>>$20-$40/lb honey is in no way remotely "sustainable".

>Really the guy is turning business away what's not sustainable about his 
operation? 

Is "sustainable" not a word you use yourself, for example, with you 
organically inclined customers?  If so, what do you mean by it?  What do 
others of you on the list mean by it?

Certainly, sustainable beekeeping must sustain/profit the beekeeper, but if 
we're talking long-term profitability, then we're also talking profit that 
doesn't come at the expense of ripping ANYBODY else off: not himself (as 
you pointed out), but also not his customers, not his workers, not his 
suppliers, not posterity, not even the topsoil, or the gene pool, etc., 
etc.  Of course, nothing's perfect, but sustainability isn't some simple, 
narrow standard.  Production and marketing methods that rely heavily on non-
renewable resources would commonly be called "unsustainable" in circles 
that talk about "sustainability."  I'd also be hard pressed to 
define "sustainable" without talking about "local."

I'm not trying to make a case for sustainability here, but *IF* we're going 
to talk about sustainability, I feel very strongly that we ought to do so 
with some integrity.

>>Seems exceedingly obvious to me that the guy is ripping people off.  I'm
>>sure you agree, at least implicitly, because I'm sure you don't buy $20/lb
>>green beans, $40/gallon milk, and $60/lb pork, or do you?

>What is obvious from a cornfield in Iowa is a different reality in NYC.

Even in NYC, the kind of people that pay over ten times the conventional 
price for honey, aren't paying over ten times the conventional price for 
green beans, milk, or pork.  (And that's not to say they aren't getting 
ripped off even still.)  Brian, do you really think $40/lb isn't a rip-
off?  If $40/lb isn't a rip-off, what is?

We've been over this before, though.  There are always going to be 
unsustainable standards that we can choose to gauge prices by, for example, 
the elite of New York City.  If their standard is the standard by which our 
prices get set and our marketing is defined and, in turn, our management 
methods are defined, then our beekeeping is being defined by a very 
unsustainable standard.  If my neighbors are eating Chinese honey (or corn 
syrup) because I'm selling my honey at high prices to New York City, then 
I, as someone that values sustainability, see that as a failure on my part.

>Your generalization on lawyers...

I believe the only generalization I made about lawyers (that move to 
Hawaii) was to assume the guy probably had plenty of money to start with.  
That his honey is an unsustainable rip-off at $40/lb is true whether he's a 
lawyer or not.

>If you knew much about organic food production in the USA you would know 
that Walmart is the
>largest seller of organic food and has promised to sell organic at pennies 
above the other non-
>organic slop they peddle.

I know enough about organic food production to question the truth of that 
claim.  Can you substantiate it?  Or does it not mean what I (and most 
others) first took it to mean, i.e. Walmart sells some organic food and 
Walmart's total sales exceed any other organic retailer's total sales?

>You comments about making a living;  Eric when or if you move up beyond 
your sideline operation
>and pay your bills 365 days a year with your bees maybe we can discuss 
some of the economics of
>producing, packaging and marketing honey.

I think I can say that $40/lb honey is an unsustainable rip-off from about 
any vantage point.  Nonetheless my half-time farming ventures, for which 
honey provides two-thirds of my profit, do generate enough income to pay 
our (family of four) bills 365 days a year.  My other job, which is bee 
supplies, provides a welcome cushion, but I could pretty easily expand my 
beekeeping to provide a comparable cushion.  The way I set my prices, for 
perspective, is to charge $2/lb wholesale or $3/lb retail, plus the cost of 
the jar and label, plus 50-75c/lb extra for special varieties I separate 
out.  On average, I make about $3/lb.  That average would drop if I 
expanded, because I'd have to sell more wholesale, but $2/lb wholesale 
might actually be more profitable than $3/lb retail by the time I count all 
the time and money and mileage that goes into farmers' markets, etc.  As 
for my "organic" credentials, I haven't used any medications at all in over 
a year.  The only medication I used the two years prior to that was 
sucrocide, and then only very selectively.  I have fed sugar syrup in the 
fall (15-20lbs/hive avg.)

>One of the central messages in the Ominvores Dilema is that the cost of 
food is held artificially
>low
...
>So small beekeeps that produce a raw or organic honey of high quality 
should do what? I guess
>your alleged option might clear that up?  Obviously selling it cheap as 
you apperently imply....
...
>I'm interested to hear your ideas Eric on how to make a  FULL TIME living 
from beekeeping other
>then going commercial?

I don't want to give you the idea that there's just one other option.  I'm 
pursuing one model, as one example, that I would consider fairly 
sustainable.  My model is nothing super special or unique.  I also think 
(thinking of Allen's recent reminder about good questions) that your 
insistence on "FULL TIME" is potentially misleading.  Maybe I should drive 
around to twenty different farms to keep bees, but maybe it would work out 
better (and more sustainably) if twenty different farmers kept bees on the 
side on their own farmsteads.  I certainly wouldn't dismiss that option as 
you seem to want to do.  (The division of labor generally runs contrary to 
sustainability.)  Nonetheless, having made those qualifications, I'll try 
to give you some answers.  First, I think, yes, we should "sell it cheap," 
insofar as that means avoiding certain costs.  As much as possible, I think 
we should avoid transportation costs.  The closer to home we can sell our 
honey, the better.  I also believe in selling honey primarily as food as 
opposed to a gift or as a status symbol or as medicine or as a specialty 
product.  There are substantial marketing costs to selling honey in these 
other (other than food) ways.  I also think we should avoid middlemen as 
much as possible.  If you think my $3/lb average is "cheap," I'll remind 
you that I'm making 200-350% of what goes to the beekeeper for the average 
pound of US honey.  I'm guessing you, Brian, will sympathize with my next 
cost-cutting suggestion, which is to avoid trucking costs (for moving our 
bees) as much as possible.  Hopefully, you can see how this is starting to 
paint a picture for a system that can produce honey both more sustainably 
AND affordably.

>What truly baffles me about your disdain for pricey honey is how much the 
honey/bee industry has
>struggled in the past 2 decades.  If we all are getting a fair price then 
why has the number of
>beekeepers in the last 15 years dropped like a rock?

If you're going to talk about big picture issues like this, you're going to 
need to welcome business models that provide honey to people that can't 
afford $40/lb.  Your recommendation may keep a half dozen full-time 
beekeepers in business across the country, but you're talking about an 
extremely limited market (and a very unsustainable model).  If you don't 
want the number of beekeepers to keep dropping, you need to welcome 
sideline beekeeping and all other sorts of beekeeping at the margins, and 
you need to think of honey as a viable and affordable food for regular 
people.  With a proper, healthy cost-accounting, I think that's quite 
possible.

Eric

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