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jal_ut
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Bees, and or Honey.

Honey prices vary a lot even at the same market. Here you can buy a pint of Honey at the store for $5.49 a pint. I am asking $7 for my pints. Some at the same market are asking $12 a pint. One vendor is selling half pints for $6.

People want unheated, unfiltered local honey with no additives and are willing to pay a little more for it. You never know what you are getting if you buy it in the store. All of my crop went into pint bottles. I am all the time getting requests (usually from the bakers at the market) for a 5 gallon bucket full, but then they want a much better price. I think I can sell all of my crop in pints so why should I do that?

From what I am hearing all around this area the honey crop is way down from last year. You can expect the price to go up.

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jal_ut
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Eric wrote:
Yes, exactly. Some store honey has all the pollen removed and it's diluted with corn syrup.

The neighbor's honey is unaltered, raw. He currently has 20 gallons waiting to be delivered. Most of it was presold to restaurants and bakers.

Small containers of anything should have a higher price. There is all the packaging and packing to be covered.

Eric
I don't know if any honey producers actually cut the honey with corn syrup, but it seems fairly common to feed corn syrup to the bees in quantities that they will put it into the combs. The grower can then extract it and call it honey because it came out of the combs. Right? I think they will have to label it as "corn syrup" in the ingredient list if they actually add corn to the honey after extracting it.

Many beekeepers feed corn syrup or sugar water to the bees in the fall to make sure there is enough stores for winter, or to medicate the bees, or both. This feed does not end up in next years honey crop though.

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jal_ut
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HFCS high fructose corn syrup, contains fructose and glucose. Both compounds (simple sugars) found in nectar and honey. I don't see what the big objection should be, except that it comes from corn. (Is that a political preference?)

HFCS is in so many things we eat and drink these days it is quite amazing. It is used as a sweetener in soft drinks and baked goods for starers and about anything else that needs sweetness.

Bees hived anywhere near corn will pack large amounts of corn pollen into the hive as food for the brood. Some pollen of all the plants the bees visit will end up in the honey the colony produces. So your honey will likely have some corn pollen in it if the bees are within 2 miles of corn. They don't collect nectar from corn.

Fructose is lots sweeter than sucrose (table sugar) so you can sweeten with less calories than using sugar.

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jal_ut
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Eric, I spin the honey out of the combs and pour it into the bottles. No processing at all, no heating, and no additives.

It is thought that by leaving the pollen in the honey and if you use a spoonful a day, that it will help with allergies as you are getting a bit of pollen from all the flowers in the area daily, year round, and you build a tolerance for it. I can't prove this, but it is a popular notion. For this reason many people buy my honey.

Any other beekeepers out there want to weigh in on any of this?

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TheWaterbug
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15 months after having [url=https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=200764#200764]"my" hive safely relocated[/url], I am missing the little critters :(

One of my neighbors keeps bees, and they're kind enough to come pollinate my garden, but 1) they're not my bees any more, and 2) I don't get any honey out of it.

I just took my kid to the LA County Fair this weekend, and we spent nearly an hour at the bee exhibit. I kept thinking, "And I had this in my backyard all along, and for free, too!"

Technically speaking, beekeeping is not permitted in my neighborhood, but I doubt anyone would complain.

If they even re-infest a structure on my property I'm going to put them in my own hive box and keep 'em!

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soil
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We have five hives and love them. Even if it's just to have them around. And I don't get any honey. They make a farm so much more alive. We absolutely do not feed our established bees. We have one swarm that showed up two weeks ago and they are small so they will get some feed to last over winter, mature colonies are left with ample honey for winter.

Gotta love them bees

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jal_ut
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Technically speaking, beekeeping is not permitted in my neighborhood, but I doubt anyone would complain.
If you have a spot in your yard where a couple of hives are screened from the neighbors, I think you can keep a couple of beehives and no one would even be the wiser. It will depend some on how your neighbors view it. For sure any gardeners in the area will appreciate the bees for pollination purposes.

For anyone wanting to keep just a few bees, I would suggest two hives. Having a source of brood and eggs in the event of losing a queen is a plus. Can't be done with only one hive. If you can take a frame of eggs from one for the other to make a new queen you can stay in business. There are other ways to get a new queen, but this works well without needing outside help.



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