What Your Honey Jar Doesn’t Show: Hidden Costs Squeezing Italy’s Beekeeping Farms

The research draws on CREA’s Honey Cost project, a national survey designed around 434 professional beekeeping businesses across Italy. Its results cover the 2023–2024 accounting years, with 768 valid questionnaires reported across the two years, equivalent to 384 farm responses annually.

A jar of honey carries expenses that shoppers never see, from feeding colonies through difficult seasons to the hours a beekeeper's family spends tending hives and preparing honey for sale. Research from Italy shows how easily those hours can disappear from the accounts, leaving a business looking healthier than it really is.

The study, 'Determination of Economic Sustainability and Efficiency in Honey Production in Italy: The Survey Honey Cost,' published in Agriculture, examines the finances behind professional honey production. Researchers Milena Verrascina, Antonio Giampaolo and Concetta Cardillo found that average honey selling prices covered operating costs across the farm groups examined, with a shortfall appearing once unpaid family work received a monetary value.

Counting the Work Behind Every Jar

The research draws on CREA's Honey Cost project, a national survey designed around 434 professional beekeeping businesses across Italy. Its results cover the 2023–2024 accounting years, with 768 valid questionnaires reported across the two years, equivalent to 384 farm responses annually. The survey focused on commercially active enterprises with approximately 40 or more hives, selecting businesses where honey accounted for more than 75% of production value.

Researchers calculated expenses in three layers: everyday costs such as feed, transport and packaging; operating costs that include paid workers, maintenance and depreciation; and total economic costs that place a value on unpaid family labour.

Family working hours were valued using agricultural wage rates matched to workers' skills. That final layer changes the picture because a family can keep a business running without paying itself a regular wage, making sales income look more rewarding than it is.

The sector described in the survey has a strong professional character: around 70% of businesses involved full-time work, 28% were certified organic, and more than 90% packaged at least some honey. Over 37% of beekeepers were described as young, and nearly 30% held a university degree.

The Gap Between Selling Honey and Earning a Living

The clearest sign of financial strain appears in the comparison between production costs and selling prices. In 2024, small farms recorded total economic costs of €16.27 per kilogram against an average selling price of €11.72. Medium-sized businesses faced costs of €13.41 and received €10.16.

Large farms, generally operating more than 240 hives, produced honey at a lower total economic cost of €8.84 per kilogram, receiving an average price of €7.43. Their cost advantage reduced the gap without closing it.

Unpaid family work accounted for €8.33 of the cost of producing a kilogram on small farms, compared with €5.95 on medium farms and €2.42 on large farms. Those figures reveal how heavily smaller businesses depend on time that may never appear as a payment leaving the bank account.

Packaging, marketing, feeding and transport formed major parts of everyday spending. Among stationary farms, packaging and marketing represented 38% of variable costs in 2024; moving hives accounted for 28% of variable costs among migratory businesses.

Larger enterprises could spread equipment, labour and other expenses across more honey, producing lower and more stable costs per kilogram. Small producers received higher selling prices, a benefit that did not fully compensate for their higher total costs.

Moving Hives Helps, and Size Tells Only Part of the Story

More than three-quarters of the represented businesses practised migratory beekeeping, moving colonies between locations to follow flowering plants and improve production opportunities. These farms averaged 18.6 kilograms of honey per hive in 2024, compared with 15.4 kilograms for stationary operations. Their total economic cost reached €9.86 per kilogram, against €12.26 for businesses keeping hives in one place.

Family labour explains a substantial part of that difference, accounting for roughly 32% of total economic costs on migratory farms and 43% on stationary farms in 2024. The average selling prices of €8.95 and €9.87, respectively, fell below those full costs.

The researchers report that including additional farm revenue streams allowed migratory businesses to cover total economic costs on average. Production weakened between 2023 and 2024, with yields falling in every size category. Total farm revenue declined by 7.1% among migratory operations and 18.4% among stationary businesses, underlining how vulnerable earnings can be to a disappointing season.

Lower costs per kilogram did not make large farms the strongest performers by every measure. Small farms generated €220 in revenue per hive in 2024, compared with €174 for large farms, and recorded operating margins of €82 per hive against €62. These margins exclude the separate valuation of unpaid family labour, which explains how encouraging hive-level results can coexist with an overall economic shortfall.

Businesses run by university graduates and those involving full-time work generally recorded stronger productivity and margins per hive. These are observed patterns across farms, rather than proof that education, expansion or hive movement will improve every beekeeper's results.

Keeping Beekeeping Viable Means Looking Beyond Honey Sales

The pressures described in the paper reach beyond business management. Adverse weather, climate change, diseases, parasites, pesticide exposure, counterfeit honey and competition from cheaper imports can affect production or earnings in ways individual beekeepers cannot easily control.

The authors call for support that reflects differences between farm sizes and production systems, together with better management tools, market access and recognition of honey quality. They discuss Italy's developing National Quality System for Honey, covering production requirements, testing, traceability, labelling and bee welfare.

Reliable cost records can help producers negotiate prices, choose sales channels, organise work and judge whether an investment is affordable. Honey Cost entered Italy's official statistical system in 2026, giving the sector a framework for tracking these pressures over time.