In this, the third segment of her series on bees, Cathy Isom fills you in on how to sell your honey and beeswax harvest. That’s coming up on This Land of Ours.
What do you do when you have a surplus amount of honey and beeswax? You find someone who wants to pay you for it, of course! If you know of local craft fairs, vendor fairs, or flea markets, you can gather up your wax and head on out to sell to crafters who’d love to get their hands on some creamy, locally sourced, beeswax.
You can also create an online store on popular crafting websites. Aside from friends and family, you can easily sell your honey to locals who would love a taste of real honey harvested from nearby bees. Marketing to local customers can also help increase awareness of beekeeping, raise interest, and potentially prompt questions about bees. In that case, you can assist your local bee population by educating the public on the importance of protecting the bee population. You could also reach out to local restaurants and grocers to offer your honey. A great selling point is that they can market their honey-laden menu item as locally sourced honey. County farmer’s markets are special because those who shop at the markets are looking to support local farmers, and enjoy knowing where their food comes from.
When you sell honey for human consumption, you will sell it through one of two different avenues: directly to the consumer or wholesale. Each of these avenues may have different laws on the federal, as well as the state, level that you must look into prior to selling your honey. It can be different for everyone depending upon where you are located. To be safe, always do your research on laws regarding the sale of food items to consumers, or through wholesale.
I’m Cathy Isom…