ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



59 



President Baxter — Any other re- 

 marks on that question? 



Question — What is the best way to 

 teach the food value of honey? 



President Baxter — What is your 

 opinion, Mr. Root, on that question? 



Mr. Root — I covered it in part this 

 forenoon. I should have pamphlets 

 and literature on the subject of honey 

 to hand out to those who inquire. We 

 have little folders that we give con- 

 taining honey recipes, that tell what 

 honey is — honey booklets and leaflets. 

 We have some gotten up by Dadant's 

 as well as our people. 



I should utilize the public schools. I 

 should furnish the local newspapers 

 with a write-up of stories. If you 

 don't get the stories you want, send to 

 Mr. Dadant or ourselves and we can 

 send you something; it is a great deal 

 better to see your newspaper man and 

 tell him something about bees, and 

 take him in some honey, and get 

 him to write you a story, if you can, 

 and say something about honey, and 

 particularly about what honey is. 



I think Dr. Baxter can talk to you 

 about what honey is; of its medicinal 

 value, better than any one else in the 

 room. 



When we make the statement that 

 honey will go farther than butter it 

 needs qualifying; the different articles 

 are used for different purposes. 



When we make the statement that 

 a pound of honey equals a pound of 

 beefsteak — that depends upon what 

 you want to do. 



At the beginning of the war the 

 price of honey went clear down. Bee- 

 keepers in the southland had no de- 

 mand for their honey at all. All of a 

 sudden honey began to be in demand 

 8.nd prices went up. What was the 

 reason? It went into the trenches of 

 the European war, particularly on the 

 allies' side, and I have positive in- 

 formation of shiploads of it going over 

 there. Why did they use it? Honey 

 is an energy-producer. They use it in 

 place of chocolates that were more ex- 

 pensive, and, in many instances, in 

 place of sugar. Sugar is an energy 

 producer, but honey has gone through 

 one stage of digestion. 



Dr. Baxter can give you technically 

 what honey is, and I will go further. 



President Baxter — Don't you think 

 one way of introducing the use of 



honey would be to have demonstra- 

 tions made in these Domestic Science 

 clubs? We have them in almost every 

 township. I think that is the best 

 place to teach the value of honey and 

 to make it become popular. W^ are 

 doing that up our way. 



Mr. Root — George W. Williams had 

 put out a honey book that he is fur- 

 nishing to schools. I think your sug- 

 gestion to put it before the various 

 clubs a good one. 



There is not a club in northern 

 Ohio and southern Canada within two 

 or three hundred miles, I think, but 

 what I have visited two or three times. 

 They invite me to talk about honey 

 and allow me to toot my own horn if 

 I want to. I have utilized the oppor- 

 tunity. 



When I talk before the public 

 schools there is usually a demand for 

 honey on the near-by grocers near 

 that school. 



I try to get the value of honey be- 

 fore the minds of the children. 



If you could have an automatic bot- 

 tle that would invert itself by some 

 electrical device, that the bubble 

 could be seen coming up and down — 

 and have a card with a brief state- 

 ment of the food value of honey and 

 what the cost is compared with other 

 things — it would be helpful. 



In all our show windows in Cleve- 

 land we have nicely printed cards. 

 Those cards are placed on certain 

 dates and advertised in the news- 

 papers that those display windows are 

 going to be shown at a certain time; 

 tell what stores and grocers have the 

 honey for sale; and in every case the 

 onposing grocer, who is near by and 

 who does not have one of those dis- 

 play windows, clamors for it the next 

 5'ear. 



We have those cards placed in show 

 windows. The big distributors come 

 to me and say: "We have got to have 

 your honey." 



By continually pushing and adver- 

 tising you can get the food value of 

 honey before the people. 



We see to it that in New York city, 

 in Philadelphia and in Boston, if 

 the large grocers don't have the honey 

 they get it. If we don't furnish it to 

 them our competitors do. 



Our idea is to get hgney generally 

 before the public and in the home, and 

 to that end we have these cards dis- 



