In message <[log in to unmask]>, bob 
darrell <[log in to unmask]> writes
>He uses  fume boards, I use bee escapes.  We both follow the rules, but 
>my  honey has no residuals of fume board chemicals

Can you state definitively that his honey has such residues? Got the 
test results? OK yours cannot have any, but sure his has it?

>  Is my honey not  better (every thing else being equal)?

Probably not, almost certainly just the same, or at least very similar. 
Not discernably different from his in an 'off the extractor' condition. 
What happens thereafter is down to the handler and his methods and 
hygiene.

>His honey is blended with  foreign honey and sold in the supermarket 
>for roughly the same price  as mine.

Again...do you KNOW this. Forget all the tittle tattle and sneery asides 
and anecdotes about packers. If they have a pure Canadian label on the 
honey it most likely is.........and at the very least they will have an 
audit trail and paperwork in place that can prove it in a court. 
Irrespective of your opinion of their ethics, they will have paperwork 
in place to rebuff your allegation. Do you if it was done back to you?

>  There are many reasons why some people will go out of their  way to 
>buy local produce, why not give them what they want.

Of course. I have a customer who works from a little cottage beside a 
waterfall. They sell a heap of honey every season. People travel for 100 
miles and more to buy it. They pay through the nose for it too. Two 
shops in the local village they pass through to get there are also 
customers of mine. There the honey is 25% cheaper. These customers drive 
past those shops to get it from the 'folk at the little cottage'. Its 
the best honey they can get anywhere, so much better than the mass 
produced stuff they can get in the shops.

Its the same honey. Exactly the same, more often than not even the same 
batch, and the only difference is that they buy it unlabelled and stick 
their own name on it.

Differences are 90% perception and 10% fact in many cases. But these 
very perceptions are your marketing tool. But do it without sullying 
other peoples products unless you have real proof that it is so.

> I know  it is simplistic of me to say that my neighbour could produce 
>the same income with 25% of his hives if he sold it in my market, but 
>that market is driving past his lane to get to mine.

Perceptions again, use it to your advantage.

There is nothing wrong with selling in barrels though. I basically 
abandoned my brand to sell in bulk instead. The price per pound went 
down a good bit......but the profit went way up. Reasons are many and 
all have to be taken into account when deciding viability and pricing of 
jarred product.

1. The cost of the actual packaging itself
2. The cost of the labour in getting it to that stage
3. The cost of taking time to give these people the individual attention 
they often need, and it can be a lot.
4. Delivery costs, including time and motor expenses if you sell any to 
local shops or at farmers markets.
5. Time and stall costs at the markets.

And the most forgotten biggy...........

The amount of production lost through not being attentive to the main 
job (basic production and hive management) while you chase these few 
extra bucks.

I have a friend does farmers markets. He takes about 600 GBP every good 
market (USD 1000 or so), but many are less, sometimes much less.  He 
thinks this is good money.........but

The stand costs him 50 pounds
It costs at least 20 pounds to go there
He takes 8 hours or more out of his day
Packaging the honey costs about 100 pounds
motoring costs about 20 pounds

So, not including the time it costs him on average 190 pounds per 
market. Add in a few unaccounted for odds and ends (and there are always 
some) you arrive at 200 pounds of costs, so he sold the honey for 400 
pounds really. He could have taken that much selling it to a couple of 
shops.

Once the costs are taken out, it turns out that I get only about 50 
pounds less than him for the same volume of honey in barrels.

And I don't have to filter it, seed it, pack it, label it, spend time on 
it, talk to customers, work hard for my extra buck, deliver it, wait all 
season to get all my money back in..........the list is long. And it 
gives me an extra day a week at the bees over the key May to July period 
when the die is cast for the year. That lets me run a fair slice of 
extra colonies, and the production they have would not happen if I was 
doing all that stuff, so it is a serious economic consideration, and you 
are not doing your sums properly unless you take it into account.

So don't confuse top line price with bottom line profit, there is often 
only a passing correlation. OK, when price are in their current trough 
you have a point about profitability against your neighbour, but not so 
long ago it was 2 bucks in bulk, and prices are gently on the up again. 
I would rather have his 2 bucks in bulk than your 4 bucks in jars with 
its attendant costs and hassles.

btw you cannot harangue your neighbour for his honey being blended with 
foreign even if it is at the packer. His title to the honey ends when he 
sells the barrels and takes the cheque, and so does his responsibility 
for any subsequent things done to it.

The economics at amateur level are of course altogether different, and 
pleasure is in fact a harvest in itself. Labour and motor costs are 
rarely thought of, and lost production is not even on the horizon 
because they have X hives and do not want to run more anyway. But dont 
put the knife into a professional because he does things differently and 
under the influence of different stimuli. Remember that he only makes a 
living by doing it as well as he can. The house depends on it. I hear so 
many sneering remarks about professionals as if they are some lesser 
breed, yet they HAVE to give the customer what they want or they wither 
and die, so they have an economic imperative to do what is best. 
Amateurs are under no such pressures, and the result is that 
professionals for the most part produce good middle of the road honey 
with a sound reliable market, and some excell at it.........but the two 
extremes, the very best and the very worst are generally the preserve of 
the amateur. Bad professional beekeepers tend not to hang around long, 
bad amateurs can be there for a lifetime.
-- 
Murray McGregor

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