652 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



If not, then we are not keeping abreast with the times and can't expect 

 to receive the highest market price for our crop. 



And another thing you will note that two-thirds the goods sold in 

 that grocery store will he priced from 10 cents to 35 cents per package. 



Far this reason, I pack my extracted honey in glass containers to 

 retail from 10 cents to 35 cents and my comb honey in cartons. 



Of course, I sell a great amount of comb packed in plain cases, the 

 old faslhioned way, and extracted in tin as ordered, but three-fourths 

 of my sales is put up in small glass packages. 



Gentlemen, we read in the newspapers every day of the high cost 

 of living. 



I want to tell you it is these small sanitary packages that have in- 

 creased the cost of living more than any one thing. 



These packages are expensive. First, there is the package, labor 

 of filling, expense of labels, and shipping case, and many other expenses 

 when grouped together would astonish you. 



Take this jar of honey (for instance) at 10 cents and you are paying 

 100 per cent more for the honey than the producer received. 



When you buy a one pound package of seeded raisins at 15 cents you 

 pay about 200 per cent more than the vineyard'ist received for the grapes, 

 and when you buy breakfast foods in cardboard boxes you pay from 

 3 to 16 dollars per bushel for wheat, corn and oats, which our farmers 

 in Iowa are selling at from 40 to 85 cents per buslbel. 



Now, to get back to our subject, comb or extracted honey, under the 

 conditions as they exist in Iowa, depending on white clover for the 

 most of our surplus. 



I say comb honey. I can produce more revenue from an apiary run 

 for comb honey than I can from an apiary run for extracted, and I can 

 put it in the hands of the retail groceryman in proper packages for the 

 retail trade, at one-half the cost and with one-half tihe labor. 



It is dollars that count in the bee business as well as any other 

 business. 



Now this may seem to the most of you a rather strong assertion, but 

 if you will give me your attention for a few minutes I will try and 

 prove to you that this can be accomplished. 



First I want to say to you that I am in the business of producing 

 honey for the income I receive from the business. 



That while I am ])roducing comb honey, I also produce some extract. 



This is absolutely necessary if I want to conduct the business eco- 

 nomically. 



There are certain conditions under which a colony will store some 

 surplus in an extracting super with drawn combs, where they would 

 not do any work in a comb super, and again I often have an out apiary 

 so far from home that I visit it only three or four times during a season, 

 which I run for extract. 



And another thing — the older I grow the more I try to avoid all un- 

 necessary work in the apiary and, 



I want to confess I'm sixty-three. 

 And not as spry as I used to be; 

 I'm wearing glasses that I may see 

 To properly handle the honey bee. 



