ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



319 



age writer to eat honey. You must 

 tell him why he should eat honey. 

 Most ot us come from Missouri and 

 we must be shown, and when you are 

 telling the average reader why he 

 should eat honey you are not talking 

 about a food product that is always 

 the same in color, texture or flavor, or 

 that is sold under any uniform seal 

 or brand, but you are just talking 

 honey that may be light, dark or med- 

 ium in color, and may be comb or ex- 

 tracted. 



It may be one of forty or fifty dif- 

 ferent flavors according to the coun- 

 try or locality which has produced it. 



A campaign of this nature could be 

 similar to a campaign that was re- 

 cently carried on by the orange grow- 

 ers of California. 



This campaign told you how bene- 

 ficial oranges were and that you should 

 eat them. 



Or you have seen the campaign car- 

 ried on by a photographer in your 

 town. The article goes on to tell you 

 why you should have your picture 

 taken, or the picture of your wife or 

 your family or your relatives, j 



Only yesterday I was reading in the 

 train in which I was on, coming down 

 here, an advertisement on fish. It 

 would not occur to me that you would 

 need to educate the people on the eat- 

 ing of fish; yet there was a space of 

 one -fourth of a page in several of the 

 big daily papers telling you why you 

 should eat fish; why it was nutritious 

 and why it is preferable to meat. And 

 then there is another factor that we 

 must deal with: 



In regard to advertising to increase 

 the sale of honey and its supply; and 

 when you are dealing with supply you 

 are dealing with an uncertain quantity. 



With many of you — we had no crop 

 or a half crop; but on the other hand 

 you may have a bumper crop next 

 year. 



Now we come to the question of 

 money. You can easily see, in order 

 to wage a countrj-wide campaign for 

 the sale of honey, you must have lots 

 of it else the investment is simply 

 money thrown to the winds so far as 

 any profitable result to the bee-keep- 

 er is concerned. 



Then there must be organization 

 back of this advertising, and get the 

 money together for this campaign; 

 and I ask you if there is a Bee-Keep- 

 ers' Association of today that is so 



financially constituted that we can un- 

 dertake a campaign of this nature. 



But if you should decide, after hav- 

 ing the facts in hand, that an adver- 

 tising campaign country-wide to in- 

 crease the sale of honey is not pos- 

 sible — then there is a middle path out 

 of the dilemma, and that is, individual 

 campaigning on the part of each one 

 of you to increase the sale of honey 

 in your own market. 



Look about you in your own neighbor- 

 hood and you will find there is a de- 

 mand for honey which is latent, which 

 is sleeping, and that all you have to do 

 is to rouse it, and you will be surprised 

 to note the results you will attain by 

 carrying on such a campaign. 



We will say you are in a community 

 of some 5,000 inhabitants. You produce 

 more honey than you can sell. I would 

 like to ask you what have you done to 

 increase the sale of your honey. Have 

 you made a house to house canvass ? 



Have you used the newspapers for 

 your advertising? 



Just for fun try a 4 -inch single 

 column ad in your daily paper for a 

 month and watch the results. 



And, when you talk to your prospec- 

 tive customers, talk to them as you 

 stand before them when you have- a 

 pound of honey. 



You must be prepared to furnish your 

 honey and let your prospective custo- 

 mer know where and when he can get 

 it; make it easy for him to get, other- 

 wise the money is lost that you spend 

 for this. 



We will say that there is a concern 

 that wishes to introduce in your town 

 a baking powder, or a new brand of 

 coffee or easily prepared breakfast food. 

 They rent a small space in your leading 

 grocery store; have a table and a few 

 dishes, an interesting young woman, 

 and proceed to deal out samples. 



You can do the same thing and can 

 do it easier than an outside concern, 

 and I venture to say that, if you went 

 to your grocer to say you would let him 

 sell your honey in this way after you 

 had exploited it, he probably would not . 

 charge you a cent for the space. 



In a nutshell, what I am trying to get 

 at is this fact: That the demand for 

 honey is knocking at your door if you 

 will only hear it, and if the average 

 bee-keeper will combine with his honey 

 business a little energy and throw in 

 little bits of personality, apply business 

 principles, and not be afraid to risk a 



