REGARDING           RE>Commercial Beekeeping with TBDs?
 
Regarding comb honey production in tbh's, Allen Dick wrote:
>1.  An astute marketer could sell these combs for extremely high
prices to gourmet and fashion food places -- or export into some
European markets.  Packaging and storage is the problem. They would
have to be frozen.
 
2.  Although cost of production is higher per unit, it would be
possible to run a *commercial* beekeeping business using only these
hives.<
 
This is a very real possibility.  Certain ethnic groups in my area (Detroit,
Michigan), such as middle eastern Arabs, Persians, etc. greatly value pure
comb honey, and desire to buy it in bulk (i.e., cut and pressed into 5 gallon
pails).  The comb is to them the absolute guarantee of purity, and they will
gladly pay premium prices for it, while looking suspiciously at extracted
honey.  They would be especially impressed if they could see how the comb is
directly cut off these top bars into the pails that they would purchase.  This
is not how I do honey, so I always have to turn them down, but I would love to
have a few contacts in this general area to refer such customers to.
 
Ted Fischer
Dexter, Michigan USA