Buying honey to sell.

[beehappy1950]

My wife and I are at different terms here. We sell honey at the farmers market, which we think will deplete our supplies quickly. I have a chance to buy some honey from our neighbor which is wild flower honey close to here. And my wife says if it is not our honey and we put our label on it then it is lying. I say it is business. If someone asks then I would tell them that we do buy some to keep from running out. Neither one of us wants to lie.  We are still feeding some hives this year. May not be the best year. Would like your input. Harold

[BjornBee]

Bottling honey produced by others is as old as beekeeping itself. Every beekeeper with two hives, and somehow supplying three different markets (And I know a few like this) all do this. Is it honest...no. Would I suggest you do it....no. Afterall, we all do not have a couple hives that produce seemingly thousands of pounds per year like at the white house.  :shock:

Ask yourself this.....The customers going to the farm market are there because they want particular products from the vendors. They buy from farm markets because they can ask questions, support local farmers, and know how the honey or other offerings, was produced. Buying from your "neighbor" may answer some of these questions for now. What happens when that runs out? Will you buy from the packer the next town over when you have no honey left? Where will you draw the line? And if you are not willing to draw the line where it remains your honey in your bottles, with your label on outside, just means there is NO line to be drawn.

When those customers pick up your bottle with your name and information listed, they are buying assuming you produced that bottle of honey. It's that simple.

When you sell someone Else's product, you also assume all liability. Not something that is always good to do. If crap hits the fan, claiming you bought the honey elsewhere, holds little water.

Your wife sounds like a good lady.  ;)

[edward]

Never lie to your customers  :police:

If you get found out your word and reputation will bee mud 

Sell your neighbors honey at the farmers market, tell your customers that your honey is all sold out so you are selling the next best thing, your neighbors.

I would rather buy local honey, neighborhood honey than some imported from out of town, state, country leave that to the big nameless multinational companies.

mvh edward  :-P

[asprince]

I agree with Edward.


Good Luck,

Steve

[Jim134]

It a lot of farmers market you can ownlee sell what you grow. I would not do at !!!



      BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :) 

[deknow]

We sell honey that we buy in from other beekeepers...both at markets and wholesale.  In our case,.the actual.producers name is bigger on the label than our own.  In some cases.we hasld to.fight to make this work...many markets only want you to sell what you produce, and they are happier with out of.town honey that claims.to be local than they are with an honest story.

There are also.potential health dept issues....in many states you.are.allowed.to bottle.your own honey in your home kitchen, but require a.certified.wholesale food.production facility if.you are bottling honey you purchased.
I would.sell the neighbors honey, but I would give it its own accurate label (this may cause issues.with the market and/or the health depth....we get aro.und this.by maintaining a certified facility.

Deknow

[AllenF]

My wife would not let me buy other's honey also.   We ran out way too early that year and had a real good deal on a couple of pails, but she would not have it.   

[edward]

 :bee: My honey is the best honey in the world !  :bee:

Then my moms,dads, sisters,brothers,uncles,aunts,cousins,neighbor's,friends,coworkers,local beekeeper, state, region, country .. ... .....
That's if I could only choose one for the rest of time  :angel:

When you buy a jar of local honey your paying not only for honey in the jar, your paying to pollinate the local environment, !

No honey, no strawberries, apples, peaches, berries and fruits in fields and gardens !  ;)

Local markets should support any local beekeeper regardless of who's selling their honey !

mvh edward  :-P

[stella]

Hi Harold. Your wife is right.
If I came to your farmers market, asked about your honey and you told me you bought it from someone else and put your label on it, I would be appalled. I would tell all my 'people'. I would probably even report you or take some sort of action. Not because Im an angry person, quite the contrary. But because if I hadnt asked the question of the honeys source I would of been none the wiser and therefore 'taken'.

My mother recently went to her little towns festival and came home with a jar of honey that she was most proud to call and tell me about. Orange blossom honey. She was so happy to have LOCAL honey. We live in Minnesota. We cant grow oranges in MN. I had to tell her how some beeks send their bees all the way across the continent to produce honey. Then they bring it all the way back across the continent and still label it as "local". To me that is deceptive. To my mother it was deceptive. (hey, she's old. She didnt make the orange blossom connection ) She went back the next day, inquired, and sure enough that was the case.

In a world of giant food industry deception... Farmers markets and local co-op's are suppose to be respectable places where people go to buy good honest food.

Now Harold, you could do this...Buy the neighbors honey, label or post a sign selling it as his honey (with his knowledge of course) and mark it up for your profit. That way no one is being deceitful.  :)

[indypartridge]

I think you've received some excellent advice here from different perspectives. What I'd like to add is that you need to decide what it is you want to do - what niche are you trying to fill. If you're a hobbyist who sells surplus honey from time to time at a farmer's market, then don't sell your neighbor's honey under your label. If you have a fairly steady sideline of selling "local products", then go ahead.

I know a beekeeper who keeps a relatively small number of hives. His niche is retailing local honey. He's in a tourist town, has a shop and sells literally TONS of honey each year to tourists. He buys from all the local beekeepers and retails it in his shop under his label.

[deknow]

....as the Grateful Dead used to sing:
"That's right, the women are smarter......the women are smarter in every way"

Deknow

[danno]

I would have to disagree here.   You wouldn't be the only person at the market selling someone elses produce.   Its a neighbor!!!  It's local!!!  Not like your rebottling Walmart.  We have 2 farmers markets and last summer I kicked around buying a table at one.   I was told that they only allow 1 honey vender.  Thing is is the one vender doesn't have any bee's.   

[deknow]

There are all kinds of ways to make money.  Many of them are popular and dishonest.  Labels are cheap.  If the only cost.to be honest with your customers (the customers that are.supporting you)  is the cost of a separate label, then I don't see.the downside.  If the cost is less sales, then we can safely conclude that the customers don't want the neighbors honey labeled as his own....in that case it would.certainly be seen as dishonest by the same customers he is.gaining.

Lots.of.people.sell.lots.of.things.....doesn't mean they are honest.

Deknow

[doormaster77]

If you are comfortable with the other beekeepers handling and production methods for his honey which you would purchase,
I see no problem with selling honey produced by another local keeper. I would just add something to the label something like "produced by, neighbors bee farm" and "distributed by, my bee farm" If I saw a label like this at the farmers market, I would still buy the honey knowing it came from another local producer. Not a problem at all. Most people I know would also be comfortable with this arrangement. BUY LOCAL!

[bulldog]

personally, if i were buying honey  from you and you told me it was your neighbors i would still buy it if that was what is available. on the other hand, if i found out you'd been dishonest about the source of the honey i'd begin to wonder what else you were being dishonest about. so i really don't see any upside to lying to your customers.

[beehappy1950]

I think I should let everyone know that I do not have any intentions of lying to anyone here or at the sales. This is just a point of view from two different people, me and my wife. If you read my first post you would know this is my neighbors honey I was going to buy. His bees and mine both suck on some of the same flowers, same honey. I would have no qualms about telling someone that I do buy some honey from a neighbor. I am just looking for different opinions. So far you guys are doing good. Even tho so far it looks like my wife is winning. Where are my supporters? Ha . Harold

[BjornBee]

As a side note......

A few years back I stopped at a natural health food store in Your County. They had a grocers bottling tank, where you fill your own bottles. I asked the clerk if he knew where the "local" honey was coming from, since it had marketing which included "Local. raw honey" marked on the tank.

He replied "We buy honey by the buckets over at Dutch Gold". (Dutch gold is a huge packer of all types of honey. None of which I would consider "local" unless your talking by the hemisphere.)

I stated that the honey was not really "local".

And here is the funny part. He said "Hey, it's bought local. I did not claim it was produced local. We buy from down the street "locally"."   :)

And we wonder why registration, point of origin tracking, and some feel the need to control the food industry.

[Jim134]

I stated that the honey was not really "local".

And here is the funny part. He said "Hey, it's bought local. I did not claim it was produced local. We buy from down the street "locally"."   :)

 :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:



    BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)

[sterling]

I think I should let everyone know that I do not have any intentions of lying to anyone here or at the sales. This is just a point of view from two different people, me and my wife. If you read my first post you would know this is my neighbors honey I was going to buy. His bees and mine both suck on some of the same flowers, same honey. I would have no qualms about telling someone that I do buy some honey from a neighbor. I am just looking for different opinions. So far you guys are doing good. Even tho so far it looks like my wife is winning. Where are my supporters? Ha . Harold

I would not have a problem selling local honey produced by a neighbor whom I knew and trusted and I knew his operation.  But I would label it as Pure Local Honey produced by Local Beekeepers. And would not try to decieve any buyer into thinking that it was all my honey.

[edward]

this is my neighbors honey I was going to buy. His bees and mine both suck on some of the same flowers, same honey. I would have no qualms about telling someone that I do buy some honey from a neighbor.

In this case I wouldn't have any problems at all selling it as my neighbor's honey !

A few months ago a beekeeping college and friend asked for some help to demonstrate and give free taste samples at a larger supermarket  :-D ( he was going to beekeeping school that weekend) :-D .
It had been a wile since I had done that sort of sales but it was like riding a bike.

Standing there in my beekeeping suit and with my smoker I talked to the customers about honey and bees  :-D
If they asked where it was from I told them, if they asked if it was my honey I said no its my friends and he was in beekeeping school.

Most, people are interested in locally produced products, if its the beekeeper who selling them or his neighbor I don't think people will mind as long as its locally produced and benefits the neighborhood!

mvh edward :P