ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



137 



products, gets some honey, and he 

 ships it into a commission house who 

 does not make it their husiness to 

 handle honey; that honey goes in with 

 other goods. 



Where is your honey? I saw some 

 honey down town that a fellow had 

 just got in and he let me have it 

 cheap; I took the whole crate of it; 

 he bought it at 5 cents below the 

 market. 



Now, there are lots of those kinds 

 of sales being made. Some of my best 

 customers pick up honey in that way; 

 buy it clear below anything they have 

 been buying honey for. They take a 

 chance on it; that sets the price for 

 honey in that man's store, unless he 

 hears his neighbors is charging a big 

 price, then he will make more profit. 



^ Mr. Bruner — That is comb honey you 

 are speaking of. That is the meanest 

 thing in that respect that comes on the 

 market. 



A member — I might state in this 

 connection one of the reasons why I 

 have not sent comb honey very much 

 to commission men; if you follow the 

 market you will see there is a great 

 deal of honey that looks as though it 

 was wet. It spoils quickly in such 

 atmosphere as we have today; if they 

 don't sell it soon after they get it, it 

 must be sold low. 



President Miller — They put it in the 

 ice box and sell it. 



While we are taking this up, Mr. 

 Wheeler, I believe, had a question a 

 little while ago — will you repeat it? 



Mr. Wheeler — I wanted Mr. Bur- 

 nett to answer the question — what he 

 thinks sets the price of comb honey 

 in the market iii Chicago this fall? 



Mr. Burnett — That is just a result 

 of conditions. 



President Miller — ^While we are wait- 

 ing for these papers, we have a few 

 minutes for the further discussion of 

 the selling question. 



Has any one here anything to say 

 regarding this selling proposition? 



Dr. Phillips — I do not sell honey 

 myself. I would like to give a little 

 experience of one of the members of 

 my family in selling honey, which 

 carries out what Mr. Williams says 

 about the home market. 



The location is one of the through 

 automobile roads in the country. We 

 had a sign put up on one end of the 

 lot which caught the automobiles 



going one way only, and we put a 

 sign also on the other end of the lot. 



There was only a small crop from 

 a few colonies which amounted to six 

 or seven hundred pounds. The honey 

 was off color and what we would con- 

 sider poor quality. It was sold at 

 twenty cents a pound, plus the price 

 of the container; thirty-five cents a 

 pint; sixty- five cents a quart. 



Two thousand five hundred pounds 

 were sold and, before the year is over, 

 I anticipate it will be over two tons, 

 possibly three. 



Last winter the trade kept up all 

 winter; not anything like as big. 



It seems that this offers an oppor- 

 tunity for getting rid of some honey 

 without almost any effort, at a pretty 

 good price, and relieving the whole- 

 sale market to that extent. There 

 were only three people who went away 

 on account of the high price of the 

 honey. 



President Miller — ^I want to say that 

 Mr. Bundle, who has several hundred 

 colonies a little east of Cairo, tells me 

 he sells practically his whole crop to 

 tourists coming through in automo- 

 biles; he sells most of his honey that 

 way right at his door. He has enor-- 

 mous signs, some of them a mile or 

 two away, directing them to his 

 apiary. He has his hives in sight of 

 the road ; he sells his honey at a good 

 price. 



Has any one else any suggestions? 



Mr. Bruner — I would like to tell of 

 an experience I had in buying honey 

 of a certain party. I had been buying 

 his extracted honey; this year he pro- 

 duced 2,000 pounds of comb honey. He 

 thought he could sell it all at home 

 but it di^ not move as readily as he 

 thought it should. The farmers had 

 been coming and getting it at eleven 

 cents the section. 



I asked him what he w'ould sell me 

 the whole lot for; he had left a couple 

 thousand pounds. He thought eleven 

 cents was right; I told him to send 

 it along. He must have spent two 

 days packing that honey; he certainly 

 had it packed. 'One of the finest 

 packed shipments I ever saw, but the 

 idea of his selling a section at a time 

 for eleven cents, and yet he wanted 

 eleven cents for a ton of it and it took 

 him two days getting that ton ready 

 for the market and another half day 

 hauling it to the depot. 



