[Champy]

I have a good (?) problem in that I cannot keep any honey... everything I harvest gets sold and people want even more of what I don't have. So I was considering buying bulk 5 gallon buckets from other local Beek friends and bottling/packaging for sale. Is this unethical or bad form to supplement my production by resourcing from other beekeepers near me?

FYI - I'm doing no commercial retail or store sales - everything is mason jars out my front door cash sales, but if I had more inventory I might be able to swing a booth at some Farmer's Markets.

Thanks

 

[bushpilot]

No problem in my mind, just don't claim it as your own.

 

[JWPalmer]

Check your state laws. In Virginia, as a non inspected facility, I can only sell honey produced by MY bees, or bees under my direct control. I cannot buy honey and repackage it.
Otherwise, I do not see an ethical problem as long as you label the bottle as packaged by and not produced by.

 

[Oldtimer]

Smallish beekeepers selling bought honey as their own happens a lot. Issue being they can buy cheap, then jack the price up at the market cos people think they are buying something unique. That would be deception in my view.

I sell quite a bit of honey to people who run market stalls but their sales outstrip their own production. A very nice elderly lady who is a good friend has her bees in an area that only produce expensive manuka honey. But at her stall she was constantly being asked for cheaper honey types but she had none. Now she buys low priced honey from me which she has on her stall, but specifically states it is not her own production but can tell people who supplied it, what type of honey it is and where the bees are that it came from. Totally ethical in my view, and she sells an extraordinary amount.

 

[bushpilot]

Check your state laws. In Virginia, as a non inspected facility, I can only sell honey produced by MY bees, or bees under my direct control. I cannot buy honey and repackage it.
Otherwise, I do not see an ethical problem as long as you label the bottle as packaged by and not produced by.

Forgot about that. Same in WA.

Nor can I sell honey packaged for retail except for direct sales from me to the final customer. IOW a shop cannot sell my honey for me, any retail sales have to be direct.

 

[The Honey Householder]

If it wasn't for the beekeepers buy all my honey for resale, I wouldn't be in big honey production. It's funny. I ship pallet of bucket to a lot of state that they repack for retail. I bulk sell for right around $3 a lb in the bucket and they pack it into bottle and retail it for $10-$16 a lb. Sounds like a win/win to me.