FOURTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IX. 625 



local honey produced and make the packer a profit to pay for his 

 services. 



I am not advocating a combine of beekeepers to boost prices to where 

 honey will be out of reach of the common people for honey is one of the 

 great gifts of the allwise Creator and his people would be better off if 

 they used it rather than the cheap injurious substitutes. Higher prices 

 would not curtail the consumption of honey, but would give the fra- 

 ternity a margin of profit that could be used in publicity of honey and 

 educating people to the use and need of honey. No doubt you think I am 

 talking as if honey was comparatively a new thing to people instead of 

 being as old as the history of the human race. If you meet as many peo- 

 ple as I do that know nothing whatever about the production of honey, 

 but think that they know it all in regard to how the comb is made 

 artificially and filled with a cheap syrup and masqueraded for comb 

 honey, and when you offer extracted honey they turn away disgusted, 

 for they are sure that that is the vilest of adulteration although the 

 label is all covered over with state and national guarantees, you would 

 realize that publicity in regard to honey and something besides the indi- 

 vidual names of Thompson and Jones is necessary to give it meaning to 

 the public. Children must be educated to understand what honey is and 

 how it is taken from the combs or how the bees build the section honey 

 that they see in the stores. 



How many in this assembly can tell what it costs to produce a case of 

 No. 1 comb honey or to produce 100 pounds of extracted honey? We 

 say we live in a commercial age and yet we do not stop to consider 

 these things, but in many cases the little honey crop is considered a by- 

 product, a side issue, or clear velvet in connection with the farm, orchard, 

 or poultry business. 



Bee supplies at first cost are quite expensive and it takes time to 

 fill them with bees and every season does not yield honey like the past 

 has done and if one is unfortunate enough to lose his bees the salvage 

 from empty fixtures is very small, therefore the business of producing 

 honey must be profitable or thinking men are not going to engage in 

 the enterprise. 



SELLING HONEY DIRECT TO CONSUMER. 



J. L. STRONG, CLAEINDA. 



To produce a crop is one thing, but to sell it to the best advantage is 

 quite another. I find by the market reports that extracted honey in 60- 

 pound cans is selling for 7 to 10 cents per pound. At these prices what 

 does it net the producer? It will cost about 1^2 to 2 cents per pound 

 for cans to ship in, including freight and drayage. Then freight and 

 commission will be about 2 cents more. From these figures the crop 

 will net the producer from 4 to 6 cents per pound. 



In selling comb honey we find about the same conditions, except the 

 danger of it breaking if we ship as local freight. 

 40 



