>>$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 -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and other info ---