merch. You can see he has accoutrements. You can see he has multi flavored types of honey. You can see sells online. This whole process means that we have diversification of risk. You got four ways that you can diversify your revenue streams into four different types of products. You can do wholesale, sell big things of this two third parties. You can have direct to consumer or retail where you're actually taking your own product and selling it right to me and you the third type of product, value added resale. So take their honey, put it it inside this product that somebody else manages. And then they actually resell the product, but they don't have to do all of it. And lastly, we have straight up third party, which means they're not the ones manufacturing these. They buy it from somebody else and resell it to you with a little bit of the markup four different ways you can diversify your revenue streams. What do you sell the most of?

Oh, this.

What's second most?

Oh, definitely that.

What surprised you in how much it.

Sold this thing all day.

What is that?

This is a bee smoker. We build a fire inside and puff smoke into the beehive, and it keeps them calm.

Let's break down the numbers in this business, or business as we're calling it. Revenue, $30 million a year, pretty good profit. How much money do they actually keep in their pocket? We're saying 15% blended margins. Biggest L. This guy says that one time he lost $3 million, which is so painful. Sorry, Blake. Startup costs. What did it cost to start this business? We already know this, but 300 bucks ain't bad. A lot more costs go in to scale it. But that's just the beginning. Number of employees in this business right now, 125. And finally, cost of all those bees just this year? Well, it's 2 million bucks. Now that we see the breakdown of his business, let's break down your business live and how you can have your own little honeybee producing profit machine. I'm going to bring in the expert for that. We're going to help you figure out how to start a bee business right now with a guy who's literally done it and then helped. How many people do it, do you think?

Oh, hundreds or thousands.

Okay. How many hives would you have to start with? At minimum?

At least six.

How many pounds of honey does it make per hive?

Good hive should make £60, which means.

You'Re making about £900. I like it.

Yeah.

Now, if you're going to go sell these things, where are we selling them?

Totally go for the farmer's market somewhere. It's going to be a premium for every pound. So $15 a pound, 50 bucks a pound.

So how much revenue, loosely would you make in the first year?

So about 13,500 range is where you should land.

Okay. And obviously we got to be good at marketing for this. Of course, you got to actually do the work. People aren't going to come to you. But you've seen this a few times.

Totally.

And so we've got a ballpark.

Right.

How much does an individual hive cost?

So you should be around $300 a hive.

Nice. Which means we're at about 1800 bucks on the low end now. Food per hive.

Yeah. But $200 to $300 a hive per year. So 240.

Right on hive management. Which basically means what?

Yeah, just miscellaneous expenses. Nothing huge. About $300 total.

Perfect for the year. Love it.

And then other $1800 roughly of just miscellaneous fees. That's like suits, smokers, bee fuel. Yes.

I like it. Now, land. This is a little secret hat.

You told me most people will let you put bees on their land for free if you give them a jar of honey.

I love that you guys tell me if that works for you in the comments. Which means for your business, we're getting to somewhere around 13,500 in revenue. We're looking at 5,000, maybe $300. Which means in total public math. Just kidding. We already did it for you. Is $8,200. So we think the profit margin of 61%. That feels a little high to me. Doesn't feel. How do you.

Whiteboard math always looks amazing.

When in reality running a business is really like, I don't know, his belt. So we don't actually think it's 61%. It's probably closer to what, 40, I.

Would guess 35 to 40. Because you're going to lose some of the beehives. A couple of those beehives are going to die in the course of the year. One might not produce as much honey. One might produce more honey. So.

Yeah, it might be a terrible salesperson.

Might be a terrible salesperson.

Let's taste some honey.

Let's do it.

Okay, so I'm going to start with this one. This is the straight up honey. Right.

Normal honey.

And you just put it in there and then you eat it like this.

Want to?

Okay.

It's like those recipe videos.

This is actually delicious. So what do you taste when you taste this one?

I can tell you what type of flower it's from and what part of the country it's from. Get the.

Yeah. Like, even if you didn't know, you could do fine. Taste of honey.

100. There's 190 different varieties of honey in the US alone.

Okay, this one. Wow. This does taste different.

Totally different.

Totally different.

Totally different floral source. Yes.

Wait, that's because of the flour. Not because of the heat.

Because of the flour.

I really like that one.

I do, too.

It's almost like honey peanut butter.

Yeah. It's like creamy, spreadable. Yeah. Yeah.

And the hot honey, which you said is not going to be too much.

For me and you promised me something like that. What's your heat tolerance level?

Oh, I'm sort of like a fake Latina, so hopefully.

Okay. All right, well, you'll be fine.

All right, so here we go. Hot honey.

That's a lot.

That is spicy.

It's the best.

I need a pizza. Okay, now that's really hot. This is the beehive, right?

It is.

If I can get 15,000 likes on this video. I want to put beehives on my raw land and show you guys exactly how to do it. Let's go build a beehive right now.

Great idea.

What are the steps here is you.

Put the joints together. You nail the joints together. We put bees in.

Now this is 3,000 bees in just this one thing. This psychopath is picking them up. I don't know what's wrong with him, but basically we have 40 million bees behind me mathematically. And you can ship these to customers to start your hive. I can actually see the bees through there. That is so stressful. So we've built it, now we got to fill it. Blake, what do we need?

Need a brush? Be smoke gloves. Hive tool. The bee suit.

Okay. I think the best creative infused honey idea wins the bee box. What do you think?

Love it. Great idea.

I'm going with lavender. What do you think?

Maybe almond.

Welcome to our bee rental units. What you see here are not just boxes full of bees and colonies. These are actually, in a way, little bee apartments and actually cash flowing assets.

Thousands of them.

So talk about what's behind us right now.

So these are thousands of beehives, and each box can have up to 50 to 60,000 printers in it. And yeah, so we build these every day into this in this location, and then we move them out to fresh fields of flowers where they grow and develop.

And what's so crazy about this is right now you might think, why are all of these in, like an industrial location? That's because they actually bring in the bees and they put them into new units. And you're basically growing your bee population lot.

Exactly. Yes.

How many hives do you guys own?

We own 30,000 hives.

30,000 hives. And how many bees in total?

Oh, over a billion.

A billion bees. That also sounds kind of sweet. It's amazing, honestly.

Billion employees. Yes.

Look at this little cash machine here. We've got tons of residents actively coming out here to poop, apparently, I'm told, right, Sometimes. What are the rules of thumb for somebody starting out right now that wants to get their first 500 to 2000 bucks a month with a beehive.

Start learning. Find a mentor that can help walk you through all the mistakes that they made.

Love that. That's the best advice for almost any side hustle. First you learn, then you earn, then you invest. That's what he did. Took all the earnings, applied it to this business, never raised VC in order to get to 40 million bucks. And then finally you can take that and you can have your own little mini bee empire. Now, we're surrounded by a billion bees right now, and it might feel like the bee population, at least here, is fine. But I hear that's not what's happen in the world.

Oh, not at all. I mean, beekeepers have had the worst loss in history over the past eight months.

How much money have you lost from losing bees this year?

I mean, our biggest loss ever has been up to $3 million of lost bees in one year. But that pales in comparison to the 600 million losses in industry.

What is going on?

We have no idea. And that's the terrifying part is it's a combination of theoretically several things. Pesticides, pests, lack of clean forage, all conglomerating and herding the bees all at the same time.

I read some studies that there were something like 68% of all US honeybees have been lost over the last decade.

Yes, 68%. And that's actually in the last eight months.

Does it continue?

That's what we wait and see. If it does continue, we won't be able to produce food in the United States like we always have. So it's critical we get to the bottom of it. One of the biggest things we're doing, and that's what we're doing at this location, is we are rebuilding beehives.

Sometimes it's not just about making a ton of money. It's also about making a difference. So I want you guys to get rich. Yes, so you can drive your Lambos, but also maybe so you can save the world. So what's the secret? A few hives, a little land, a lot of upside. That's all you need to start your bee empire. Comment below, we'll answer all your questions on how you, too, can grow your side hustle bee business.