Bee Colony Startup and Cost Analysis

The increase in demand for European Honey bee pollination along with colony collapse disorder has caused bee pollination rental fees to greatly increase. This project intended to determine how effective and economically feasible it would be for almond growers to begin raising their own hives for pollination. It was determined the biggest challenges were organizing and finding employees who were knowledgeable about bee keeping. When looking at the cost it was clear that even with the current cost per hive the startup costs were still less than the total rental fees for a single pollination season. Once the hives have been established it also would allow the grower to split hives in order to increase the total number of hives they have in order to slowly phase out the need the rent additional hives if needed