> As far as my own production I've answer this request before
> on this site just a month or so ago but to summerize:
Yes, Don has posted this information before and given us a pretty
clear idea of what he is doing and how it is working for him.
Not bad, it seems.
We appreciate that openness because it allows us to see how
viable his activities are thus far and others can decide if
he has ideas that might work for them.
A while back, we got into a discussion with of a member who
advocates and breeds a local British bee in his region. When
we doubted the productivity of his stock, he he gave us a
credible response, including yields, that showed us that his
stock and methods seem to be quite productive.
I just watched a video in which Michael Bush states if I
understood him correctly, that he had not extracted for years.
The URL is http://youtu.be/XOePxKgMh-o?t=5m20s
The audio was terrible, the mention was in passing, and I was
sufficiently distracted at the moment that I am not certain that
honey production was a goal or that he was not making comb or selling
bees, but he also gave that important information and is not
being cagey about how he is making out. Bravo!
I think that it is only fair that if people preach a method of
beekeeping or a breed of bee that they reveal what sorts of honey
yields they achieve with their methods. If they have marketing
tricks that make an otherwise unprofitable beekeeping methods
viable, that needs revealing too if the methods are being promoted
as viable.
If marketing and achieving unusual prices is a critical part of
the system and if the desire is to keep these details secret, then
the best policy is to stay silent, not to go around preaching
while keeping the secret essential ingredients hidden from a
believing audience.
When asked here, I gave my yield numbers recently, not that it was
at all relevant to anything. I'm no advocate and I don't recommend
that people do anything in particular, except maybe raise bees for
sale instead of honey production and I'm not sure how good I am at
doing that myself. It will take a few more years to get a track record.
I did make a pretty good living at commercial beekeeping, starting
with not much, and managed to retire in reasonable comfort but I
attribute that mostly to luck and don't suggest others use me
as an example for anything except that a beekeeper can do OK
in spite of repeatedly making blunders.
Of course, production numbers tend to be a bit approximate in cases
where honey production is not a goal or even when it is the principal
business. Conditions vary from year to year and the hive count on
which we calculate -- spring hives, fall hives, nucs and swarms
included or not -- may not be the same between beekeepers.
Moreover, we all make errors in calculation and forget details,
but the numbers we come up with do give an indication whether out
operation is anywhere near being viable economically -- and readers
can ask for details if they need to understand better.
That, IMO, is being totally open, and I think that anyone advocating a
method or a breed owes it to his/her audience to be straight and
honest about such an important detail.
As for Dee, she is strongly advocating methods but concealing the
most important detail -- how much honey her methods produce.
Moreover, she is decrying methods which are supporting other beekeepers
and suggesting they should abandon those methods and adopt hers.
As I understand it, she started with what was once an established,
viable multi-generational commercial bee operation, considerable
money in trust and real estate that appreciated immensely as
Tucson grew, so I am not surprised she is paying her bills.
It is interesting that, gathering from her comments, that the State
has had some doubts about her status as 'agric'. I have to wonder,
too.
My most generous estimate of her production is 25 pounds per hive
from some numbers she mentioned a while back, but that may have
been the accumulated crop over more than one season as she
sells into a specialty market that is not very large.
On occasion she can get a significant premium for her honey due
to her claims, backed by lab tests, that it is free of common
chemicals. If she can get a premium, that compensates quite
well for very low yields, but that market is a niche market that
is so small, with so few customers, that it tends to be very
unreliable for an operation of any scale and there is not much
room for others to move in. I think Joe Carson taps that high
price market with his Alaska honey and its unique story.
Zero chemical claims is a marketing tool that works well for
some, at the expense of deprecating other honey which is not
marketed that way. Whether the honey on the market from other
sources actually contains measurable amounts of those chemicals
is an interesting question, since we don't hear a lot about that
and commercial honey is traded internationally with many
importing countries using very stringent testing. Additionally,
no one really knows if tiny amounts of a chemical in a product
which is only consumed in small amounts is of any significance
beyond being a marketing tool. The remainder of most peoples' diet
contains far more chemical residue that any amount they would
be expected to consume from honey.
Dee can correct me if I misunderstood what she and Ed told me in
2002 and 2005 and what I have observed since.
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