"If you can get a big buck for your pleasure and find somebody who’s willing to pay for an overpriced product who’s the blame. This is one hobby nobody is going to get rich. The experts will tell us its supply and demand BS. Its a broken system with everybody follow the leader. Bee clubs could educate their people how to raise their own queens. Our clubs could be doing group projects on queen rearing."
i am going to stick up for my supplier/beekeeper, who doesn't sell packages, but does sell nucs. if he did, i would buy packages from him. i would say him and his wife work really hard, are very successful beekeepers, and it's not all pleasure. i am willing to pay their asking price on a nuc and i don't believe an established nuc of bees with a laying queen is an overpriced product. bees are livestock just like anything else. also, every chance i get to sit at their kitchen table and talk to him and his wife on bees, i glean anything i can from him, and they are always willing to help another beek out. beekeeping for me is far from being a hobby, it is a passion, and a life long one at that, and if you are in it with a few hives or less, you will spend more money than you will ever make, so your eyes need to be wide open on the costs. we can also teach ourselves to raise our own queens, for those who don't belong to a bee club. there are a number of methods outside of grafting that work well. i don't see beeks being driven out by prices, i see them quit for a number of other reasons........mites for one, frustration from lack of experience, lack of a mentor/bee club or lack of educating themselves on keeping bees, or they just plain didn't realize what was involved, and maybe some of that includes the combined costs of bees and equipment.
