I had a chance to talk with Martin Braunstein in San Diego, and it is no secret that he thinks that the world trade of honey is not an efficient market or that he thinks that there are cartels controlling prices. He also has indicated that there seems to be a 'country' price for honey, where pretty well all the producers in one country are offered a certain price for honey while producers in another country are offered a different price -- for honey that is often virtually indistinguishable. Anyone reading 'Honey Market News' at http://www.beesource.com/news/nhmn/ can verify this. Now that the internet is being used for auctioning off almost everything, what about honey? Imagine a site where beekeepers could offer their honey for auction to buyers and cut out the middleman. There are some problems such as confirmation of quality, escrow, shipping, etc., but I can see that we could have something going using some of the auctioning sites already set up. With such a system, I think we could avoid the type of wild price swings we have seen recently, and also encourage smaller packers to compete for supplies more effectively. allen ----- See if your questions have been answered in over a decade of discussions. BEE-L archives & more: http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/Bee-l.htm Search sci.agriculture.beekeeping at http://www.deja.com/ or visit http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee to access both on the same page.