In 2021 during the height of the Coronavirus pandemic, Erwin was browsing through his Facebook when a post about honey caught his attention. His sister just bought one liter of honey sold online and she said it tasted bad. She bought it for P150. When Erwin asked the Facebook poster how much was 1 liter, he was shocked to hear the price – the seller said his one-liter honey costs P1,000 plus shipping.
“Is this a joke? My sister just bought 1 liter for P150 through Lazada and you are asking me to pay P1,000?”, he said.
“Sir, your sister bought a fake honey. No one in his right mind who breeds honeybees would sell 1 liter even for P800 unless it is wholesale”, the seller responded.
Couldn’t believe it, Erwin decided to join a couple of FB Groups discussing honey and he immediately discovered the real price. The seller was correct. He immediately asked his sister to throw away the honey she bought as it might be toxic for the kids.
Since it was a lockdown and Erwin couldn’t do anything, he spent most of his time researching honey bee farming in the Philippines. From there, he learned that someone in Lipa City is conducting honeybee farming every Saturday so he decided to attend once the lockdown is over.
Eight months had passed and the lockdown was not as strict as before. The beekeeping seminar resumed and he attended for three straight Saturdays.
Beekeeping (Apis Millepera) is not a cheap startup business and it requires at least P9,000 for a single colony so he started with one. It was August 2022 when he acquired his first colony. By November, the trainer advised him to split the colony into two, but he refused because he didn’t have extra money to buy a new hive set, which required about P3,500. He continued taking care of his single colony until the first honey flow by the summon of 2023.
By March 2023, his honeybees started to gather nectars and turn them into honey. The colony was very strong so he needed to buy a medium box and frames for the honey. By the last week of May, the medium box was full of honey and Erwin did his first harvest. It was a modest eight liters of pure honey. Since it was his first harvest, he did not sell anything.
He returned the medium box after extracting the honey and two months later, it was almost filled again with honey. He harvested five frames and left the other five for honeybees. He got another four liters of honey. This time, he sold a total of five liters for P5,000 with still enough supply for the rest of the year.
Erwin was very happy with his experience so by September, he split the colony into two and bought a new queen for P1,800.
By October, the original colony was overflowing with worker bees and Erwin decided to buy another queen and split the colony again. He had a total of three colonies.
The P5,000 revenue from the honey he sold was invested back but in May 2024, Erwin was in a big profit.
Erwin harvested a total of 27 liters of pure honey from his three colonies in May alone, and another nine liters in July, netting him a total of 46 liters – good for P46,000.
His original investment of P12,000 (including hive) had almost quadrupled in just two years. As of this writing, Erwin has six colonies of honey bees for 2025 honey flow.
Erwin Castillo is living in Tanauan City, Batangas, and works as a Process Engineer in an automotive manufacturing plant in LIMA. He is just 40 years old but plans to retire before 45 once he multiple his colonies to 50 in the coming years.
He is from Bacolod and plans to bring his business to his hometown once he gains more experience.
The supply of pure honey according to him is very scarce and even off-ff season for honey, he already reserved 30 liters for May.
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