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James Hartman brought a hobby and $500 together to start a full-scale honey farm business. Having worked in a completely different industry, James was running the business as a side hustle until he was laid off from his full time job. What’s really impressive though is James considers himself to be an “accidental farmer.”
James was first introduced to beekeeping by his friend in the Spring of 2020. When he developed PTSD and a mild traumatic brain injury from his time working at the bomb squad in the military, James turned to beekeeping as a form of agro-therapy for his health. As he really dove into it though, he realized it could be turned into so much more.
In this episode, we take a detailed look into the process of a successful honey farm, discover the free money nearly every entrepreneur misses out on, and learn the unusual marketing strategy to boost your sales.
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👉 Check out James’ business – https://secretgardenbees.com/
Timestamps:
00:00 – START
00:40 – How it all started
02:09 – Initial investment
02:30 – Revenue
03:45 – Going full time
04:26 – Monthly overhead
05:10 – Sourcing bees
06:02 – Setup and equipment
07:29 – Hive box
08:16 – Building a hive
09:56 – Fan blitz
11:34 – What he’d do differently
12:31 – Biggest mistakes
13:25 – Headquarters
15:56 – Equipment walkthrough
17:01 – Packing demo
18:06 – Importance of packaging
18:57 – Retail vs Wholesale
20:17 – Wholesaling
22:05 – Hiring employees
23:41 – Important lessons
25:04 – Outro
#beekeeping #honey #bees
20 Comments
Get 35% OFF selected LLC plans with Tailor Brands here: https://bit.ly/3JxiWm0
The VA should have given you a grant to start your business. If not, time to call VETERANS HELP GROUP. I am one of their satisfied clients.
20 hives on 10 acres can potentially generate $10,000 per year in gross revenue.
what is wild is the math doesn't math…68 hives AND on a GOOD year.. $1000 a hive… is only $68,000. As a beekeeper I find that each hive is only profitable to $600 per hive. Love the hustle though. Just not the lies
He is a beekeeper but his main business is being a bottler. Which is a beekeeper who buys honey from other beekeepers at wholesale and then resells it at retail. Nothing wrong with that
Great job 👍.
Last year, the thiefs broke my heart, I started with 10 beehives, and after 4 years I managed to make them 120 beehives, and I was planning beekeeping to be my only job, and in April, before the season started, they stole every single one of them.
We have big problems in Europe with the thivies.
I am from India. Can I come to Australia and do beekeeping?
What are the best videos I've seen so far
As soon as he said coping with PTSD I thought I am at the right place, I did many things and overdid some of them just to stay away from medications after a traumatic events in combat, am lately looking in to raising animals or keeping bees, since I have no enough space in my current setting I am learning that I need at least 5 acres of land in order to get in to beekeeping, I really appreciate you sharing this video & I hope he doesn't mind if I can go to his place for few weekends and learn something, I am in Central FL so it will be a long drive.
Do you normally just put random numbers in the title? The math doesn't work given the video claims
That goes for any food item business you cannot make so much money out of a natural product that takes a long time to produce. This is the kind of Farmer that ruined America. I'm sure he has given to it to stretch his tail. It's like chickens there's not enough chickens to go around for everything that is used in mass quantities. Eggs are only one egg a day for a chicken and then the chicken goes into molting, which means they don't lay any eggs for a few months so beware you can start this business but this guy is taking advantage of a lot of stuff. He's one of those veterans that goes up because that's face it there's a lot of hypocrites and all type of business religions, etc..
And that's not right that the government should only give it to the veterans because everyone in this country in one way or another, supports the war with our tax dollars as well. Everyone should be entitled to these cuts to start business.
Oh the mighty have fallen
Was amazing. Thank u🎉I'm thinking About starting
Great video
its not the "sound" its the vibration bees give off a natural healing vibration
I’m a wild bee relocated. I was in a position one time that I was living in a travel trailer. No place to put colonies that I had caught for a short time. I had 10 colonies in screen covered boxes. I slept better than ever it was weird. The noise was a soothing
…
"I was working full-time as a corporate executive–and I needed something"
😂
The title must be enough for everyone to understand it's a lie and false information.
This guy is only keeping 62 hives for “show”. He’s not a honey producer. He is a business man buying and selling honey. That high dollar honey in those fancy jars in 170 stores is most likely the cheapest corn syrup honey or Chinese” honey” you can buy anywhere. No different than great value brand in Walmart. He’s just got it figured out and customers at the stores are not smart enough to know any better. 62 hives will produce about 2 pallets of jars or less of honey per year. He’s unloading tractor trailer loads of jars.
NO!!! just close the Sole Prop. The business will only get bigger & selling or transferring to inheritors will be way harder. Take the losses now! LLCs get govt benefits too!😮