Natural Beekeeping International Forum

[Beeser]

Are the doorstep sales allowed by law in your country?
Are the small beekeepers satisfied with the production and sales that way?
Possible to live with honey production?

Are there many honey buyers/distributors and what are the prices they offer?

[Barbara]

Yes I'm pretty sure doorstep sales are allowed here in the UK.

Personally I prefer to give whatever small surplus my bees produce to friends and family as gifts.

Definitely not possible to live off honey production unless you have very large numbers of hives and intensively farm them and that is not what this forum is about.

I have no knowledge of honey buyers/distributors.

[ratcatcher]

I THINK ALL THE QUESTIONS YOUR ASKING WILL GET BETTER ANSWERS ON THAT OTHER BEE FORUM YOUR POSTING IDENTICAL QUESTIONS TO THESE ON (sorry didn't see caps lock was on)
as barbara has commented, this forum is as the name suggests, friends of the bees, rather than, lets get as much as we can from them and use loads of chemicals on them.

but by all means, how about sharing some stories with us on your set up

[Beeser]

ratcatcher,

I think forum is used for discussion, no? I have put the same questions on 20 different forums in different countries because I would like to learn experiences, culture, practices etc. I'm a young beekeeper who really got interested in beekeepeing and bees in general so I'm eating like a bird in the way of collecting informations for my personal growth and will poop like an elephant in order to share whatever I know and what my experiences are.

Like I said in the other thread, this is a learning year for me so I'm trying to get as much feedbacks from others and see whats important and useful to record in order to have better overview on whats happening and whats next.


Regarding the doorstep sales I can tell you that they were not allowed in Croatia till recently. New people in the beekeeping association helped on that subject.

We have like 85% of small and medium beekeepers... to be more precise 10-30 hives, and 30-100 hives. Mostly they are small producers and hobby beekeepeers and most of the time doorstep sales are something with what they can pay most of the living expences through the year.

Here are some examples of the prices for different honey types at our country

chestnut (6-7 EUR on doorstep, 3.5 EUR wholesale)
sage (10-12 EUR on doorstep, 5 EUR wholesale)
acacia (6-7 EUR on doorstep, 3.5 EUR wholesale)
lavander (6-7 EUR on doorstep, 3.5 EUR wholesale)
interna (6-7 EUR on doorstep, 3.5 EUR wholesale)
floral (4-5 EUR on doorstep, 2.5 EUR wholesale)
ling (4-5 EUR on doorstep, 2.5 EUR wholesale)
goldenrod (4-5 EUR on doorstep, 2.5 EUR wholesale)
rapeseed (4-5 EUR on doorstep, 2.5 EUR wholesale)

I wouldn't say you can live with from that but It can help. Our beekeepers have like 20-30 kg per hive production (yearly). It's not bad if you have static apiary. So I would say they are satisfied mostly.

We have lots of distributers/resellers on the market and it's a mess. There was a monopol on the market in that part, but I think there isn't anymore. but still...few big companies have big influence on the prices in general.

[Jedidiah]

Beeser,

In America our big honey distributors often process the honey using heat and micro-straining. This removes all pollen and wax and makes honey into a honey like substance. We also deal with cheap import honey from China that is sometimes mixed with corn syrup or some such sweet non-honey substance. In one way this can be helpful to a local keeper because I can advertise my honey as local and raw. I only use a window screen to filter the big chunks of wax out. It also helps there is a big push for getting back to local food sources here. People that devote themselves to eating locally sourced food are known colloquially as "localvores".

In regards to door to door honey sales, up until last year a person selling any food stuffs had to have a commercial kitchen to process or make their wares in. Last year the state of Colorado passed a law that allows people producing food with low risk of causing sickness to use their home frogs. These low risk foods include honey! Yeah!

As to making a living on honey, any money you make on honey is less money you need to make elsewhere! I do second the thought though, and it seems you agree, that by forcing bees to overproduce by the use of chemicals and unnatural management methods you are decreasing your chances of having bees for the long term. Natural beekeeping may have short term setbacks in production (And sometimes hive survival rates) the long term view is breeding bees that are naturally resistant to current environmental pressures.

[catchercradle]

Here in UK it is allowed, subject to food and hygiene regulations. Can be a domestic kitchen as long as it satisfies the requirements which I think strictly speaking mean a dedicated hand washing sink as well as one for washing utensils. Just got more expensive for the bee keeper with a ruling for jam that jars can not be re-used. I suspect someone will come along to say that applies to honey as well.

Not that I have any honey to sell this year due to the weather.

Perhaps next year will be better? - Ancient bee keepers' saying!

[Bugscouter]

Beeser, I'm going to expand on what Jedidiah said and say that here in the US the rules vary state by state. Here in California a lot of "Door Step" sales are at our Certified Farmers Markets and Festivals.

Also, to confirm that you can support a hobby by selling honey but you really can not make a living just selling honey. You have to rent your hives out for pollination if you want bees to be your sole source of income, which opens a whole other can of worms on this forum. The number that I've heard is that about 80% of the hives in the US (about 1.5 million hives) will be in the Central Valley in February for the Almond Bloom.

[AnthonyD]

[Bugscouter]

[AnthonyD]

Don't get me wrong though, I do think it is ridiculous to just sell honey and nothing else. I mean if you are a commercial beekeeper that is. There is so many other products from the hive. Including of course the bees themselves. And beekeeping equipment.

[catchercradle]

[andy pearce]

I am not allowed, as part of my tenancy, to sell any honey I have from my home. I do not have any this year anyway, but I am not allowed to put up a little sign and sell any at all. I live in the countryside, on a busy lane, next to a cookery school......
A

[AnthonyD]

[andy pearce]

It seems an odd restriction to me but they must have their reasons. I am looking to move on from here this coming year so maybe will find a new home and a place I can keep the bees with no hassle, then I can do as I like.
A

[Mark Young]

Word of mouth is the best way of receiving 'donations' towards the upkeep of your wildlife habitat in return for a 'gift' of honey.

I think that's how they loop hole the system in the UK anyway.

I have found that as soon as your friends and family know you have bees, the news snowballs and you have everyone including "friends of friends who know your brothers kids" asking for honey.

* I have never sold a single jar though so what do I know...

[catchercradle]

I haven't sold a single jar yet but next year I expect a bumper harvest from my 5 colonies.

[professor]

I would like to add a couple comments:

There is no reason to assume that selling bee products, bees, or honey needs to conflict with any beekeeper's efforts at a more natural beekeeping management approach. Ideally to be totally natural, the keeping of bees should not take place at all. That being said it is very possible to achieve a high level of benefit to the bees and still create some benefits for the beekeeper. Considering that the bees are in trouble in the wild and that their populations are rapidly depleting we need to examine all options available to us to assure their continued survival as merely leaving them to their own means does not appear to be being successful. Those who "have" bees and do not "keep" them actually perform no service to them and perpetuate the current demise that they are experiencing.

****

There is a serious market for honey produced naturally that is directly from the comb to the table without treatments, micro-filtering, heating or adulteration. In this area it can bring more than $8.00 a pound and there is never enough available for the demand. With proper management using low impact natural methods one can produce surplus honey without detriment to the bees. Unfortunately the TBH is not the best for this endeavor. The reasons are simple, not enough colony space or bee population to permit it. Production can be only accomplished with many hives producing limited surplus per unit bringing with it the problems associated with forage availability, excessive scouting by many small units, increased robbing and greater details devoted to management and manipulation.

****

In this area a colony of 60,000 bees can produce upwards or 125-150 pounds of honey in a good year using natural (no foundation or chemicals) management techniques. 20 such colonies producing 2,000 surplus pounds of honey minus bottles and labels equates to near $15,000. Forty such colonies production is a good income in this area. Granted there are lean years but also better ones as well. Cut comb honey as well as the bottled variants also command premium prices and are well received. So lets not demean those who make money with their bees as well as take good care of them.

[vernonpurcell]

If you produce any food product in the UK and use your kitchen, then it should be registered by law, and the appropriate records kept. I know this as I kept 60 ducks and had the authorities around, I simple told them that there was no regulations for duck, like chickens, she agreed, but told me I must keep records on my egg production, and storage records, on the way out she asked if I produced any jam in the kitchen, as I need to have the kitchen registered, I said yes, and it was registered there and then, without any forms filled in.
Now I have a commercial kitchen

[Notyouraveragebeek]

[biobee]

Ha ha! We had a spate of spammers selling k-itchens so I set the software to change that word to 'frog'... given that the k-word is relatively little-used here in its correct context.

Does it make sense now?

[Notyouraveragebeek]

So you are telling me that you created an auto-correct, such that if I post the word kitchen (Edit: In my first post I typed in k.itchen, without the "."), it will change it to frog?

EDIT: Bahahaha... it worked! Hehehe... what a wonderfully silly thing to laugh about Here I was thinking you Brit's called your k.itchen a frog...