Who sells honey?

[Jon]

I bumped into a guy at the allotment today who wanted to buy honey.
he phoned me up about a year ago and then lost my number and apparently has been at the allotments half a dozen times looking for me.
I had to explain that you cannot take honey directly from the hive to sell to a customer, which surprised him greatly, and he also let me know that he just wanted to buy a jar or two a couple of times a year.
when I spoke to him on the phone a year ago I told him that when I had surplus honey I sold it to a local health food shop and they mark it up from the £4.50 to £5.99.
This guy wants to buy honey direct from my door with a 1 hour chat included in the sale.
I am not overly interested in honey sales as bee breeding is my main focus but how do the rest of you handle these situations without appearing churlish.
I certainly do not want people I have never met calling at the door looking 1lb of honey.

[HJBee]

Could you consider an exchange for something instead? Does he grow anything you don't that you may like, or what does he do for a job. I've already decided I am going to give my honey to family & friends as a) I don't like it & b) I don't plan on having enough colonies to make the whole registering with HMC&E re tax etc! I also have decided to go for cut comb 50/50 to minimise the efforts. However, big assumption is a) I don't kill off my love new colony over winter and b) crop / weather is better in 2013!

[Neils]

I get lots of people wanting honey. I tend to bring it jarred to places but last year I did some comb off a frame to give to a family that had stopped me to ask what I was up to as I carted supers to my car.

This year will mean a reset but I do normally have a few spare jars kicking around somewhere for the idly curious. Situations like you describe though are hard to fulfil. There are maybe two days in the year when you might catch me at the allotment with honey in a state someone could do something with.

As for the requirement of an hours chat, I'm normally more than happy to talk to people but you'll be lucky to catch me with honey in tow.

[Jon]

Hi HJ
I already grow a lot of my own stuff on the allotment and I also make all my own wine from apples - so much as I love the idea of barter or a lets economy I don't reckon that one is a goer as I am already more sorted than most. My other half already gives away honey to friends and family hand over fist.
I kind of value my time and don't want to spend every evening selling honey or swapping it for something from the door of my house.
My strategy to date has been to point everyone towards the health food shop but I guess they all think they can save a pound by calling to my door.

I get the same thing about queens although they want one for nothing as opposed to a discount. Every year in August I get stacks of e-mails from people I don't know asking about 'spare' queens.

[chris]

Hi Jon. I've been in *selling* most of my life, and there will always be *emmerdeurs* whom even rudeness won't get rid of. I've found that for honey selling, the best way to get rid of them is to quote them a ridiculously high price, and if they start to haggle, then agree to do it for a very large quantity. It usually knocks down their sense of self importance, and they clear off. A firm take it or leave it attitude.

[mbc]

I leave some at the local pub, the landlady is happy as she also has local eggs, chease and a weekly meat delivery, and people calling for these goods are normally polite enough to buy a drink and pass the time of day with others in the pub, and my wife is happy as less random strangers call at the door.

[Trog]

We sell to our B & Bs, who have tasted our honey at breakfast, at producers' markets as long as they're not on a Sunday (which, alas, most of them are), and to anyone else who phones up asking for some. Generally don't mind talking about bees, etc., as it's good PR for beekeepers generally if we make time to talk to folk who are interested.

[prakel]

....how do the rest of you handle these situations without appearing churlish.
I certainly do not want people I have never met calling at the door looking 1lb of honey.

I'm starting to think that a name change to Jon Jr. may be in order as once again I find myself in broad agreement with you. I do aim to get honey but tend to try and limit sales to shops/traders.

The idea of someone turning up at the door or even making unsolicited phone calls fills me with a feeling of horror.

When people do ask I tend to try and skirt the issue by explaining that I don't have sufficient time to produce (or store batches of) individual jars so there's a minimum order of twenty, but, they can buy it from certain local shops for the same price that I would charge if I could supply it direct. Never yet had anyone say that they'd take twenty jars!

[Trog]

What's so horrifying about folk coming to your door? We have beekeepers and seekers of good honey from all over dropping by as the place they're staying (if not here, of course) tells them we're the ones to chat to about bees! Very occasionally the guest house concerned phones us first, but not always. I suppose it helps that during the season we tend to be 'on duty' for our own guests anyway so one extra person to chat to doesn't make a lot of difference to our day.

[Jon]

Hi Trog.
I give up at least 10 hours a week unpaid to the queenrearing and general beekeeping group from May to September.
I enjoy it which is which is why I do it.
We meet every Monday evening for at least two hours and I have to prepare stuff for the meeting.
Some nights we had over 30 attending.
I am over at the association apiary every other day grafting or sorting out the colonies.
I also have my own colonies to keep in order over and above that - at the moment about 35 counting all the nucs and I still have 20 apideas with queens.
I just don't have the time to do any more bee stuff which involves selling single jars of honey.
On the same basis I don't have any time to prepare and enter stuff in honey shows.
The guy I mentioned in the first post knows where he can buy a single jar of my honey but he thinks he can save £1.49 by calling to my door.

[prakel]

What's so horrifying about folk coming to your door?

Perhaps, just possibly, I'm not the most sociable person on the block. I also like to choose how I spend my spare time, there seems pretty little of it usually.

[Rosie]

I'm happy to have people come to the door. In this village everyone seems to provide some sort of service such as fencing, baling, tree felling etc. My niche is providing honey & eggs and sorting out wasps and swarms. I deliberately ration what I sell at farmer's markets etc so that I don't run out of honey for the locals.

Steve

[fatshark]

I don't sell from the door. Honey that I don't give away is sold by word of mouth at work. First sales at least always seem to involve a discussion about bees, beekeeping, oil seed rape, weather, stings, candles, pests and diseases, wasps, CCD, neonics (ok, barely ever neonics), wheelbarrows and allotments. No one has ever asked for a discount other than for many jars at once. All this takes time, so I fully appreciate the point Jon makes.

Local beekeepers appear to have a better appreciation of the time and trouble queen rearing takes.

[Trog]

We've never had anyone ask for a discount; all seem happy to pay our asking price. Mind you, it's lovely honey! Halfway through what will be a two-day extraction. Been a pretty good year.

[HJBee]

Just say no?

[Jon]

Some people wont take no for an answer.
There are people here meaner than any Scots are reputed to be and the lure of saving £1.49 is a powerful drug.
You can see I have no future at all in sales and marketing!

[HJBee]

I've witnessed my fair share of n irelanders (in and out of their natural environment), and those from Belfast specifically. Lovely people!! Once you've sold to northern English folk, you get a high 1st diploma in Sales!

[Jon]

By natural environment you must mean the bar!

[HJBee]

Many bars in Belfast and around the world!

[HJBee]

Many bars in Belfast and around the world!