honey prices

[justgojumpit]

hi all, i was wondering what i could sell honey for about an hour north of new york city, in westchester county. this will be extracted honey with chunks of comb honey from my top bar hive and two langstroth hives. it will be honey from whatever happens to bloom, no specific crop. the store where i sell my chicken eggs at $3.00 a dozen has agreed to sell my honey for me, but i need to decide on a price before honey time is upon us. thanks so much for all of your time,

justgojumpit

[Michael Bush]

Before the prices went crazy I was selling chunk honey for $5 for a wide mouth pint jar. I couldn't get enough comb honey at the time and sold all I could put together.

[Oxankle]

Michael;

$5 sounds high until you realize that the jar costs something, and then it is well under $40 per gallon. Pints of extracted honey here were $7.43 last week.

Do you have a cost figure for your jars & labels?
Ox

[justgojumpit]

no, i haven't looked into prices yet for jars and labels. the prices are higher than i thought they would be though, which makes me really happy http://www.beesource.com/ubb/smile.gif

thanks,

justgojumpit

[Dee]

You should look in the American Bee Journal Magazine for average prices for 'our' area. I realized after getting the (free) magazine from Dadant that I am selling at top prices for around here, and I'm almost completely sold out (20 gallons from 3 hives). I actually sold the 5 pounders for $1 more than the average (12oz for $3.50, 2lbs for $6.50, 5lbs for $14.00 - this is of course all honey/no comb in the jar)
Hope this helps you
Deanna

[Tulsabee]

Personally, I think my honey is well worth a premium price. So do my customers. Go to the health food store, or the gourmet food shop, and check out the prices. Those are the prices you should be charging.

Two years ago, I sold pints for $5 each. It took a while, but I sold out, and that was my first crop. I had several repeat customers. One woman bought two pints every week while it lasted, and this with only a sign in the front yard on the poor side of town.

I didn't get a crop last year, but if I had, I would have raised my prices, as they went up every where else.

[RAlex]

You also might want to check out "Big Lots " for your glass containers ...I think we have a lot of them here in New York ...I am going to this year ...Rick

[wfarler]

Big lots ran a 1/2 price glassware sale last december in our area. I bought out every fancy wire-capped jar they had at 6 stores for about 50-60 cents each. Made great gift items.

Wal-mart will push canning jars in late summer in a lot of their stores - big lots had them cheaper.

It's still more than buying the clear plastic jars in bulk from one of the bee suppliers - particularly if you can avoid or minimize freight.

[MountainCamp]

Are you looking to sell it directly to the user or to a retail store?
Our local club's end user prices for last year were:
1/2 pound jar $2.35
1 pound jar $3.75
2 pound jar $7.00
2.5 pound jar $8.50
5 pound jar $15.00
6 ounce bear $2.00
8 ounce bear $2.35
12 ounce bear $3.35

This is in Greene County at fairs and events. I am sure that these prices will be going up this year. I have seen 2# jars for as much as $8.50 for local raw honey in Dutchess County.
I would think that you should be able to get at least a buck or two over the local prices here in Westchester.
I usually give a store a 20% discount.

[Dee]

look at the prices on the website of Draper super bee http://www.draperbee.com/ if i wouldve realized that they raised their prices in 2004 i wouldve too! we (Draper's & myself) live just on the boarder of Elmira NY/PA (an hour south of Binghamton)
Deanna

[honey asia]

Hi
I am from India and am looking for a possibility of exporting honey. Anyone interested may mail/contact for further details and discussions.
Regards
Honey Asia

[scott_dixon]

I went to a wine festival this past weekend where a vendor had poplar/wildflower mix honey. We had a great time with the "inside joke" aspect of it as he continued to boast how good it was. Actually, it tasted like crap; poplar/wildflower mix was what it was labled. and very thick to, although the temps were only about 75.

Anyway, $3.50 a pint jar, $7.00 a quart. Didn't appear to be selling any, this would be Norther Virginia-ish.

[James Urbish]

gggggggggggggg

[wayacoyote]

Scott Dixon
I have mine priced at $4 per pint $7 per quart and the quarts have been going well. Dad is doing the selling as I am out of state. I didn't have a lot (7 gallons) to off-load, but he says there is little left, mostly pints.

Good luck

[Tia]

Last year I sold $2.50 1/2 pts, $5.00 pts, and the community market couldn't keep it on the shelves. This year they have a waiting list--one person reserved a gallon last October--and I plan to up the price. I didn't get into bees for the honey, but for pollination of my garden, but since I'm losing my job at the end of the month, I'm sure glad these critters are helping me out a bit!

[Jim A Ohio]

This is my first season selling honey at the Lancaster, Ohio farmer's market and I have been selling as follows:
8 oz bears $3.00
12 Bears $4.00
1 lb $5.00
2 lb $8.50
8 oz. Muth $4.75
4" comb $5.75
2 1/2 lb chunk $11.00
I plan to sell the bee-o-pacs for $3.00

[Michael Bush]

Jim, how did the bees do with the Bee-O-Pacs. What are your thoughts?

[Jim A Ohio]

In general, I like them. My experience is limited. I have never used Ross rounds or other comb systems so I can't compare them. I think as you mentioned and as the bee 0 sphere folks posted, they really need ideal conditions for comb production. I think a syrup spray on them helped acceptance.
I tried hiving a swarm in a medium with foundation, excluder, and bee o pac on top. I ended up inserting a shallow comb super between the brood chamber and the bee o pac because they weren't touching the plastic and for some reason I thought the bees would leave if not given more room. Even with all the other wax foundation to draw, they were filling the center sections in about 12 days. 5 days later, they had 5 frames filled and were working their way out. We had a nasty stretch of weather in late May and early June which may have slowed them down a bit. On June 25th, all the sections were filled (some capped) except the outside sections on the outer frames so I tried adding some insulation board to the outside of the super to see if it would help. I checked on July 4th and it hadn't made a difference. I pulled a center frame (and it stayed together!) and the cappings are somewhat darker than they should be now. I think things I have done slowed their progress, there has been a lot of traffic.

So, I think almost two months has gone by and I will probably just harvest what's finished soon. I think I'll order some more for next year, but try it with cut down splits. I think I would have had better success if I had received them earlier and had them on at the beginning of "white wax" here. I do believe they will be good sellers.
I see in the equipment post, yours went on in early June. How are yours doing?

[Michael Bush]

I haven't checked lately because I've been busy raising queens. I just looked at the top super and it wasn't started. If I get some sunshine I may dig down and see how they are doing.

[Jim A Ohio]

Well, I went to move the outside frames to the center and just decided to harvest 4 of the frames. I moved the unfilled outside frames to the center and filled the remaining space with standard frames.
I didn't have any problems with the frames coming apart while removing them (with a little care) and I thoroughly enjoyed the harvest/packaging process. It went super smoothly. The precut perforations separate from the rest of the "frame" easily. The lids provide more than enough clearance in case the bees draw the sections out too far, which is probably unlikely as tight as the frames fit. The sections stack well. The lids have tabs on the inside that snap over the section but not real snugly. You can pick the section up by the lid, but I wouldn't shake it while doing that. I secured the lid to my taste with some clear packing tape. It took no time at all to do 4 frames (64 sections) and the best thing was that I did it in my living room. No mess whatsoever. After this, I like them even more.
Some of the sections had empty cells in the corners and some weren't completely capped, but I thought I could sell those as seconds or just use them at home.

Here's the results:
http://www.ohiohomestead.com/bee-o-pac.htm

Hopefully the remaining sections still in the super will now be filled and capped.