Author Topic: Honey glut? (Read 7376 times)

Perry · « **on:** July 07, 2016, 10:28:40 am »

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/honey-glut-hurts-manitoba-beekeepers-1.3667741

brooksbeefarm · « **Reply #1 on:** July 07, 2016, 01:08:08 pm »

My problem is that i have a Glut of people wanting my honey and i'm not sure i can supply them? I have a lot of honey to take off, or did have? we've had a lot of rain the last two weeks i guess to make up for a dry June and with the rain and hot humid weather i haven't been back in them. People started ordering honey before the first of this year, we have two mote book papers full of orders and getting more every day, had a order for one hundred dollars worth of comb honey yesterday, what is comb honey going for per pound? i never had enough to sell last year. Jack

Jen · « **Reply #2 on:** July 07, 2016, 02:18:11 pm »

Interesting! Now for those of you who have very large apiaries... say, 100 hives... would a solution be to cut back on the number of hives you have?

I can't imagine a world with too much honey being a bad thing, however, I guess to much of a good thing isn't always good ~

apisbees · « **Reply #3 on:** July 07, 2016, 03:01:52 pm »

100 hives is not a large apiary. For where Chip is 500 hives is not even a large apiary. It is more a case of the market you are in Where you live If you can market direct you are competing with the price in the local stores. When you live in one of the great honey producing regions but do not have the ability to direct market your product you rely on selling your honey wholesale to re-packers. These guys buy from whose ever cheapest or for the going rate, which is set by whoever is selling cheapest. just because the wholesale price has dropped by 50% the price in the store will not change very much.
Honey is a commodity just like oil the price may drop from $100 to $50 a barrel but you see very little change in the price of gas at the pump.

Jen · « **Reply #4 on:** July 07, 2016, 03:13:45 pm »

Well okay... 100 hives to me is like Mt. Everest... but i know it's not about the number, it's about the marketing.

Perry · « **Reply #5 on:** July 07, 2016, 05:03:32 pm »

Quote from: brooksbeefarm on July 07, 2016, 01:08:08 pm

had a order for one hundred dollars worth of comb honey yesterday, what is comb honey going for per pound? i never had enough to sell last year. Jack

Here liquid honey sells for $11 a kilo, but 1 kilo of comb honey goes for $30!

brooksbeefarm · « **Reply #6 on:** July 07, 2016, 11:10:57 pm »

Is a kilo 2 1/4 pounds? Jack

apisbees · « **Reply #7 on:** July 08, 2016, 12:14:42 am »

Here are a few listed on line. They start at about $1.00 an ounce and go up from there. Call it Kosher and it seems you can double the price Jack... JACK"'S Kosher Honey!!
http://www.grampashoney.com/buy-our-honeys/comb-honey/ 0.75 LBS - $14.99
http://www.thehoneybeestore.ca/HoneyComb-Ontario-Niagara-Canada-p/123625.htm 0.66 LBS- $13.50
https://www.amazon.com/Ziyad-Natural-Pure-Honeycomb-Ounce/dp/B00DFB7JSW/ref=pd_sim_325_3/180-3010165-8242510?ie=UTF8&dpID=510AScCgmFL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&psc=1&refRID=HXPZBBDK64VQ12RJWN1N 0.875 LBS - $12.97
http://savannahbee.com/raw-honeycomb-with-bee-bread 0.75 to 0.825 LBS $24.00
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01G2Y5J6C?psc=1 0.5 LBS - $12.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R2UVZ64?psc=1 0.787 LBS - $29.75

iddee · « **Reply #8 on:** July 08, 2016, 04:18:52 am »

Very close, Jack, but even closer to 2 1/5 lb.

lazy shooter · « **Reply #9 on:** July 08, 2016, 08:22:45 am »

So now there is a honey glut. Welcome to agriculture. Where I live the excessive rains in May has resulted in a "hay" glut. I just bailed 140 large bales of hay that is worth $40.00 per bale on the current market. That is a break even price for me on my first crop. I can do one of two things: I can keep the hay into the autumn or winter period and hope for a better price or I can sell it for zero profit. Normally our large round bales bring from 60 to 80 bucks and a small producer like myself will realize 10 t0 12 thousands bucks of profit from it. In years when there is too much hay it is like too much honey, and gluts are not good things.

I recently pulled a jar of commercial honey from a grocery shelf and read the label. It was a product of Argentina, China and Canada. I think they referred to it as a blended product of "all natural honey." It looks like the small producers that sell their own honey will do fine, but the larger commercial producers are going to take a hit.

When it is good, it is too good and ends up being bad, and when it is bad, it is just plain bad. Welcome to agriculture.

lazy

brooksbeefarm · « **Reply #10 on:** July 08, 2016, 10:58:15 am »

Lazy Shooter, Your right on, it takes me 80 to 100 big round bales through the winter. I only keep 20 cows and a bull on my 63 acres. I got 145 big round bales off my hay fields (good spring hay weather) i sold 6 bales to a new neighbor for $25.00 a bale, that's about the going price here, and was going to sell more, but dry weather set in and i kept it.

Now in the last two weeks we had over 5 inches if rain

Now what.

. By the way, i had 22 bales left over from last year. I don't have that problem with honey i usually sell out by the first of the year and people calling to place orders for the next year. People tell me constantly that after they taste pure honey from a beekeeper that they can't stand that out of the stores now. Jack

Ray · « **Reply #11 on:** July 10, 2016, 11:47:42 pm »

I'm confused! One minute the bees are dying and the world is coming to an end - the next there is an over supply of honey. 44%(?) dead outs and a honey glut

??

apisbees · « **Reply #12 on:** July 11, 2016, 01:29:13 am »

Yes they have miraculously figured how to increase production in country's that up until recently their yields were poor. Going back to oil in the 1980's the oil producing country's limited the production of oil to keep the price high. Due to wars and the need to finance them some countries increased production or had embargo's placed on their oil which caused the price to fall. Lets just say that even if Chinese honey is not making it in to the US and Canada illegally A broker could buy Chinese honey for $0.60 a pound to fill the Argentinian market and then export Argentina honey to the USA and get $1.40 a pound for it. When the packers are only willing to pay $1.40 a pound for honey cause that is what they can buy it for from other country's it is hard for the North American beekeepers to stay in business when that is the cost of production. How are they to finance the 40% winter colon losses?

Perry · « **Reply #13 on:** July 11, 2016, 06:30:37 am »

Quote from: apisbees on July 11, 2016, 01:29:13 am

Lets just say that even if Chinese honey is not making it in to the US and Canada illegally A broker could buy Chinese honey for $0.60 a pound to fill the Argentinian market and then export Argentina honey to the USA and get $1.40 a pound for it. When the packers are only willing to pay $1.40 a pound for honey cause that is what they can buy it for from other country's it is hard for the North American beekeepers to stay in business when that is the cost of production. How are they to finance the 40% winter colon losses?

Great explanation!

brooksbeefarm · « **Reply #14 on:** July 11, 2016, 09:22:12 am »

I sell quarts $15.00 and comb honey $6.00 a pound and sell out by the first of the year, but of course i have built a market in my area and people know me. They tell me that after eating my honey they can't stand that crap in the stores

. I've had people tell me i'm selling my honey to cheap,

i tell them they can pay me more if they want too, they never do though.

Jack

lazy shooter · « **Reply #15 on:** August 08, 2016, 07:26:28 am »

We, as beekeepers, have received a lot of sympathy from the general public and some state and local governments over the plight of the American Honey Bee. If articles pushing the "honey glut" get legs, we will lose a lot of our support. It's going to be hard to make our fellow citizens believe that bees are in danger, but at the same time there is a honey glut and we need their support. Which is it?

My advice to sideliners and small commercial operations is to push the LOCAL honey theme. It's the best honey for you and it is helping the local economy. Don't forget that most shoppers are women. Men look at price, but women like "cute" and "unique." Remember, if you run with the crowd you won't be seen. Find some unique bottles and labels and advertise local, local, local. Maybe make soap and chapstick. Take a page out of Yankee's book.

lazy

It may be tough row to hoe, but it is the life you have chosen.

tecumseh · « **Reply #16 on:** August 08, 2016, 07:38:29 am »

actually a recent article in the ABJ clearly explains that there is NOT a world wide glut of honey no matter what the attached article says. in this case the law of supply and demand (which is really not a law as any first year graduate student in economics must learn) has been suspended at least temporarily. actually it is good to see that Apisbee has the shell game figured out and yes there will be some bankruptcy in the US due to this game that honey packers are now playing < actually there is evidence that this calamity is impacting some new folks to the bee business already.

personally I am in the same boat as brooksbees so perhaps what we really need is some collective endeavor to sell honey where it is produced in excess to the places where there is lots of population who will pay a reasonable price for a honey from a known and reputable source?

neillsayers · « **Reply #17 on:** August 08, 2016, 03:02:23 pm »

Another one of my simple minded dumb questions.

Are there any producer owned marketing coops for beekeepers? I'm thinking regional.

apisbees · « **Reply #18 on:** August 08, 2016, 05:05:05 pm »

Bee Maid honey in Canada and Sue Honey in the USA are beekeeper co-op's. but they are competing against companies that are packagers and distributors of commodity's. They will put anybody's name on a product, Even the yellow label with the No Name brand. And in a lot a cases they do not cars where the product came from but what is the cheapest to obtain.

neillsayers · « **Reply #19 on:** August 08, 2016, 08:48:30 pm »

Quote from: apisbees on August 08, 2016, 05:05:05 pm

Bee Maid honey in Canada and Sue Honey in the USA are beekeeper co-op's. but they are competing against companies that are packagers and distributors of commodity's. They will put anybody's name on a product, Even the yellow label with the No Name brand. And in a lot a cases they do not cars where the product came from but what is the cheapest to obtain.

\
I knew about Sue Bee, but I was thinking more along lines of local/regionally derived. Seems like an idea with promise.