Hello Bill & All,
 My figures were for the finshed product at retail.

The word retail shouldn't enter into the discussion because retail doesn't
apply in this situation.  All retail means to me is the amount  you recieve
between wholesale and retail with all the costs of
bottling,bottles,labels,delivering to stores,making up
invoices,filtering,clarifieing and the list goes on taken away.
The store market is not a easy market.  The market does move product.  The
average commercial beekeeper has to cut his hive numbers by at least half to
do retail unless he is making enough money to hire help.  Many people (not
beekeepers & x beekeepers) are poping up buying honey for wholesale drum
prices and selling in the stores.  Many of those quit after awhile as the
profit margin between *wholesale* and *wholesale to stores * is smaller than
you think.  I remember when honey prices soared to record highs.  Those
people had to raise their prices to the stores.  The average increase to
*Wal Mart * was over .20 U.S.. They were shocked when Wal mart added another
.20 to the increase making the total increase .40.  When asked why   Wal
Mart said "thats the way they do any price increase". When the consumer got
over the price shock and started buying honey and honey was available
cheaper in the drums again the prices started comming down.  We told all
producers at our meetings that letting the market slide back was a foolish
thing to do but each producer was trying to put the lowest price honey on
the shelf because like it or not the lowest price honey on the shelf in the
supermarket sells the most jars.   One final thought.  If you are a hobby
beekeeper producing a quality product price your honey by  YOUR bottom line
and not off the store shelve prices.   I compete with packers buying
truckloads of foreign honey a week.  The average sideline/commercial
beekeeper can't price his or her  honey to the stores as cheap as those guys
can and stay in business.   Also the large packers will price their honey
lower in a store which has a large number of beekeepers selling until the
small beekeepers honey is pulled because of slow sales.   Very old trick.
When the little beekeeper is gone the price goes back up on the packers
honey. Relations between  producers & producers in retail sales is not a
friendly one.   In many supermarkets you have to pull your own jars to the
front of the shelves yourself most of the time.  I have seen bears which
were put at the front of the shelf the day before pushed clear to the back
out of eye contact the next day on return to stock the shelves. Happens
quite a bit and done by the competion. If you notice which honey is all
pulled to the front of the shelf you can figure out the culpret.

 But even then the procees line for corn distillation might mean the
manufacturer
> has to change it for honey. I am not sure if they would invest that kind
> of money based on a government program that can end at any time.
>
I worked at Midwest Grain for a year as a teenager. They were training me at
the time to run the still so I learned quite a bit about the operation.
Honey would be easier to distill than corn because we had to cook corn<Milo
and the other grains before fermenting. Honey would only need enough of a
temperature to kill all the yeast and not actual cooking. We cooked corn &
Milo for about 24 hours in the large fermenter tanks at low temperatures to
soften the shell and speed the process.
Not wanting to argue Bill only show the other side of the discussion.  Many
wanabe store sellers might consider before leaving the *Mom & Pop* stores to
compete with the big packers for shelf space. As I said in the last post I
sell only in health food stores in which the market is different, retail and
get the $2 to $5 Bill talks about and sell wholesale (when available) to the
drum market at drum prices whatever they are. A friend told me yesterday he
hasn't sold a drum of last years honey because he is selling a few cents
higher than the others selling drums in the area.
The ethanol market refered to in the article by G.W.Hayes is the  wholesale
market for ethanol as an additive to gasoline I believe.  The store  shelves
would still contain honey and the only difference would be that there
wouldn't be warehouse after warehouse of government or producers honey
sitting around.
Sincerely,
Bob Harrison
Odessa,Missouri