Fall Honey Sales (356)

356 - Fall Honey Sales

Cooper: Hi, I'm Cooper.

Cole: I'm Cole.

Quinn: I'm Quinn.

Avery: I'm Avery.

?Qunn: We're the Upchurch kids from Rockwell, Texas. We love our honeybees except when they sting us.

Kids: Welcome to the Beekeeping Today podcast.

Jeff Ott: Welcome to Beekeeping Today podcast presented by Better Bee, your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment. I'm Jeff Ott.

Becky Masterman: I'm Becky Masterman.

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Jeff: Hey, a quick shout out to Betterbee and all of our sponsors whose support allows us to bring you this podcast each week without resorting to a fee-based subscription. We don't want that, and we know you don't either. Be sure to check out all of our content on the website. There, you can read up on all of our guests, read our blog on the various aspects and observations about beekeeping.

Search for, download, and listen to over 300 past episodes. Read episode transcripts, leave comments and feedback on each episode, and check on podcast specials from our sponsors. You can find it all at www.beekeepingtoday.com. Hey, thank you, Cooper, Cole, Quinn, and Avery, for that wonderful opening from Upwell, Texas. That's fantastic.

Becky: We asked for it. We got it. Thank you. What a great, great opening that was.

Jeff: Yes. I agree with that feeling. I like my bees up to the point where they start stinging me, and then I like saying, "That's not a lot of fun."

Becky: [laughs] Sometimes, though-- My favorite conversation was, I don't think I'm going to even name her right now because I haven't asked her permission to share the information. Somebody who worked for me while I was running Bee Squad once, she said, "Sometimes, don't you wish they would maybe defend themselves just a little bit better?" Here's the reason, Jeff.

If hives are just a little bit more defensive, and I'm not saying crazy defensive, but we might have an easier time during robbing season because we have bred these gentle bees so that we can sneak in and out of the colony with smoke or without sometimes. They really don't engage a really huge defensive response to our invasion of their colonies. If they were a little bit more defensive, maybe robbing season would be a little bit less stressful.

Jeff: The hornets and yellow jackets would have a more difficult time in the fall.

Becky: Exactly. That's a really, really good point.

Jeff: Let's hold this entire conversation about spicy bees for later in the segment when we have a question about that very same thing.

Becky: Sounds very good.

Jeff: Becky, first, there's a couple of things. I want to let listeners know that if they hear in my voice the echo of my new office, I need to apologize because we are finally moved after six months of this transition. My office is basically four bare walls, and it just echoes. We'll cut down on the echoes, and hopefully, it'll be a little bit better. I apologize for the sound quality. It's not up to what I prefer to have.

Becky: Welcome to your new home. I think we can take a few echoes knowing that you are firmly moved in and able to enjoy your space.

Jeff: I'm in the BAT CAVE, Becky.

Becky: [laughs] Now you just need to hang up your favorite belongings as soon as you find them, find your books, find everything.

Jeff: [crosstalk] Becky, you've been doing a lot of traveling this fall so far. I just got back from the Washington State Beekeepers Association meeting. Tell me a little bit about some of your shows and conferences you've attended and spoken at.

Becky: The last one I was at, I had a wonderful couple of days in Arkansas at the Arkansas Beekeepers Association meeting, where I was able to meet so many absolutely lovely beekeepers, and they took such good care of me. They even shared their local delicacies, which they were, well, we had some fun about it because it turns out I'm not a huge fan of catfish, but I'm a huge fan of the beekeepers who love catfish.

I think we can agree on that, but it was great. Kent Williams was there from Kentucky. The crew in Arkansas, it's just such a strong group of the apiary inspector, and the extension educator are just really supporting those beekeepers down there. It was a really fun conference. How was that Washington State Conference?

Jeff: The Washington State Conference was really, really good. We had over 200 beekeepers there. I emceed the conference, as I did the prior year. Funny that every so often I had the promote Beekeeping Todaypodcast, it just slipped out.

Becky: It just slipped out.

Jeff: Just slipped out.

Becky: As seen on the podcast or as heard on the podcast?

Jeff: Exactly, because Priya was there, Dr. Basu was there, Dr. Lewis Bartlett was there, Steve Pernal was there. It just happens to say, if you really like what these folks had to say, you can listen to them on this episode of Beekeeping Today podcast.

Becky: Jeff, did you have anything to do with actually setting up the lineup of speakers? Was there any kind of effort there?

Jeff: Maybe a little bit. Maybe. Yes, I did. That notwithstanding, it was a great conference. A lot of great beekeepers there. Just eager for information. I was very happy to be a part of it.

Becky: The other traveling I've been doing, it's not to talk to beekeepers as much as to do the sampling for the National Honeybee Survey. I've been on the road, but last sample has been taken for 2025. Project finished, except for a little bit of paperwork. Pretty exciting.

Jeff: It is. You've seen a lot of bees this fall.

Becky: I have. I have seen a lot of bees this year, in general, with the work I do at the university, helping them out with the veterinary program, and then with my bees, and then with the sampling. It's really fun to be able to see how different beekeepers are keeping their bees.

Jeff: Speaking of conferences, we have conferences coming up that we will both be attending in January 8th, 10th. We'll be at the North American Honeybee Expo with our friend and compatriot, Dr. Jim Tew, from HoneyBee Obscura. That'll be a fun time.

Becky: Great way to start the year. Absolutely. Looking forward to that.

Jeff: Unfortunately, we won't be traveling on-site on my birthday.

Becky: Too bod.

Jeff: I'm happy about that.

Becky: We don't get to celebrate with you again, but that's okay. That's okay. You've moved into your new home. You can firmly stay in that house all day on your birthday.

Jeff: There you go. I'll be hanging up carpets on my wall so it cuts down the echo. Where will we be in February?

Becky: In February, we are going to be at the Midwest HoneyBee Expo, February 6th and 7th. That's in Madison, Wisconsin. Really looking forward to that. It's a new conference or new expo. They've done it for a couple of years now. They just keep having to move to a bigger location. It should be a good time. I'm so glad that you are going to get a little bit of taste of a Midwest winter.

Jeff: I'm very familiar with Midwest winters in Northern Ohio.

Becky: That's true.

Jeff: Not Madison winters. That'll be different. Earlier in this segment, we had a listener question for our Hive IQ tool promotion that we have going with Hive IQ. Today's question comes from Shannon. She asks about spicy bees. Let's listen to her question, and we'll come back and try to answer it.

Becky: That sounds great.

Shanna: Hi, Becky and Jeff. This is Shanna Upchurch from Rockwell, Texas. I am a longtime listener and fan of the podcast, so thank you so much. My question for you today is regarding spicy hives. I have a hive that for about a year and a half has been virtually untameable. I've tried re-queening three times, making sure I pinch the old queen first. Inevitably, they are still ferocious. I have children and animals, so keeping a ferocious hive is not a great option for me. I guess the crux of the question is at what point do you decide to euthanize, or do you continue to try to tame the wild hives? Thank you so much.

Jeff: Spicy bees in Texas. Now, there's got to be a joke there with chilies in Texas and spicy bees, but this is not an uncommon problem.

Becky: No. It's something that as long as you keep bees for a number of years, you're going to run into it. When that happens, it's one of the biggest challenges a new beekeeper can have, right? I think it has to be. It sounds like she knows what she's doing as far as getting those bees re-queened. I have a couple of things that I would do before I actually gave up on the whole colony. What is your first thought, though, Jeff?

Jeff: As we mentioned earlier, there are times you run across a hot colony, as we used to call our spicy colony. It seems to me, I used to run into them more 10 years ago or even 20 years ago than I do now. I don't know whether that is a result of the genetics and breeding our queen producers are doing, or am I becoming a more confident, more--

[laughter]

Jeff: I'm playing and banging stuff around a little bit less, I'm squishing fewer bees. I don't know what's causing it, but I'm not running into this as much as I used to. I've discounted it because I figure, well, it's just my luck of the draw right now. Shannon's question has me thinking about what would you do if you just couldn't calm down a colony?

Becky: If she actually was able to successfully re-queen those colonies, and those queens were marked, and she waited long enough to make sure that the population turned over, because it takes a while, that's the thing. If you are expecting a populous colony, once you replace the queen, to actually change its temperament right away, it's just not going to happen. It's going to take quite a while.

One of my concerns would be, if she's re-queening it, if it's not a successful re-queening, and if maybe they're recruiting from within and just raising one of their sisters, so then you keep getting those genetics. If she is successfully re-queening them and waiting for a number of weeks, it's going to be, I want to say, six weeks until it really does change over. If that's happening, then I would look to, is there anything different that's happening at the site of the colony?

I know in Minnesota, we can have skunks come to the front of a colony, and sometimes it's really obvious because you see the scratches on the colony. I think just a couple of weeks ago, a beekeeper said, "Oh, skunks were here, and I looked, and I didn't see those scratches." I said, "Wait, how can you tell?" He's like, "Look in the dirt. There enough, you could see the scratches there." It might look different based upon where you are, but could there be something that's actually bothering the colony, or is it just one colony out of four, and you can't get it to change over?

Jeff: Those are good questions to ask yourself. Am I putting more queens in? Am I sure I'm looking at the same queen, the same progeny? What other factors? Are there any, or let's say three kids in there throwing stones at the colony every day. I'm just saying.

Becky: That's a hypothetical, right?

Jeff: Or four kids.

Becky: Four kids. Three would be okay, but if it was specifically four kids.

Jeff: Four would be the tipping point.

Becky: They would do that, Jeff. No, but it is interesting. If I had a mean colony, the very first thing I would do, if it was really-- I don't want to use the word mean actually, let's use defensive, but if it was defensive enough, and I didn't think that I was in a place where I could wait out the re-queening, that would have to be my backyard where nobody else is.

Otherwise, it's really hard to keep these someplace where they might bother somebody. What I would do is I would break her into nucs, and I would get rid of the defensive queen, and I would take those small nucs and give them a new queen and go ahead and let them all turn over slowly, but in a much smaller population because the ability for a colony to defend itself really changes once you make that colony smaller. Part of the power of that defensive colony is its size.

Jeff: I like that. I really like that approach is break it into three or even four colonies depending on the time of year and where you are, of course. I would do that before I'd soap them or kill them somehow. I would really not want to do that.

Becky: Then we have to say one more thing, especially because she's in Texas. You definitely could have a situation where you have some Africanized genetics. I would be sending away to get a queen from a reputable queen breeder that I knew they didn't have any Africanized genetics in their queens.

Jeff: Mark Queen at that.

Becky: There you go.

Jeff: Thank you, Shannon, for that question. I hope we've helped you think this through and some additional ideas to consider. We want to thank HiveIQ for this promotion and HiveIQ tools that we can send out to our listeners for their great questions. Shannon, I will be reaching out to you and be sending you a tool here soon. Along those lines, for our prior listeners who sent in questions, who we've read on the air, I have yet to send those out. Be assured that I will be sending them out now that I am in our new home and can get to the post office.

Becky: We have to give you time to find the post office, I think.

Jeff: I need to find the box I put the tools in.

Becky: Oh, yes.

[laughter]

Becky: That's fair. That's fair. You're going to find it any day now.

Jeff: One of these boxes, I know it's going to be in there. All right. We'll be right back after these words from our sponsors.

[music]

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Jeff: Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Sitting around this great big virtual Beekeeping Today podcast table are--

Becky: Hello.

Jeff: Becky and me.

[laughter]

Becky: Jeff, are we enough? [laughs]

Jeff: Some people would say we are more than enough.

Becky: More than enough, right?

Jeff: Yes.

Becky: Our respective spouses would definitely give us that encouragement. In fact, I'm probably too much.

[laughter]

Jeff: It's fall, and things are winding down, but it's also ramping up with fall festivals, and it's a great time to sell honey. Are you selling any honey this fall?

Becky: I love that question. I'm so glad you asked. I am. It's a process that I'm trying to build up slowly because all of a sudden, I have a lot of honey, and I really do need to sell it, but I also don't have a lot of time. Committing to a weekly farmer's market, I just couldn't do it this year. I'm hoping I might be able to do it in the future, but it might not happen.

I found a festival last year that I actually just did last month again, so it was my second time. Just going through that process, I don't care how much honey you have to sell, it's so valuable as far as figuring out payment and making sure your labels are on point and legal, and thinking about presentation. I encourage people, if they're dipping their toe in the water, it's such a great place to start. Find a place to spend four hours or six hours selling instead of jumping in and worrying about supply weekly.

Jeff: I know a lot of beekeepers will get into having bees and just want to have enough for their own pantry. Ultimately, though, you'll be asked, "Can you sell honey?" "How much can I pay you for this jar of honey?" Or you start thinking, I need to get some money to pay for some of this equipment.

Becky: Yes. [laughs]

Jeff: You look at those five-gallon pails of honey you have sitting somewhere, crystallizing probably, and say, I need to unload this, so I'm going to have to sell it. Selling honey is, I think, some of the most rewarding things that you can do as a beekeeper because it's something that you-- If I talk about myself, it's something I've had a hand in producing, and I've helped those bees be healthy enough to produce a supply of honey that I can then take and bottle and gift it or sell it and help return it back into the colonies. Selling honey is a fun thing to do, and it's something I've always enjoyed doing.

Becky: Especially in the fall. Our state fair, it's the end of August, early September. That was my first big push because our honey producers, they allow us to submit as many bottles as we want to sell. That's also a really good way to get in there because I was like, "Really? I could give you 24 jars, and you're going to sell them for me?" I think maybe a few years ago, I gave them 48 jars, and now I gave them maybe five times that much because I'm just trying to figure it out as far as making sure that whatever I promise, I can deliver.

It's just so joyful to be able to say, "Okay, I'm proud of the bees, I'm proud of the honey." The feedback you get from people is lovely. Then I have a website now so that I can sell things online if I want to. Once you start scaling, it gets a little, it gets to be a lot.

Jeff: You've dropped the fact that you have a website. What is your website name for your honey?

Becky: MastermanApiaries.com.

Jeff: Nice. We'll have that in show notes.

Becky: Oh, that's exciting. You never know what you might find. I got an email from a friend saying, "So, I went to your website, and your honey's for free right now."

[laughter]

Becky: I looked, and I had accidentally put the sale, and it was on sale for $0. They were like, "We would prefer to pay you for the honey." The lesson learned, luckily, I did not get any orders for that free honey.

[laughter]

Becky: Honestly, it's nothing exciting, but it's a way so that I can have an easy point of sale if I'm at a festival or if somebody buys my honey at the state fair. Then if they, hopefully, someday want to reorder, then they'll be able to find me.

Jeff: I was wondering how you would feel if you got a phone call from, "Hi, this is Schmuckers. We'd like to buy 50 barrels of your free honey, please."

Becky: [laughs] Right? Or, "We placed an order for your free honey. When are you going to deliver?" [laughs] It's funny because when you set that up, they make it so easy to set it up. I'm using Squarespace, and it's so easy to set it up, but you have to pay attention to things because you could put the number in stock. There's always a fail-safe. They would have only been able to buy a certain number of my free honey jars.

Jeff: That's part of the learning curve of selling honey is, one, how do you do it? You have a couple options. You could do a sign out front. There's some great signs you can get from any bee catalog that says honey for sale. You can sell it at a-- What I used to do in Ohio was I would go to all the local farm markets who are selling sweet corn or selling pumpkins or selling apples and say, "Hey, can you sell this case of honey for me?" They would buy it from me direct, and I'd walk away with money in hand. They'd sell it. They'd sell out. I'd leave a business card. They'd call me. I'd take them more honey.

They were doing all the work. They were doing all the sales work. I was doing the harvesting and bottling and carding around, but I priced it to cover my expenses. I think I've told you long ago I had said I wanted to have bees be the first hobby I've ever had to actually pay for itself and more. I kept meticulous notes and made sure that my bees were paying for the entire year. I did that for multiple years, and that was gratifying in many aspects. You want to think about where you're going to sell it, online or from friends, local farm markets, or even the Saturday farm market is an option, too.

Becky: We have friends who opened up a candy store and coffee shop. I've been giving them honey for a while, but I delivered my beautiful new bottles with my new labels because we had chatted a little bit about getting them into their store. They're like, "You're ready. You're ready to supply our store." Again, it's a small store, so it's not going to be a huge amount of product, but it's a good way to get in there, and it's super fun. I love your idea though of a case at a time. That's brilliant and a great way to get into it.

Jeff: That's the way I do it today even. There's a local cider mill that sells, obviously, cider. They also sell donuts, and they sell all sorts of things. I sell honey there, and I sell it to them by the case at wholesale. Then they turn around, put it on the shelf, and sell it. I stop by every once in a while, every once a week, and I make sure the jars are facing properly on the shelf and forward. Then I go and talk to the owner and say, "Hey, how's it going? Do you need any more?" "Oh, yes, we need." "I'll bring some over tomorrow." It's a really nice relationship that way.

Becky: No, that's excellent. If you haven't been in retail, if you haven't been actually selling something all your life, it takes a little bit getting used to because somebody's going to say, "Great, do you have an invoice?" You need an invoice. You need to actually have a paper trail of what you're selling for a lot of places. Then you also have to have your prices in your head.

You have to know what your retail price is, know what your wholesale price is. You also have to plan, am I just out when I'm out, or am I going to go ahead and make sure that I'm creating a constant supply? There's so many different things to figure out. Then obviously your bottling. We talked about bottling with Jay and Tara. That was a really good episode because they were selling their honey for a lot of money. They were getting a very good price for what their bees were doing.

Jeff: I've felt for a long time that beekeepers underprice their honey, or local honey especially. I keep that in mind every time I have to come up with pricing for whoever is that it's local honey. I know the source of this honey. I can vouch for the quality. I can vouch for the cleanliness. That's all on me. I can say this is the best you can buy local honey and feel confident in that, and for that charge of premium. I know this doesn't sound like a lot. My jars of honey are selling for $20 a pound, which is really nice.

Becky: What a great price. Wow. I'm not going to tell what my jars of honey are selling for.

Jeff: It's free. You've already told us.

Becky: It is free. You're right. I'm selling mine for free.

Jeff: As a beekeeper, if you're looking to sell your honey, you have to say, I know what my costs are minus my labor because I don't value my labor. I don't put a dollar amount to my hours. I know the physical cost of what I'm doing. I can say, well, okay, I need to recover at least this cost. Then what is the going market? You know what I use for that, and I have forever is in the front of Bee Culture magazine, they have their honey prices around the country.

I look at their local price for honey wholesale and retail in my region. I look at it nationally. I pick a price that I feel is in there. I also look at grocery shelf stores and look at the big box honey prices, which we all know as beekeepers may not be the best quality. I put a premium on it being local top quality honey. That's how I price it.

Becky: I like that. I like that a lot. I think that it's really hard also to not adjust what you're selling your honey for based upon the last few years that we've been through. Everything has gone up in price. I think now that we talk, I might be charging 2020 prices for my honey. [laughs]

Jeff: You're not alone with that, right?

Becky: Yes. Also, I've been selling it. I haven't been scaling up until very recently because I have so many more colonies now. That was the number that was just comfortable. I love getting a good price for honey. I think that's super important for beekeepers. You go right back to that spreadsheet. If you make a spreadsheet, once you start scaling your numbers, or actually translating what it means based upon what your supply is and what you're charging, you can see if you sell everything where you're going to end up.

If that number isn't at that level that you need, if your market can handle it, then you need to raise prices or figure out how to package it differently so that you're getting more per pound compared to what you're getting now. That's it. Sell little two-ounce jars of honey for a premium.

Jeff: That's right. For $10 for a three-ounce jar, which gets you through TSA at the airport.

Becky: There you go. I've got a question for you. You do a lot of writing, but you don't use AI for your writing, right?

Jeff: Depends on the writing I'm doing.

Becky: Okay. I've asked, after our guest, David Mullins, he was talking about AI, and he was talking about using it for his honey stuff. I have a flavor of honey that I want to brand for 2026. I asked ChatGPT, and, oh my gosh, they came up with the best names for honey.

Jeff: Oh, really?

Becky: Yes.

Jeff: Can you share?

Becky: I can't because--

[laughter]

Jeff: Oh, you lead us up to the edge and then you--

Becky: I know. I know. I really can't. We'd have to stop recording. Then I'd have to tell you, and then you'd probably say, "We probably should keep that off of the show." To be very serious, I got a great response for one of them. Then I went ahead, and I put in a couple parameters. I said, "Please help me name this Honey." I was like, this is so cool. Next time I do a label and brand honey, that's where I'm going to use AI. I'm finally going to come to this century in technology.

Jeff: That is a great resource that we can, as beekeepers, explore. Even to the point of saying, "Hey, Chat, help me come up with a spreadsheet using," let's say, Excel or Google Spreadsheets, "That will help me track my beekeeping expenses." It'll come up--

Becky: Wait, it'll do that?

Jeff: It'll do that.

Becky: Are you serious?

Jeff: Seriously. It'll come up with a-

Becky: Okay, sorry.

Jeff: -complete template. You don't have to be a spreadsheet genius to do this anymore. You can ask Chat or whatever your AI choice is to create this for you. It'll prepare the Excel spreadsheet or the Google sheet or whatever you want, and basically give you a template. Hey, let's think on that. Let's hear from our sponsors. We'll be right back after these messages.

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Becky: Welcome back, everybody. We're in the thick of it with the honey discussion here.

Jeff: This has been the theme of the entire year, right? The business of bees.

Becky: It has been. It really has been. I absolutely love this conversation because it's so informative when you sit down with another beekeeper, and you just discuss what you're doing to build your business. Specifically, when we're talking about honey, I've seen your label, and it's beautiful, but can you tell me a little bit more? You can tell other people, too. I guess other people are listening about how you came up with your honey label. You have a website, Jeff?

Jeff: Yes, I do for the honey company I have. It's Olympiahoney.com. That's pretty straightforward.

Becky: That's a sweet website name.

Jeff: Yes. All around Olympia, Washington, it used to be the Olympia Brewing Beer Company. Olympia, they had their Olympia beer and had that specific stylized Olympia. You see it on everything around town. Olympia Beer Company is no longer around. It's long gone. A couple of years ago, I was trying to come up with a different kind of honey company name. I did a search on the Washington State business directory of Olympiahoney. No one had that name. I said-

Becky: No one had it.

Jeff: That wasn't quite the words I said, but I said, "Oh my gosh, no one has this name." I quickly filed for that name. Then I got the domain. It's Olympiahoney.com. I also got Olympiahoneyco.com. Again, that's part of the business, trying to come up with a name that is unique and then catching that brand and hoping that's not $2,000 or something like that just to buy the domain name. You asked me about AI before.

What I did at that time was go to Chat and said, "My honey company's name is Olympiahoney. I want a logo using this kind of stylized Olympia. Can you mock up something for me?" It came back with something. It was a cool graphic, but I wanted it better, and I wanted human eyes on it. It's just me. I went to a graphic designer that I know here in town that I've worked with before, and actually did the logo for Honey Bee Obscura for us, and said, "Hey, Dan and Shelley--" Shout out to those guys. "Dan and Shelley, I need a logo for the honey company." They came up with that logo that you see on the label.

Becky: Oh, wow. It's good to hear there's a-- Human element is important. Well, two humans or three, but you had to decide that it was close but not quite right, and then you actually were able to connect with people. Not to talk about my honey again, but for my labels, my very first honey label is Masterman Honey. It was done by a friend of mine, and it's in the Metallica font, which is fantastic. I think if I sell it at any great amount-- If I got a cease and desist letter from Metallica, that would be super cool because they were reaching out to me-

Jeff: You would frame it.

Becky: -about bees. I would probably frame it, but I figured I didn't quite know if it was a good direction to go into. I love that label so much, but I decided I needed something different. Then Bridget Mendel, who I co-write with for Bee Culture, we wrote an article for Bee Culture called Clover Fixation. I really don't like clover honey, and so I always separate it from anything I harvest. Then I was like, "This is my first honey. Let's do clover fixation honey."

That's one of them. She drew the art. It's clover flowers and bees. Then I decided that I wanted to keep going with that. I've got floral fixation. These aren't the AI ones. These are just ours or mine. Now, I've got floral fixation, and I just separate that out. I think we already talked about it. I do June, July, and August harvest because it all tastes a little bit different. I've got the fixation honeys. Anyway, I love the art. People just love that artist's drawing on a label. There's something so personal about it.

Jeff: Having your own label is special. After college, I had bees in Ohio, and I called it Jeff's Honey Farm.

Becky: I love that. [laughs]

Jeff: It was pretty simple, straightforward, to the point. It was always fun. As my parents aged, and they're probably at the age that I am now. As they aged, my mom kept an empty jar with that label on it in her cupboard for years. It was always fun to open the cupboard, and, yep, it's still there. I encourage beekeepers, if you're trying to sell honey, go out even-- Not even. Use ChatGPT or whatever your AI of choice and play with it. It's free.

Play with it and come up with some graphic designs that you may like or a logo. Then you can take that logo and go to any of the label companies online, including our sponsor. Better Bee has a label-producing service. Send them that logo, and they can put it into their software, and you can have your own personalized label. That goes so far into making that jar of honey yours and unique to you as a beekeeper.

Becky: That's such good advice. Then also don't forget, I've heard this from a beekeeper before, make sure you're abiding by all of the local requirements so that you don't have to-- I don't know if that was a conversation we had on the podcast, but it was actually.

Jeff: [crosstalk]

Becky: I think it was Eugene Makovec who said he had to take all that honey off the shelf. I think it's important that we make sure that we're in compliance so we don't have to undo any of our good work.

Jeff: There are labeling laws. A lot of them are state-dependent. There are a couple national, but state-dependent of, if it's pure honey, you have to say it's honey. If it has anything to it or a certain percentage of anything, as if you're flavored honey or smoked honey or anything you add to honey, you have to declare it. Then it becomes a different product, and it follows different label laws.

Even you can run into situations where, because it's not pure honey, you have different issues with how you are producing that and inspection of facilities, et cetera, et cetera, and so forth. Investigate fully before you spend a lot of time into, I don't know, even, say, developing lip balm. That seems to be a popular thing to do. I've never done it. That's a body product, your health product, that requires different label laws and different production standards.

Becky: I know that, and also, you also trigger the sales tax once you get into lip balms and lotions, and things like that. It's one of those things where you have to decide, is it worth doing your quarterly reporting? If you're already reporting quarterly, fine, but it might be a good idea to talk to your accountant, or if you don't have an accountant, to consult with somebody because it might seem like a really small part of your business and not matter, but if you trigger something where you all of a sudden have to pay a sales tax or a local tax, it gets a little trickier.

Jeff: Yes. Every beekeeper, you come to a point where you say, well, am I over that threshold? Am I over the threshold of producing this for myself, friends, and family where it's a hobby? Well, now I'm taking it to the farmer's market, and Jeff's lip balm is sitting there next to Jeff's honey farm product. If it happens to be right down the street from the state tax inspector.

Becky: There you go.

[laughter]

Jeff: That's a cascade of bad luck that no one really wants to be a part of.

Becky: That's a honey bee product headache nobody wants.

[laughter]

Jeff: We're talking about labeling and producing honey that it's unique to a locale and making a premium price for it. One of our repeat guests that we've had on multiple times, James Wilkes and his company HiveTracks, one of the things their product does that I've always thought was wonderful, and they're not a sponsor, and I want to say this just because I think it's such a cool idea a beekeeper should be aware of, is their product, if you use it, has the ability to tell a honey story. You can track the source of your honey to a yard or location or area, and then prepare basically a paragraph or so about describing that yard, the floral source, whatever.

It's the honey story, and from that and through the software, produce a QR code that you can put on the top label or top of the jar of honey that the customers can scan and learn about that floral source. This makes me think about you talking about separating your honey as you extract it into different colored buckets. You know the floral source, and then you could take your red bucket and use this specific QR code for it and sell it as very special honey and get that $25, $30 a bottle. There are many options to consider in selling the honey that really, it'll take you a long way if you want it to.

Becky: Almost too many opportunities. When you think about it, from picking your jar to investing in the software, the technology, to tell the story, and then to developing your market, it's something that if you do it gradually over time as your bee business grows, it can really make you stand out compared to other people and make people not just buy that one jar of honey from you, but buy jars over and over, which is really the easiest way to build a business, to have repeat customers who really just are in love with the story and the product, and you're going to make it easy for them to decide.

Jeff: Becky, this has been a fun episode. You obviously can tell I'm passionate about the selling of honey and marketing of the honey. This is one of my favorite episodes this fall so far.

Becky: I know. We work so hard to take care of the bees and to harvest the honey just to be able to reflect on where that's taken us and how much work we've put into it, and I guess what's to come. It's pretty exciting.

Jeff: That time of year that we're selling honey, there's fall festivals, farm markets, the pumpkins on the corner, and it's a good time to take advantage of that to offload. I shouldn't say offload. That sounds wrong. Instead of keeping your honey in pails or jars and just sitting there and crystallizing year after year after year, make a market. Don't find it. Make a market for it and make it enticing and keep the jars clean. Unless you're selling creamed honey, don't let it crystallize, or if it crystallizes, liquify it before you put it out on the shelf. Get your product out there and get your bees paying for themselves. That makes it satisfying.

Becky: I will tell you that my dream is to let all of my honey crystallize in the jars and just sell that as is. Just so you know, that's my plan. Right now, I had Clover Fixation. I had some that was beautifully crystallized and other jars that were perfectly liquid. I had sales of both at the last festival. I let them try both. Anyway. Someday we'll write a book called The Lazy Beekeeper.

Jeff: You can sell it as not quite creamed honey. It's basically the same, but the crystals are larger.

Becky: The crystals are larger, but it's a real light honey that just crystallizes beautifully. It's not a half-and-half product. It just crystallizes all the way. I've seen a beekeeper in this market, in the Twin Cities, do it, actually, more than one. I've been so jealous because liquifying honey, you have to do it so gently. I'm just all about like, hey, if I could make this work.

Jeff: I thought you were going to rib me about the picture I sent you, I don't know, last year or the year before about trying to liquify honey in the oven. Make sure you take the plastic caps off. I'm just letting the folks know that did not turn out well.

Becky: Honestly, anytime something happens to the honey, and you can't use it, it's so heartbreaking. I think for a lot of beekeepers, that honey is so precious. Anything spilled, anything may be tainted by melting plastic.

[laughter]

Jeff: Yes, don't reuse that, honey. Becky, it's been enjoyable. Thank you so much.

Becky: Yes, thank you, Jeff. This has been fun.

Jeff: That about wraps it up for this episode of Beekeeping Today. Before we go, be sure to follow us and leave us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you stream the show. Even better, write a quick review to help other beekeepers discover what you enjoy. You can get there directly from our website by clicking on the reviews tab on the top of any page. We want to thank Better Bee, our presenting sponsor, for their ongoing support of the podcast.

We also appreciate our longtime sponsors, Global Patties, Strong Microbials, Bee Smart Designs, and Northern Bee Books for their support in bringing you each week's episode. Most importantly, thank you for listening and spending time with us. If you have any questions or feedback, just head over to our website and drop us a note. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks again, everybody.

[00:47:59] [END OF AUDIO]