I'm going to increase my hives to about 25 next yr..
The wife is wanting to know what I'm going to do with all the honey...that's good question so I thought I'd ask all of you. I know some of you have many hives and get 100's ( maybe 1000's )of lbs. of honey every yr..
What do you with all the honey - give it away - sell it or wholesale it - sell it on your websites. I'm just curious as to the different ways to get rid of it all.
Steve in SC
I give some away to freinds and family. I bottle the rest and sell. It's strange sometimes how opportunities crop up. I was in a bar sponsored golf league, and sometimes come from the beeyard to the golf course. The bar owner spotted the equipment and decided he needed a bunch for his kitchen, and some on the bar to sell. One fellow wants 20 quart jars each time he buys. I've joked with him that he has a whopper of a sweet toothe and I can give it to him much cheaper by the pail. Nope, he wants it bottled. I never quite meet all the demand even though I have made a couple small expansions. It always suprises me how fast it moves, cause I don't feel I sell it cheap at $7 a pint, $12 a quart and $20 a half-gallon. I thought about buying some local honey to fill the rest of the requests, but decided they were paying a premium for "MY" honey and it didn't seem honorable.
If you have 25 hives, only reasonalbe way to get rid of honey is to sell.
25 hives is quite a expencive hobby if you "give" honey away.
The cuestion would be what are you going to do being a richmen if you sell all the honey that you will obtein from 25 hives. :lol:
Seriously. I have 25 hives but the number is "accordion". I want to say, today 25, tomorrow 30 -usually in spring-, later 20, 18, again 30. It is difficult -to me- to keep 25 good hives ready to produce 40 or 50 kg. of honey every year. But I enjoy making nucleus, new queens, learning...You can have experiences that having a pair of hives you can´t.
Raise queens. Sell splits. There won't be that much honey. :)
Or sell the honey.
Feed honey in the spring and fall instead of syrup. That's less honey to sell.
Selling your excess to combines such as Silver Bow is a time honored option. Even those commercials or sideliners who sell most of their harvest themselves still sell to the combine labels.
I visited a honeyfarm recently that makes honey mead wine. I never thought of doing this before, but I have to say, I have never really seen honey wine before. The owners say that they make a good living making the mead wine, and only keep around a hundred hives. They sell retail honey to stores as well, but the mead wine was an interesting idea for what to do with excess honey. :D
Bee C: Mead is an idea. I made a couple batches of blackberry wine this yr. from my blackberries. It turned out good. I've heard of the Mead but never tasted it or seen it. Actually it's the first alcoholic beverage named in the Bible.
Maybe someone else on the forum has more experience that they can share.
i made some awesome baklava last weekend. that took some of my honey :) i am now looking for a good picture of pooh bear to tape up in my kitchen. i have never had a weight problem, but i can see how you could pack it on eating this stuff all day long!
i don't recommend the baklava as a way to use honey. my husband and i ate a whole 9 X 13 pan of it over the weekend :P
maybe we need a honey recipe swap??
Steve, go to the website for Tugwell Creek Meadery and they have a link to a mead making website. I've never made wine before, but it seemed to have a lot of good info, ie recipes, directions, explanations of the different meads and how to make them, as well as links to mead related festivals and others who have done this.