Honey is not a cottage-food jar. The last post covered jam, bread, and dried herbs. A hive sits under a different rule, and the four states do not treat it the same way.
I have not registered a hive. This is the reading, and the disclaimer applies.
Missouri has its own honey statute. RSMo 261.241 says a seller whose honey sales are $50,000 or less a year does not have to build a separate bottling plant. The honey has to be bottled in the home of the person who harvested it. The label needs a name and address, the common name, and the ingredients. Keep a sales record. The department can ask to see it. This is not the cottage-food list. Jam is RSMo 196.298. Honey is 261.241. Mix the two and you are under both.
Kentucky raised the small-producer line in 2025. House Bill 391 amended KRS 217.187. Pure, unadulterated Kentucky honey can be sold up to 500 gallons a year before you need a certified honey house or a permit from the Cabinet for Health and Family Services. The old line was 150 gallons. Honey is not on the home-based processor list, so the $60,000 cottage-food cap is not the honey rule. The hive itself does not have to be registered with the state. A county nuisance rule can still block a hive in a yard. The Kentucky enterprise note is the product side. This is the honey rule.
Arkansas folds honey into the Food Freedom Act. Extracted honey, comb, chunk, and creamed honey are non-TCS foods. They do not need a state license or a sales cap under Act 1040. You sell to an informed end consumer. The University of Arkansas sheet for hobbyist beekeepers is the plain version: FSPPC320. Online sales that cross a state line have to meet the other state’s rule. The Arkansas enterprise note is the matching product page.
Mississippi treats honey as a farm product, not a cottage-food jar. Producers under 500 gallons a year are not inspected unless they ask. The code language is “infrequent casual sales,” and that phrase is loose. The Mississippi State University sheet is the current policy reading: honey inspection and labels. Over 500 gallons, the bottling place is inspected. The label rule is Miss. Code Ann. § 75-29-601. The word “honey” means honey. A blend with another sweetener cannot use that word alone. The $35,000 cottage-food cap is a different statute. Do not assume it covers the jar.
What I take from the four. Missouri caps the home bottling exemption at $50,000. Kentucky’s small-producer line is now 500 gallons. Arkansas is the open door, under the same Food Freedom Act as the jam. Mississippi uses a gallon line, not a dollar cap, and the wording is the weak point. None of this is a hive on the land. Land is not bought. The cottage-food post is the kitchen rule. This is the hive rule. The Challenge is what those sales would have to help carry.
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