Portuguese 
English 
Spanish 
7 min of reading 
2 comments 
In North Carolina, James Hartman started from two hives bought with US$ 500 to 62 hives, set up extraction, packaging, and selling honey in 170 stores, and claims that beekeeping scales with marketing, labeling, and access to public equipment, keeping monthly costs close to US$ 7,000, without debt today.
The honey that came from the back of a property in North Carolina has turned into an unusual scaling case for a small producer: US$ 41,000 per month starting from about US$ 500 and two hives. At the center of the operation is James Hartman, a former member of a U.S. Army bomb squad, who treated beekeeping as a side income until he was laid off from his steady job.
The turning point did not come from a single leap, but from accumulated and quiet decisions: increasing hives, standardizing extraction and packaging, testing price and packaging, and seeking channels with stable volume. The result reveals how applied marketing and behind-the-scenes infrastructure can enable a honey producer to compete with traditional companies.
From Agrotherapy to Scale Plan
In the spring of 2020, Hartman was introduced to beekeeping by a friend and decided to start small, with two hives, to experiment.
-
The eggshell that almost everyone throws away is made up of about 95% calcium carbonate and can help enrich the soil when crushed, slowly releasing nutrients and being reused in home gardens and vegetable patches.
-
This farm in the United States does not use sunlight, does not use soil, and produces 500 times more food per square meter than traditional agriculture: the secret lies in 42,000 LEDs, hydroponics, and a system that recycles even the heat from the lamps.
-
The water that almost everyone throws away after cooking potatoes carries nutrients released during the preparation and can be reused to help in the development of plants when used correctly at the base of gardens and pots, at no additional cost and without changing the routine.
-
The sea water temperature rose from 28 to 34 degrees in Santa Catarina and killed up to 90% of the oysters: producers who planted over 1 million seeds lost practically everything and say that if it happens again, production is doomed to end.
He relates this beginning to a period of PTSD and a mild traumatic brain injury attributed to previous work, saying that managing bees served as agrotherapy by requiring focus, slow movements, and constant presence during tasks.
The hobby, however, changed in nature when honey began to be treated as a market product. The name of the farm, Secret Garden Bees, was born from the fact that the first hives were hidden at the back of the property, like a “secret garden.”
From there, growth was driven by purpose: to increase hives and build enough standardization to supply supermarkets without relying on improvisation.
Hives, Bees, and Productive Capacity
Scaling starts with the physical base: enough hives to ensure volume and regularity. Hartman reported having 62 hives and described the structure with brood chambers at the bottom and medium boxes used as supers, where honey accumulates and generates revenue.
He estimated the cost of setting up a complete box at approximately US$ 50, including frames.
The supply of bees also comes into play.
He stated that there are no native honey bees in North America and that Italian bees are common in the United States as they are calmer and produce a lot of honey.
For replenishment and expansion, he mentioned purchases around US$ 150 and the option of “nuclei,” with five frames, a queen, honey, and larvae, as an initial boost to strengthen new hives.
Extraction and Storage: The Method that Sustains Scale
Producing honey in volume requires a routine of extraction and quality control. Hartman described a flow involving uncapping the frames, spinning in the extractor, filtering, and directing to a reservoir, removing wax and debris.
Next, the honey is pumped into a one-thousand-pound holding tank and stored in five-gallon buckets, which provides stockpiling for continuous sales.
He said he performs extractions twice a year, around June 1 and October 1, according to seasonality.
The frequency may seem simple, but it carries a practical effect: planning labor, containers, and storage to avoid wasting time during the critical period.
At scale, the consistency of the process is just as valuable as the harvest, because any failure turns into product loss and missed market opportunities.
Bottling and Productivity: When the Bottleneck Shifts Sides
The major operational divide, according to him, lies in bottling. Initially, the manual process with a bucket and control of honey output required about 60 to 80 hours to lift 1,000 pounds.
With heated tanks that maintain the honey at 104 degrees, along with a filling machine and other bottling items, he stated that the same volume now requires about eight hours.
This difference creates an indirect consequence: time turns into selling capacity and maintaining standardization.
When bottling stops consuming the week, the producer becomes a manager, able to train staff, organize logistics, and execute marketing consistently.
In supermarkets, where replenishment and standardization are evaluated all the time, productivity is not a detail; it is a prerequisite.
Margin, Price, and Packaging: Marketing Without Noise
The discussion of margin appears as a control indicator. Hartman reported starting with a margin of around 20% and that, after adjusting scale and processes, he began operating with a profit margin of approximately 40% to 50%.
He attributed the improvement to the standardization of bottling, price definition, and organization of internal infrastructure before ramping up supermarket presence.
Packaging was treated as a positioning tool. He described a premium product in a glass bottle with a cork and seal, with a design process that took more than 18 months and included preference testing with customers.
In retail, he mentioned smaller jars between US$ 10 and US$ 14 and larger jars starting at US$ 20, noting stores that reach US$ 40.
The cost per bottle was mentioned at around US$ 6, reduced to approximately US$ 4, and the gain in perception was highlighted as central to marketing, especially when the product needs to justify price and occupy competitive space in supermarkets.
Supermarkets and Wholesale: The Reliability Test
The expansion thesis is clear: supermarkets as the volume engine.
Hartman mentioned entering chains like The Fresh Market and associated the advance with a process of persistence: talking to managers, obtaining corporate contacts, and repeatedly calling until getting a response.
In practice, the operation was tested with an initial set of stores, and continuity came when delivery and turnover proved consistent.
The most visible moment of this channel was a wholesale order cited at around US$ 46,000 when the network expanded the product’s presence from 60 to 170 stores.
He also described a merchandising detail: targeting the produce section, not just the grocery aisle, because consumers who buy fresh food tend to accept higher prices.
In execution terms, this decision is point-of-sale marketing, but it only works if hives, bottling, and stock support replenishment.
Monthly Costs, Capital, and the Silent Strategy
Scaling also means fixed cost. Hartman cited monthly expenses around US$ 7,000, including salaries for two full-time employees.
This number helps explain why the debate is not just about producing more: it’s about producing and selling at a sufficient pace to cover costs, maintain margins, and still finance hive and equipment growth.
To lessen the weight of investment, he mentioned using public surpluses and grants.
He cited a 2018 law that allows direct transfer of surpluses from the government to veterans and illustrated it with a forklift valued at US$ 40,000 obtained for a service fee of US$ 500, a F-350 truck for US$ 1,000, and a trailer acquired for a few hundred dollars, used as a climate-controlled extraction unit.
In bottling, he mentioned a set of equipment costing around US$ 20,000, saying he put in about US$ 2,000 of his own money after obtaining a grant for small farmers, to buy with growth and standardization in mind.
Risk, Losses, and Routine: The Hidden Cost of Scale
Scaling also amplifies risks, and Hartman framed this as managerial discipline. He stated that he maintains a risk management spreadsheet and insisted that failures are certain in any small business.
A concrete example was an arctic cold snap in the previous winter, associated with the loss of 14 hives due to freezing, in addition to USDA insurance to compensate for some losses through a claims request.
The work routine has also been adjusted for risk. He reported an early error when he tried to extract honey during the day, which attracted a large volume of bees and made the process unviable.
The correction was to move extraction to the night, starting around nine o’clock and working through the night while the bees sleep. Beekeeping at scale is not idyllic: it is logistics, timing, and mitigation, and these details sustain the standard required by supermarkets.
Direct Retail, Team, and Legal Choices
Even with the supermarket-focused strategy, Hartman described that part of the sales still goes through direct-to-consumer retail, about 20% to 25%, and that this channel tends to yield about 30% more profit than wholesale.
He also mentioned building a point of sale on the farm for less than US$ 1,000 and reported that the space began generating an average of US$ 500 per week, showing how honey can combine volume in supermarkets and margin in local retail with proximity marketing.
The expansion also brought hiring decisions and legal structure. He reported hiring an agricultural apprentice and stated that on-the-job training programs can cover 75% of the first 960 hours; he also cited a federal tax credit tied to hiring a disabled veteran, with an estimated savings of around US$ 29,000 for the year.
In legal terms, he said that the biggest mistake was starting as a sole proprietor and delaying the establishment of an LLC or S corp, because the later change, after the operation is already structured as a sole proprietorship, tends to be more difficult and bureaucratic.
The story of honey here is less about luck and more about a combination of hives, disciplined beekeeping, applied marketing, and a route of expansion into supermarkets with cost and risk control. If you had a backyard and started with two hives, what would be your most realistic decision for the first year: doubling hives, entering supermarkets, or selling premium in direct retail? What would make you choose that path?
I would start from my small plot of land respectively please
Ótimo depoimento, com ideias e estratégias inovadoras e conscientes.