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Thread: Making a difference?

  1. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by wee willy View Post
    Any address for this person ? Town will do! Thanx.
    WW
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    From the link......If you like to contact me, you can do that in several ways:

    Luisa Gonzales
    49 Newall Terrace
    DG1 1LL Dumfries

    Phone: 07503 576861
    Email: golden.age.honey@gmail.com
    Facebook: www.facebook.com/GoldenAgeHoney

    For more information about the Generation Bee Crowdfunding Project contact golden.age.honey.crowd@gmail.com, call Louis on 07969832671, and look for us on Facebook and Twitter!

  2. #22
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by wee willy View Post
    Any address for this person ? Town will do! Thanx.
    WW


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    Contact details can be found on her interesting (public) 'LinkedIn' profile.

  3. #23

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    I'm with Jon that we shouldn't be down on someone for trying to make a business out of their beekeeping. I hope to do it in a small way myself once I get to grips with my II kit! What does concern me though (apart from the lack of experience of the person seeking crowd funding) is the lack of vision apparent in this project. I'd have been much happier if this wasn't yet another attempt to produce any old strain bees for beginners who know no better. Of course beginners are happy to get bees at a good price. It's only further down the line once they have some experience under their belts that they might be more concerned that they've been supplied with Buckfasts/Carniolans/Italians etc instead of native bees. If next winter is a harsh one (unlike the current one) it's a fair bet most of them will lose their reasonably priced bees.

    One thing I think we also need to make clear is that not all nucs are the same and should not be priced as such. An overwintered nuc in my opinion with a previous year's native and locally reared queen should command a much higher price than a mid-summer split with current year queen. I think we really need to try harder to educate the buying public of the difference between the two. Of course few/none of the commercial producers sell overwintered nucs as far as I can see.

  4. #24
    Senior Member Mellifera Crofter's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by drumgerry View Post
    I'm with Jon that we shouldn't be down on someone for trying to make a business out of their beekeeping. ...
    I'm sorry - you misunderstood me (and I assume you are referring to my post). I'm absolutely not against her or anybody earning money from their bees. I'm just a bit disturbed by the fact that she is asking the public to fund her business. She is doing what many other beekeepers are doing (without asking the public to fund them) but they - or many of them - are probably far more mindful about the effect their practice might have on other bees in the area.

    Kitta

  5. #25

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    Kitta - I was more referring to what Jon said. So maybe it referenced your post indirectly. But it's a point I've heard made before in various forms. It appears to me that there is a species of beekeeper (I'm in no way including you in this) who thinks they should have their bees or queens for free or for a sum which doesn't represent the effort involved in producing them. I was only making the point that we could all be better at educating the beekeeping public about the costs and effort involved in producing their bees.

    I haven't been on the crowd funding page for this project but isn't it the case that individual funders get something in return for their money? In this case I expect it's a colony of bees in a hive. So crowd funding as far as I understand it doesn't equate to "publicly funded" in the commonly used sense of the phrase.

    I agree that there appears to have been little thought given to the strain of bees used here and in my opinion it's a travesty that anyone would consider a large project like this using anything other than native/AMM bees.

  6. #26

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    I did the beginners class at the same time as Louisa, and very nice person she was, but she did say at the time she had bought all hives form a guy and was paying him to mentor her because she wanted to have 500 hives and become a commercial beekeeper within two years, so it's not about helping beginners or the bee population of Scotland it's someone trying to make money there is a demand for nucs and people will exploit it for there own gain sadly


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  7. #27

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    General point here - not sure why selling bees and making a profit from it should be considered to be somehow vulgar. Are bees somehow in a different category from other "livestock"? We've all got to earn a living surely.

    My disagreement with this project is with its lack of a long term vision not with the principle of selling bees to beginners at a reasonable price.

  8. #28
    Senior Member Mellifera Crofter's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by drumgerry View Post
    ... I haven't been on the crowd funding page for this project but isn't it the case that individual funders get something in return for their money? In this case I expect it's a colony of bees in a hive. So crowd funding as far as I understand it doesn't equate to "publicly funded" in the commonly used sense of the phrase. ...
    No Drumgerry - that would be called 'buying'. She is asking for money to fund her own private business, and she is asking her 'trainees' to work for her for free. Her reason for the request is the old story about the declining honey bee and that she will produce 50 colonies for sale - for sale - to new beekeepers.

    Kitta
    Last edited by Mellifera Crofter; 05-03-2014 at 10:25 PM. Reason: Corrected 'hives' to 'colonies'.

  9. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by drumgerry View Post
    General point here - not sure why selling bees and making a profit from it should be considered to be somehow vulgar. Are bees somehow in a different category from other "livestock"? We've all got to earn a living surely.

    My disagreement with this project is with its lack of a long term vision not with the principle of selling bees to beginners at a reasonable price.
    Your right everybody has the right to run a business, and there plenty out there charging very high prices for nucs, my point was more of them making out their doing it for the greater good, instead of just saying we're going to be selling nuc's and hive and roping in some free labour to boot.


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  10. #30

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    Fair enough! Both of you! I agree - the old sob story about the declining bees and using it to benefit yourself. I know all about that old chestnut from a previous life in a beekeeping association from which I resigned over the issue.

    I guess I just have a bit of a raw nerve about the snobbery/vulgarity thing to do with selling bees. There is a bit of a thread running in certain beekeeping circles to do with that but clearly you two are not part of it.

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