What an interesting weekend it turned out to be. I got a call from a gentlemen from Denver on Saturday. My understanding was that he wanted to come by with a couple of friends, check out the Black Forest Apiary, and possibly purchase some honey. I stated that I was currently out of stock, but had one jar left that had crystallized.
Tagging along to the hives was not a big deal to me. I had to be there to do Spring inspections anyway. However, I did not know what I was getting myself into on multiple levels. As we arrived at the apiary, everyone suited up and David and I began inspections.
The first hive that we looked into (hive 5) had their top deep completely full (ten frames) of uncapped honey stores, that they did not consume over Winter. As we went through the hive, we spotted the basketball size cluster in the bottom deep. (More on hive 5 later.) Somehow, while identifying this hive, that stored more honey than they consumed, my guests decided they wanted to purchase these frames of honey.
Here, our communication system totally broke down. First, I wasn’t really expecting/wanting to sell these frames of honey. Not to mention my guests wanting to bargain with me, on the price that I would take per frame. Little did they know that Cut Comb Honey draws a premium price, and they wanted the frames and all. I estimated each frame at 5lbs. per frame (as you can see, I was off on that) and cut them an extremely good deal per frame.
Lesson learned! I will make sure I have better communications/expectations with guests who want to visit the apiary. From this experience, I now know what questions to ask visitors, and what answers to give (No, I cannot drive you back into town and show you where an ATM is because you might get lost. However, I do have a Square.) In addition, if I ever sell frames of honey like that again, it will never be as cheap as what they acquired them for.