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Beekeeping
All Containers›Shop by use case›Beekeeping›Tools and directories›Harvest yield, and what holds itShop all honey and bee products →
Tools

Harvest yield, and what holds it

By Dwight Davis, Founder

Updated

On this page4
Two questions arrive together at a first harvest. How much honey am I about to have, and do I own anything to put it in. The second one has a deadline, because honey does not wait in a super while you order buckets.
SetupPoundsGallonsBuckets1 lb jars8 oz jars
1 hive, 1 medium343.213468
1 hive, 2 medium686.4268136
2 hives, 2 medium13612.83136272
3 hives, 2 medium20419.14204408
5 hives, 2 deep51047.895101020
10 hives, 3 medium102095.61710202040
Assumes 85 percent of frames capped and 10 percent headspace. Buckets are 5 gallon food-grade.

How the numbers are built

A full capped medium frame carries about 4 pounds of honey, a deep about 6, a shallow about 2.5. Frames are rarely full, so this assumes 85 percent capped, which sits just above the 80 percent threshold at which a frame is worth taking at all.

For a sanity check against your own expectations, USDA reported a national average of 48 pounds per colony in 2025 across 2.41 million colonies. One hive with two mediums lands close to it.

A 5 gallon bucket holds about 60 pounds of honey. Not 5 gallons of it by weight. Honey is half again as dense as water, which is how people order the wrong number of buckets and find out with honey on the floor.

Why the jar counts look high

Because honey is sold by weight and jars are sized by volume. A one pound jar is a 12 fluid ounce container, so a pound of honey fills a smaller jar than instinct suggests. That is worked through on what size jar for a pound of honey, and first orders often get it wrong.

What to do with the number

  • Order buckets before you extract. This is the one with the deadline.
  • Order jars after you know the real weight, because this is an estimate and being short on jars is easier to fix than being long.
  • Do not order one size. A stall needs a small size and a default size, for the reasons on what to charge.

References

USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (March 2026). Honey (ISSN 1949-1492). nass.usda.gov
Oklahoma State University Extension. Beekeeping: Honey Harvest Methods, Costs and Breakeven Calculations (AGEC-272). extension.okstate.edu
Frame yields are published averages and yours will differ. Treat the output as a planning figure for ordering, not as a forecast.