pricing your honey

<link>  you can dig around the national honey board's website too...there's usually a chart of honey prices - the pricing is updated monthly....and it shows RETAIL vs WHOLESALE averages.

what da?!

beekeeper Fred just commented: I was putting on a few Bee Cozy's.  In several hives the cluster was at the top of the hive.  Seems like the bees never got the message to migrate to the bottom brood chamber and work upwards through the winter.  Hope this doesn't portend heavy winter losses again. 


....yup...ME TOO.  bees were in the top box when i last looked.  i'm HOPING that that's not REALLY where the CLUSTER IS. i'm hoping those were just "feeder" bees up there looking for a sugar bucket.

marketing, marketing, marketing!

what's the saying about the "rule" of a successful business - location, location, location??.  BEEKEEPERS - THE WORLD HAS CHANGED!  marketing, marketing, marketing!  take a look at the marketing behind this <link> "fancy" honey and ask yourself a couple questions: what's the "per pound" cost of the honey? What is the buyers "perceived VALUE" of this fancy honey?  i'd bet they're not using this in a cake recipe...they're treating it like LIQUID GOLD that it is.

then look at your OWN honey....what is it's TRUE COST? (keeping in mind OUR cost of beekeeping is increasing all the while our stock decreases) what is it's VALUE?  i think it's good for all of us small producers to RETHINK...concentrate our marketing of our precious (and limited) commodity by it's VALUE and get beyond this "price per pound" thing we're hung-up on.

when i teach a class and we all take-up a honey stick - i remind the students that THEY ARE TASTING A MOMENT IN TIME.  never again will those bees, gather nectar from those flowers.  bees change, seasons change, environments change.

almonds...this EFFECTS us!

California's worst drought for more than a century is causing huge problems for farmers, who need a trillion gallons of water per year for their almond orchards alone.

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Sleep Deprived Bees do Weirder Waggle Dance

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