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California almond pollination

19K views 182 replies 39 participants last post by  Joel 
#1 ·
Has anyone heard of what they are paying this season? (2006) just curious.
 
#177 ·
One and the same Joel... After Jean-Marc's reply, I went to their web site last night and read their history page:

http://www.suebeehoney.com/history.asp

Originally it was Sioux Bee, but they changed it to Sue Bee in 1964 apparently because people couldn't properly pronounce "sioux" :-/

I gotta say, I was surprised. It *is* a cooperative, at least it certainly started out that way. It would appear to have evolved into a world-wide marketing operation, buying honey wherever they can get it at as cheap a price as possible. To me, "Sue Bee" honey is synonymous with "Cheap" supermarket honey.

The concept of a honey co-op makes a lot of sense.. I guess I'm not surprised that it's been done before (I rarely have an original idea) but the Sue Bee business model seems to have evolved over the years into something less about supporting beekeepers and more about making money.

George-
 
#178 ·
Most of the larger bee operations in my area met in 95 or 96 in Ithaca to discuss an eastern coop. No one wanted to take a leadership role in putting it together although everyone thought it would be a good idea. Sioux (Sue) has an incredible marketing marketing outreach. They are even in the the 7-11 type stores in our area. From what I've read their members seem loyal. The do seem to have evolved into a corporate profit entitiy as opposed to a honey coop. I guess that's sto be expected. I hope the members are reaping the profits.
 
#180 ·
From the prices on Sue Bee's web site ($2.52 per pound for 5 pound containers) it's clear who they're targeting with their marketing efforts. I'd give my honey away as gifts before I sold it for that! What I lost in money I'd make up for in good will! That is of course if I *had* any honey to sell, which I don't! Even Sue Bee's 1# jars are a good $1+ less than I'd want to sell mine for. It would also be interesting to compare their web prices with what the retail price is in stores.

Hehe.. it's easy to be critical and principled when you're not sitting on 20 tons of honey you gotta unload and bills to pay..

I would think that smaller regional co-ops would work better- even as few as 2-3 large operations could pool their resources, share their expenses, and reap the rewards of a retail operation. The bigger the operation, the more money goes into management and operations and less (ultimately) into the beekeeper's pockets. It's a trade off. It would be fun to run some numbers and see what could be done... maybe this is a topic for another thread.

George-
 
#181 ·
I wanted to revisit the topic disucussed here as it relates to the AHB discussion herein. I came accross this excerpt from what appears to be either an industry or state report out of Florida (Dec. 2005 Bee-L) It seems to settle the controversy.

AHB Florida update: (Africanized honey bees as opposed to beetles
"It is rampant, it is in the migratory operations (estimates from the beekeepers was 10% this past year).

We've managed to finally jump LA. and spread into an area that has the potential to move into other eastern states as beekeepers from Fl. move north for cucurbits, apples, cranberries and blueberries. Although in the posters opinion is it was not migratory beekeepers (of which I'm one) I find it hard to believe 10% of Floridas commercial operations were infected from swarms off ships in the past year.

[ December 05, 2005, 06:16 PM: Message edited by: Joel ]
 
#182 ·
Joel, I'm not a pollinator nor a long time beekeeper, but I believe it is like everything else, migratory operations, might help spread the problem's faster but sooner or later the AHB and SHB's will be everywhere before long no matter what we try, we will all have to adjust and get ready to deal with it. preperation is better than supprise, just my 2 cents
 
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