Farm Type Guide
Beekeeping in New York
A few hives take up very little land, pollinate your crops and your neighbors’, and can produce honey, beeswax, and nucleus colonies to sell. How to register your bees, sell your honey, get through a New York winter, and find the help available to veterans.
The Industry at a Glance
- More New Yorkers are keeping bees, but on fewer colonies. The Census of Agriculture counted 1,168 farms with honey bee colonies in 2012, 1,774 in 2017, and 2,118 in 2022. Over the same years, colonies on those farms fell from 70,557 to 47,612, and honey collected dropped from about 3.5 million pounds to about 2.8 million.
- In 2025, New York had about 52,000 honey-producing colonies that made about 2.9 million pounds of honey, an average of 56 pounds per colony. Honey averaged $5.14 a pound, for a total value of about $15 million.
- Winter is the hard part. Among New York operations with five or more colonies, beekeepers lost 21% of their colonies in the first three months of 2025 and 17% in the first three months of 2026.
- Most beekeepers here are small. A survey of Empire State Honey Producers Association members found that the majority keep fewer than 50 hives.
New York has more beekeepers than it did a decade ago, but fewer colonies and less honey. If you’re a veteran interested in keeping bees, talk to us about joining the effort to grow beekeeping in New York.
Registering Your Bees
- Since December 23, 2021, every beekeeper in New York must register with the NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets and renew every year. There is no fee. You can register online with a NY.Gov account or send the paper form to apiary@agriculture.ny.gov.
- The form asks for each bee yard's address, county, number of colonies, and landowner, and whether you move bees, queens, or used equipment across state lines. You can also sign up for your county's Swarm Catcher Registry.
- If you sell nucleus colonies or queens, your bees must pass an annual state inspection. Sales stop at any operation where American foulbrood is confirmed until a reinspection finds it clear.
- Bees brought into New York from another state need a health certificate or permit from that state showing they are free of disease. Check before you buy packages or nucs from out of state.
- The Department's seasonal apiary inspectors work across the state looking for disease and invasive pests. Questions go to the State Apiculturist at (518) 457-2087, extension 3.
Selling Honey
- Honey from your own hives is exempt from the state food processing license (Article 20-C). The exemption covers raw, pasteurized, and creamed honey and honey candy, as long as you don't buy honey from others to repack and you keep your work area sanitary.
- Products that are more than half honey by weight can also be exempt if every added ingredient is shelf-stable and the product doesn't need refrigeration before opening. Everything you sell must be properly labeled.
- If a product doesn't meet those rules, you'll need to register as a Home Processor or get a 20-C license. Call your local Agriculture and Markets office for a product review before you start selling something new.
- Honey isn't the only product. Beeswax, nucleus colonies, queens, and pollination for nearby orchards and vegetable farms can all add income once you have some experience.
Organizations
- The Empire State Honey Producers Association (ESHPA), founded in 1870, is the statewide group for everyone from hobbyists to commercial beekeepers, with directors for the Northeast, Southern, Western, and Long Island regions. Its 2026 Fall Conference is November 6 and 7 at the Embassy Suites Destiny USA in Syracuse.
- ESHPA also posts guides on New York apiary law and honey food safety, offers a scholarship for New York students in agriculture or environmental science, and helped launch a 4-H bee club in Columbia and Greene Counties.
- Local bee clubs are where most people learn. Our beekeeping club directory lists clubs across the state. Many offer mentoring and classes for new beekeepers.
- The Cornell Pollinator Network and Cornell's Dyce Lab for Honey Bee Studies publish a Northeast beekeeping calendar, guides on overwintering and disease, a list of New York nuc and queen sellers, and a directory of veterinarians trained in bee diseases.
- American Beekeeping Federation is a national association for beekeepers of every size, from hobbyists to commercial operators. Members get a quarterly magazine, an annual conference and tradeshow, on-demand education, and information on insurance for beekeepers.
- Eastern Apicultural Society is a nonprofit serving beekeepers across the eastern United States and Canada, including New York. It holds a summer conference with short courses and workshops, runs a Master Beekeeper certification program, and offers research grants and scholarships.
- American Honey Producers Association is a national group for beekeepers who produce honey, provide pollination services, or raise queens and colonies. It is aimed mostly at commercial operations and holds an annual convention along with its work on honey trade and bee health policy.
Training and Help
- Cornell's online Beekeeping Essentials certificate is built for people with 0 to 2 years of experience and costs $699. It covers hive basics, bee biology, inspections, pests and disease, and wintering.
- After three years, the Cornell Master Beekeeping Program is a 15-month course of four online classes and three in-person exams at the Dyce Lab. It costs $899, or $599 for veterans and members of listed bee clubs.
- The NYS Beekeeper Tech Team visits enrolled beekeepers, collects data from their colonies, and gives recommendations to cut losses. It takes 25 to 30 beekeepers a year who earn at least $1,000 from bees and have registered hives.
- Your county Cornell Cooperative Extension office can help with planning, and an FSA microloan through our FSA toolkit can cover hives, equipment, and bees.
- Bees pair well with other enterprises. They help pollinate orchards and vegetables, and they fit easily on a farm with a woodlot (see Woodlots, Forestry and Maple).
Benefits for Veterans
- ELAP covers honeybee colony, hive, and feed losses from eligible causes. Colony losses are paid above a normal mortality rate (24.2% for 2024), and veterans are paid 90% of the loss rate instead of the standard 75% for colonies and hives.
- To claim ELAP, file with your FSA office by March 1 after the year of the loss, with proof of how many colonies you had at the start of the year and before and after the loss.
- Apiculture crop insurance, based on a rainfall index, is offered in all 48 contiguous states and protects honey, pollen, wax, and breeding stock. Veterans get extra crop insurance savings.
- FSA microloans up to $50,000 can help you buy hives and extraction equipment. Ask about them through our FSA toolkit.
- Sell your honey with the Homegrown By Heroes veteran label.
How to Get Started
- Join a local club from our directory and spend a season working hives with a mentor before you buy your own.
- Plan over the winter. Bees are ordered months ahead, so line up nucs or packages, ideally from a New York seller whose bees are inspected each year.
- Start with two hives so you can compare them, and register them with Agriculture and Markets when your bees arrive.
- Keep records of colony counts, inspections, and losses all year. They help you learn, and ELAP claims require them.
- Get a USDA farm number and file form CCC-860 (veteran certification) with FSA so you qualify for the higher veteran rates.
Sources: NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets; NYS Agriculture and Markets Law Section 173-C; Empire State Honey Producers Association; Cornell University Pollinator Network and Dyce Lab; USDA FSA and RMA; USDA NASS Honey and Honey Bee Colonies reports; USDA NASS Census of Agriculture.
