Bankruptcies and Liquidations

"Loss-making honey returns are sending shockwaves through the industry from corporate board rooms to family-owned enterprises, with beekeepers abandoning hives, businesses liquidated and operations shut down".

Honey sector feels sting of rock-bottom returns

Mounting toll of liquidations and bankruptcies with honey values reverting to early 2000s levels.

www.farmersweekly.co.nz

 

[tristan]

meanwhile nz earns the largest amount in the world from honey. you do the math.

 

[Jessej]

I was never much good at maths….. but, while we might achieve the highest price… we also probably have some if the highest running costs, not to mention compliance cost….

 

[tristan]

I was never much good at maths….. but, while we might achieve the highest price… we also probably have some if the highest running costs, not to mention compliance cost….

while everyone gripes about compliance cost, i'll bet the landowner cost is the biggest cost by a big margin.
the other issue is that cost is paid upfront while the earnings can be years away. in a declining market thats a really bad position to be in.

 

[frazzledfozzle]

while everyone gripes about compliance cost, i'll bet the landowner cost is the biggest cost by a big margin.
the other issue is that cost is paid upfront while the earnings can be years away. in a declining market thats a really bad position to be in.

Do people still pay landowners ?
I wouldn’t have thought there would be enough in it.

 

[Alastair]

Believe it or not there are still beekeepers making a reasonable profit and still paying site rents.

Nothing on the scale of the boom times though, and site rents have been a contributor to the demise of some beekeepers. There was a time when some site owners were so demanding they were dictating when the hives could be placed and when they had to be gone by, and site owners of the off season dump sites without a stick of manuka were even charging rent, owning beehives was just a continuous cycle of paying site rent.

Course that's going to crumble once someone has gone 2 years with no income.

 

[tristan]

Do people still pay landowners ?
I wouldn’t have thought there would be enough in it.

o yeah very much so.
the question is how much. i do not deal in that side of it (and we don't do manuka sites anyway), but from the offers we get there is plenty of landowners still playing beek against beek. i don't know how much land costs have rolled back.

in peak times they where paying for wintering sites, spring build up sites, as well. all that seams to have disappeared.

 

[Bron]

Most of our hives are now surrounded by what were beekeepers paying for over wintering sites on adjacent properties. What it will look like come spring is now dependant on how many beekeepers move on because the money has run dry.

 

[Alastair]

So people still paying even for dump sites where you are?

 

[Bron]

So people still paying even for dump sites where you are?

No idea, they were, and we hear from our farmers when they get hit up by other beekeepers about sites or when the neighbours get beehives. We’ve never paid for sites, other than with the liquid gold, last year we harvested 0. There’s a lotta scrub round here ya know, but most of it is distant & inaccessible in winter or after cyclones, so most move them back handier to home and pour syrup into them.

Last year with the accessibility problems it would have been extremely difficult to have kept a “commercial single“ alive. We had doubles with 3 full boxes on in December that by the time we finally got to them in April some had almost starved. The roads, the bridges, farm tracks, slips, carnage.

As stationary beekeepers (no pollination anymore) we just get on with the job working to the bees timetables. We keep to ourselves and have limited interaction with the beekeepers around us, we got a small group of longtime beekeeper friends and a few acquaintances but our business is none of theirs and vice versa.

I’ve got enough drama in my life without needing anyone elses.

 

[Jessej]

Sounds like you need a break… mind you… theres stress and then theres STRESS

 

[Jessej]

OK …. More road tripping pics…. When uou hit the road you take a step back from life,yah get outta yur box, and life comes into perspective.
I’m gonna be politically incorrect and say that if you are not happy in your box… find another one…. Even if that means dumping all you possesions and things you think you need and value… because at the e d if the day life is finite and we dont wa t to e d up a burdenon society wonderi g what if.
And funnily enough.. we really don’t need all that stuff we accumulated…. Right??

 

[Jessej]

On another note…. When you ride a bike around NZ…. and kill the motor to take in the vista, there is generally the reassuring hum of Bees…..
Here in Europe there is nothing…. I think I can count the number of bee hives i’ve seen in four months on two hands..

 

[southbee]

Italy?

 

[Alastair]

Amazing Church! How old is it?

 

[yesbut]

Doesn't look like there's clear air there either.

 

[Jessej]

The church,part of an Abbey was built in 700ad…. By the son of a count whose father gave him the land on which to set up the order. The son was told he could have as much land as he could ride around in a day on his donkey.
The air is clean ,,,, it just keeps raining!

 

[Alastair]

Wow so one thousand three hundred years old!

It looks old, but not THAT old, thinking it must have been renovated from time to time down the centuries.

I guess those timbers must have been pit sawn?

 

[Bron]

@Jessej, nah not stressed, just generally annoyed, now. You change what you can, help where you can, and read (if you’re me, till your eye cross). Hanging out with the grand babies now 4 & 6 helps.
Your trip looks amazing.

 

[Jessej]

Aah…. You gotta laugh… and why not…$14..00 a pot…