532 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Followiug Mr. Foster 's paper on marketing honey, the discussion 

 was opened by Mr. P. J. Doll of Minneapolis, Minnesota, who spoke 

 as follows : 



I have attended bee-keepers' meetings for fourteen years, and at nearly 

 every one I have heard a paper or discussion on marketing of honey. 

 Everybody agrees tliat the price of honey is much too low and that the 

 commission house man is not working to the interest of the bee-keepers. 

 The bee-keeper who can market his honey in his home town is not subject 

 to the abuses of the commission house business, but many bee-keepers are 

 compelled to find a market in the larger cities. 



It was for the benefit of this class of bee-keepers that the Minnesota 

 Bee-keepers' Association took action to organize a honey exchange in 

 Minneapolis, whose object and purpose is to buy and sell honey; to help 

 the bee-keepers in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin market their product 

 at a fair and uniform price, and to advertise to the public the fact that 

 clover and basswood honey produced in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin 

 is the finest honey on earth. After it is once generally known that our 

 honey is finer, we can easily obtain a higher price, because honey produced 

 in this section is of finer flavor, but it does not always follow that all 

 honey produced is of the highest quality. 



Some of the plants growing in these states yield honey which is very 

 distasteful. Some bee-keepers even extract basswood and clover honey 

 before it is ripe, sell this in a fermented state to dealers and consumers 

 in large cities as pure clover or basswood honey. The innocent public 

 who get this kind of honey decide that they do not like honey and, as a 

 rule, cannot be induced to taste it again. We, therefore, must try to 

 educate the public to know that there is a difference in honey, no matter 

 where it is produced, the same as there is good or poor butter or any other 

 staple product. 



This Honey Exchange does not only handle fine honey which is care- 

 fully graded and sold under their brand as table honey, but aims to 

 serve the bee-keepers who have off-fiavored or unripe honey which must 

 be sold. This is disposed of where it will do no harm to the honey trade. 

 In Minneapolis and St. Paul there are many places where honey is 

 wanted regardless of flavor. In fact, you can sell anything if you know 

 how to find a party who wants the article you have to sell. 



One of our best stores is glad to get all of our fancy comb honey, and 

 pay 20 cents per pound for it. They will not buy from ordinary, small 

 bee-keepers, because they do not want to bother with inspecting the 

 goods and depend on getting what they order. A lot of stores want No. 1 

 honey. There is no inducement at all to offer fancy because their trade 

 does not demand it. Other stores are satisfied with No. 2, and even some 

 are glad to buy No. 3. 



Very much the same can be said about extract honey. Besides want- 

 ing different fiavors, stores require different size packages. Many handle 

 only quart bottles, others pint bottles, some five and ten pound pails, and 

 many will handle only tumblers. 



