No doubt the retail market is the place to sell at a profit. Direct to the
consumer you can give your sales pitch! On the shelf your label has to do
the job (along with price).

George said:
 I was in the Maple Syrup business. I marketed my syrup
to tourists through specialty stores in smaller containers (1/10th gallon)
and capitalized heavily on words like "pure" and "natural" and "local",
attractive packaging, etc..

Foreign honey uses "pure" & "natural" and even "local" with a few packers.

Many people think real Maple syrup is the fructose "Maple flavored"crap sold
in stores! The flavor of real maple syrup is hard to beat. I treat myself
whenever I can find the real maple syrup! Even grade B dark is better than
the fructose flavored syrup.

Sadly there is a movement on to replace honey with a fructose flavored
imitation honey. Will real honey be pushed to the side for a fructosed based
cheap product as was the case with real Maple syrup?

Can we learn from the Maple Syrup history?

George said:
Targeting a niche market made my small syrup operation profitable, at the
expense of labor-intensive marketing activities.

George is so right. A niche market is the answer to sustainability for the
small sideliner.

George said:
I've got 5 hives, not 2000.

George understands the problem for the larger producer. All larger
beekeepers ask for is understanding.

At this point in my life I am not a large beekeeper by U.S. standards but
still on a commercial beekeeper level.

So I at times try to  provide insight into the very secret world of the
commercial beekeeper with my posts and articles.

To sum things up those million hives which provide the pollination for
almonds in California are used to produce honey the rest of the season . I
know of few commercial beekeepers which  can  survive on pollination fees
alone.

The honey from those hives needs sold. Many times at below the cost of
production. I have sold a bunch of bulk honey in drums below the cost of
production. If close to the cost of production (five to ten cents a pound)
then not a big deal if you can make up the difference in retail sales or
pollination fees.

A BIG deal if all you do is produce bulk honey. You have to go to your
savings, talk to your banker to stay in business or perhaps sell some bees
or equipment.

The "punch" line is if real honey is replaced with a fructose based crap or
packers refuse to buy U.S. honey at any price then many commercial
beekeepers are going to shut down just like they were doing before the honey
price hike.

As I posted on BEE-L four commercial beekeepers closed their doors in
Missouri the year before honey prices skyrocketed.

The sign on the door of the Osage Honey Farm in Sibley, Missouri (est. 1955
running 2,000 hives) read.

"We are closing our doors as we can no longer compete with the low price of
foreign honey"

I have got friends which produced Maple syrup in Michigan. They used to put
in the long hours, cut the huge number of cords of wood to fire the boiler
and hauled the pails from the trees.
All after an eight hour work day at an automobile plant in Lansing.

Even with a love of the project the project was dropped because was not
sustainable and lack of interest in the pure maple syrup product. I used to
trade honey for real maple syrup but now the boiler sits idle and the trees
are not tapped.

The huge warehouse of Osage honey sits locked and idle (was toured by ABF
members attending the ABF convention in 1993.)

I do not expect Osage Honey to ever open its doors again or my friends to
tap their trees. I doubt our nations factories closed due to foreign
competition will ever reopen.
We can buy our goods overseas and our Maple syrup & honey.

However when the large commercial beekeeper doing pollination closes his
doors then our nations pollination needs are not going to get done. I have
been busy trying to import pollination (my articles in April & May ABJ).
Imports might help but can NEVER replace our U.S. beekeepers.
The numbers of commercial beekeepers drops every year and has been for over
fifty years.
Sincerely,
Bob Harrison

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