Price of honey by the pound???

[ruby_jane]

Last month's food shopping trip had me pick up a jug of honey--it was about $12.00 USD for 5 pounds. I always had assumed honey was sold by the quart, gallon, etc. Is that price reasonable or not? Didn't seem like it to me but I have no other current source for honey, and we use it as a sub for sweetners and other things...

[RockyGlen]

We sell our honey by weight, and when we used to buy it from a beekeeper we bought by weight. Our hives are suffering from CCD, so I was checking prices and around here, the cheapest I can find raw honey is $2.55 and that is if you buy a 42 pound pail. For a 4 pound tub it is $2.75 a pound. You are only paying $2.40 a pound at that price, so if it is pure raw honey I would say you got a good deal.

[Old John]

I've been buying Honey, for Mead making, for about 15 years.
It's takes at least 3 lbs. per gallon, for a good Mead.
I make 30 to 40 gallons of Mead a year, a lot of years.
I have always bought Honey, By the Pound.
I've mostly bought it from Bee keepers & restaurant supply places.
When I began it was $1 per pound, in bulk.
Now, it is over $2 per pound, in bulk.

Interesting FYI...........
Honey is nearly always right about 80% Sugar & 20% water.
Honey is a mild Bacteriacide.
Honey will not spoil, if kept covered, to keep out insects.
Honey will crystallize, even in a sealed jug.
When it is Crystalized, it still contains 80% Sugar & 20% Water.
If you heat crystallized Honey, in a double boiler, or in the microwave,
it will re-liquify.
Honey commonly weighs about 3 lbs. per quart and 12 lbs. per gallon.
That would be 1 1/2 lbs. per pint.

Mead is made with Honey, Water & Yeast.
It may be made with fruit juice, as an additive.
Then, it's called a Melomel.
Unless it's grape juice, then it's called Pyment.
If it's made with Apple juice/Cider, it's called Cyser.
If it's made with Malt, it is called Braggot, or Brackett.
If herbs or Spices are addded for flavouring, it's called Methligin.
We love Honey. We Celebrate with Mead.

We don't use Honey, in place of sugar. But, we do love Honey, on
fresh bread or dribbled on vanilla ice cream.
There's nothing like Honey.

[Mike in Ohio]

At least in Ohio, honey is required to be sold by weight by law.

Mike

[Lizza]

I found a local beekeeper who sells me 5 gallon buckets of honey for $100. We were pretty happy with that because it is about 1/2 of what we were paying by the 1 gallon jugs. I'm sure others don't use so much honey but we go through about 1 gallon a month because of all of the baking and we are a large family of 9. We love it with our yogurt (we get a local unsweetened yogurt so the honey is our sweetener for it).

[Batt]

Saw some Local Honey at the feed store the other day. $8.00/ Pt., $12.00/Qt. Makes it about $40 - $48 per gallon. I was paying $32/ gallon in Qt. bottles last year. We had a drought last year so I had no honey, even for the family, and had to buy. This year is looking good so far. I am cleaning and preparing the honey extractor this afternoon.

[danoon]

Just bought another 5lb of clover honey at Sams for $8.00, I was a little surprised it sold by weight also.. seems to be about a quart and a half. Virginia Honey Company... Hey, something not made in China..

[Spinner]

Here we buy it by the quart or gallon, not by weight. I paid $5 for a quart. I haven't weighed it to find out price per lb.


ETA: I bought from a neighbor who had hives, but his bees have all died or left the hives so now I'm looking for someone else local to buy from.

[dcross]

Originally Posted by danoon

Just bought another 5lb of clover honey at Sams for $8.00, I was a little surprised it sold by weight also.. seems to be about a quart and a half. Virginia Honey Company... Hey, something not made in China..

That's what they want you to think.

http://www.winchesterstar.com/TheWin...Area_honey.asp

"Virginia Honey Co. now buys its honey from beekeepers across the country. In fact, Hess imports honey from China and Argentina."

[FalconDance]

Mead.....the nectar of the gods! I love the stuff!

'Local' honey (within 20 miles or so) here is sold at the Amish store for $23/gal, more in smaller quantities. I wouldn't call it raw although it is minimally processed and very good. I keep forgetting to contact the beekeeper directly to get a price list - I want to start my own mead-making and cutting out the middle man for larger amounts would be really nice.

[ladycat]

Be very careful about buying honey. Most of it comes from China. Much of it is diluted with High Fructose Corn Syrup, which doesn't have to be declared on the label if it's less than a certain amount (I think it has to be less than 50%).

http://www.beekeeping.com/spmf/adulteration_2.htm

Some suppliers listed here:
http://www.alibaba.com/countrysearch...ose_Syrup.html

[ladycat]

U.S. honey imports, by importing country, calendar year

http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Sugar/data/table48.xls (XLS file)

You can see how much of an increase there has been in honey imports from China to the US in every year from 1989 to 2005.

In 1989, there was 24.9 million pounds of honey imported from China.
In 2005, there was 64.7 million pounds of honey imported from China.

[Batt]

Originally Posted by The Winchester Star

Virginia Honey Co. now buys its honey from beekeepers across the country. In fact, Hess imports honey from China and Argentina. He said the U.S. doesn’t produce enough honey to cover what the population consumes. Some of the honey available includes clover, orange blossom, wildflower, and acacia honey imported from China.

Perhaps the real story is that corporations are not willing to pay the price of domestic honey. Instead they are willing to pay a lesser amount for uncapped honey that will ferment in the barrel. And has possibly (read probably ) been diluted with HFCS. And the USDA bureaucracy just doesn't give a flip. (See next quote)

Originally Posted by After The News

Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., is blowing the whistle on the latest China import scandal. He is calling on the Food and Drug Administration to implement bans on tainted honey, most of which comes from China. “Almost 70 percent of the honey consumed in our country is imported – most of it from China,” says Conrad. “Unfortunately, China has a long track record of importing adulterated honey and engaging in other fraudulent conduct in the honey trade. These actions not only hurt honey producers in North Dakota and across the country, they also present needless health risks to our consumers.” In a bipartisan letter signed by 15 senators, Conrad urged the FDA to act on a petition for a standard of identity for honey.

There is your chinese honey. One last thought: "In 2002, Chinese honey was blocked, first by the European Union and then the US after shipments tested positive for chloramphenicol..."

[danoon]

Now i see why it was only $8 for 5lb. Its only about 50% honey.. *SIGH* Stuff like this really burns my backside.. and I can't even, safely, put honey on it.

[Lizza]

Originally Posted by danoon

Now i see why it was only $8 for 5lb. Its only about 50% honey.. *SIGH* Stuff like this really burns my backside.. and I can't even, safely, put honey on it.

I know, I was buying that honey too at one point a few years ago. If you are only paying $8 for 5lbs of honey you know something is wrong. I read an article by Michael Pollan and he said that Americans should basically pay more for food and eat less of it (I think it was his farm bill article). Anyways, it is true, we eat vast quantities of bad food and our health is really paying the price. Did everyone read the study about how Americans are actually becoming shorter? They think because of our bad health, stature has historically shown how healthy the people are. The Norwegians I think are the tallest now in the world.

Call around and find a local beekeeper. I found mine by going to the local health food store and looking in the honey isle. I found a local company that was selling a tiny bottle for $5. I bought it to make sure I liked it, searched the internet for their company and gave them a call. They were happy to sell me my 5 gallons of honey. You can also get a price on a gallon from the health food store, it might not be that bad in price. I should mention that this is, of course, raw honey.

I should say that I was getting a "raw organic honey" by the 1 gallon size from a local supply house that sells a lot of "organic" products. I was looking at the label and it said "a product of brazil". I was naive and thought it was a USA company. That's when I went searching for my local honey.

[ChickenMom]

Market price now is about $5 a pound. A pound is about 1 pint. We sell ours by market price.