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Author Topic: Honey Jar Display Stand  (Read 5494 times)

Offline asleitch

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Honey Jar Display Stand
« on: October 20, 2004, 07:47:23 am »
I got a new lathe recently, so decided I'd make something for my club's forthcoming Honey Show. I spun 4 disks from English Walnut (it's a bit lighter in colour than Black American Walnut) and then mounted them on a column made from English Oak. I finished the stand in danish oil, followed by two coats of clear wax.

The idea is that when out club is selling honey at local farmers markets - they typically have all the jars layed out on a table. This makes it difficult for consumers to have a good look at the jar/label. Hopefully this stand overcomes that and presents my jars in such a way as they get more attention.





Mine are the bottom jars almost going off picture... (thats a different class though)





I did wonder about putting this in the "construction/making" section - but it does bring up a few questions - how do other people go about making their honey "stand out from the crowd"?

How do you normally get rid of surplus honey?

Adam

Offline beemaster

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Honey Jar Display Stand
« Reply #1 on: October 20, 2004, 11:45:55 am »
Adam:

Great pics and congrats - I fixed the posting, hope it still looks the same. Your lathe work is very impressive.

My displaying is usually equipment layed out for schools, I've never done shows where I sold honey, or competitions (which sounds very cool) but I have some great display cards showing large photos (poster size) images of bees and comb and other images you have seen around the website.

I haven't done a school presentation in about 2 years and your images made me think it's time to again! Thanks for the images and everything as always :)

I'll get in contact with the local schools, they are always excited when the Beemaster wants to do a show (the science teachers in 6th thru 8th grade often use my site as material, they claim the kids love the fact that a local fellow does the site) so occasionally I see a flock of kids on bikes park outside the yard and see them looking at the hives, that usually means I got mentioned in class somehow - lol.

When you live in a town with a population of 4000, having something as simple as my humble website often brings its 15 minutes of fame.

Speaking of which, I am still in contact with the National Public Radio Producer, she is having a meeting Friday with the money guy for the program and she will get (hopefully) the final okay for the expence of the program. She is VERY EXCITED about coming, I explained though that we need to get together on a WARM DAY if we are to go into the hives, but I think there is still plenty of time. Either way, she would still want to do the interview in person and also get the tour of Lakehurst Naval Base which very well could be a program concept for some future episode :)

Talk again soon!
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Offline queenb64

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Honey Jar Display Stand
« Reply #2 on: October 22, 2004, 12:20:47 pm »
cool stand, im not sure about safe though. Will the jars tip easily? How much do you charge for a stand?
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Offline asleitch

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Honey Jar Display Stand
« Reply #3 on: October 22, 2004, 02:23:49 pm »
Quote from: queenb64
cool stand, im not sure about safe though. Will the jars tip easily?


It's not clear, the disc's of walnut are hollowed out, so that the jar sits down slightly - it's surprisingly good at keeping the jars in. You'd have to knock a jar very hard to make it come off. The stand itself is also stable, the weight of the hardwood base seems to keep everything weighed down.

Quote from: queenb64
How much do you charge for a stand?


I only make my woodwork for fun, for myself, family and friends. In this respect, as I give everything away for free, I guess I could argue I'm valuing my time at zero, but it's worth it to see peoples reactions and appreciation. I doubt I'd consider selling something commercially, as the price I'd value my "spare" time at, is such that most people would be unprepared to pay that much. Also, it was made with lots of hand tools, (planes, spokeshaves etc) which is very satisfying to use, but very uneconomic. I reckon any local carpenter would knock up something similar if asked, for a very reasonable price.

I'm convinced improved marketing is the way to increase honey sales. The tables/stands need to draw customers in. Jars in lines whilst looking nice to us, is no different to the supermarket. You need taster pots, information, an unusual display.

I'm planning a new design for next year, so will see how it goes....!

Adam

Offline BigRog

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Honey Jar Display Stand
« Reply #4 on: October 22, 2004, 02:44:14 pm »
Very nice.
Congrats on the first place.
"Lurch my good man,…what did you mean when you said just now that 'You've got better things to do than run my petty little errands'…….?"

Anonymous

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Honey Jar Display Stand
« Reply #5 on: October 22, 2004, 04:16:19 pm »
asleitch,

Anytime I display my honey for sale I set up either a complete hive alongside my display table or I set a nuc on top of the table. I also set a smoker, hive tool and veil/helmut on top of the hive or nuc.

I've found that this ALWAYS draws people in to tell me about how their uncle, father, brother, grandfather or someone else in their family used to keep bees in their backyard many years ago. I don't always make a sale to these people but when I get to talking about how you have to manage an apiary now-a-days, I normally draw enough of a crowd that somebody buys some honey. Sometimes half the people in the crowd will buy something before they walk away.

Offline beesharp

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Honey Jar Display Stand
« Reply #6 on: October 24, 2004, 08:49:15 am »
We just did our first craft show and had a really lousy location. (...off in an out of the way hallway-all alone) Fortunately, we brought an observation hive with us and that saved the day. I don't know how people said, "we heard there were lives bees here and it took us awhile to find you guys."

Thanks to bees we ended up with a successful show!

Jim

Anonymous

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Honey Jar Display Stand
« Reply #7 on: October 25, 2004, 12:35:53 am »
As I said above, when I take even an empty beehive with me to display alongside my table my sales are always higher. I keep a close tab on what items I sell each time so that I'm sure that I have enough with me the next time I set up. My records show a 30-50% increase when I take the hive with me.

Next year I plan on having an observation hive with me wherever I go.