> Killer bee honey was a failure

I spent only a few minutes searching the web and discovered one  
vendor still selling "killer bee honey".  (I discovered that "killer  
bee" is the name of a golf club, which complicates the search process  
a tad.)  I wonder how popular it is.

My take on this and the "artisenal honey" thread is that beekeepers  
who sell in the retail market should consider using more imagination  
in labeling.  Apply your own ethical standards -- if you're not  
comfortable using the word "artisan", then don't use it.  But we need  
to realize that there are a lot of folks who can be motivated to buy  
something by a label that catches their attention.  This is not a bad  
thing.

We beekeepers know that honey is a great natural, local, unprocessed  
product.  In may cases, potential buyers don't realize this.  Within  
legal and ethical limits, we need to use labels to educate them.   
Maybe we can even learn a little from our competition in this  
regard . . . if you can sell corn syrup as honey or leverage the name  
"honey" to sell a product that doesn't contain honey, shouldn't we  
who are selling the real thing be able to do even better?

Related . . . I thought that Kim's "Inner Cover" editorial in the  
January "Bee Culture" was thought provoking.  Complete with a Dennis  
the Menace cartoon, he suggests that current honey containers leave  
something to be desired.  "Isn't it time to quit using the least  
useful, most inconvenient, messy, sticky containers we can find?"  My  
opinion is not quite this vehement but the type of container, like  
the label, is something that merits more attention than it often  
receives.

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