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FIFTEENTH ANNUAL, REPORT OF THE 



quite expert in putting it up for sale 

 in neat form. It takes cleanliness, and 

 judgment. Comb honey cannot bring 

 the value it deserves unless it has 

 been properly stored by the bees in 

 neat sections and is afterwards put up 

 in attractive cases. It must also be 

 offered in regular grades. The law 

 which compels us to sort out the sec- 

 tions of different weights, so the re- 

 tailfer will not run the risk of offering 

 a 10 -ounce section at the same price as 

 a 14 -ounce, is really a benefit to us, 

 though we did not realize it at first. 

 All that is needed to make sure of it is 

 to go out among the retailers. We 

 make them secure against the most 

 common complaint of the consumer, 

 short weight, when we offer them a 

 package in which each section has its 

 minimum weight marked upon it. 



The careful bee-keeper, who has 

 supplied his bees with up-to-date su- 

 pers and good foundation guides, is 

 usually the one who also most care- 

 fully grades it. He is likely to put up 

 his extracted honey, without a moat 

 or a blemish, in neat tins or glasses. 

 He crates everything so that it may 

 travel without leaking. But he usually 

 is the man who does not like to go 

 from grocer to grocer, or from neigh- 

 bor to neighbor, begging for them to 

 try his product. I believe that, as a 

 rule, he may be easily persuaded to 

 advertise. This, of course, if rightly 

 conducted, will make matters much 

 easier for the drummer. 



A very good advertisement, suggest- 

 ed by our old friend, the erstwhile 

 cowboy. Doctor Bonney, is the little red 

 slip, "Eat Honey," to be pasted upon 

 everything, everywhere, as "Sozodont" 

 used to be. It has been tried. The 

 American Bee Journal household alone 

 has supplied about a million of these, 

 not only here, but in foreign countries 

 as well. But that is not enough. Let 

 me ask the question whether any of 

 you have seen these slips in public 

 places, except where you have your- 

 selves pasted them? "Sozodont" was 

 painted on the walls of buildings, on 

 fences, on sidewalks, and I have even 

 seen it written in almost inaccessible 

 places, on rocky bluffs, along the Mis- 

 sissippi River, in letters ten feet high. 

 Our bee-keepers cannot do that with 

 "Eat Honey" stickers, but they can 

 each spend a few dimes to call peo- 

 ple's attention to a long forgotten 

 sweet, of which the most respected 



authorities say: "Eat honey, my son, 

 for it is good." 



I will never forget the reply I re- 

 ceived once from a good friend of mine, 

 now deceased, who used to sell thou- 

 sands of pounds of my honey, although 

 he was neither a grocer nor a drum- 

 mer. He was just an oflSce man, busy 

 at his desk almost from morning till 

 night. How do you succeed, I asked 

 him, in selling so much of my honey, 

 apparently without effort? His reply 

 was: 



"My boy, there is no difficulty in sell- 

 ing honey. If I had to handle tobacco, 

 or whisky, among my friends, although 

 many more people use those articles 

 than honey, yet I would daily meet 

 people who would say to me: Aren't 

 you ashamed of offering such stuff for 

 sale? But honey? Why, no one ob- 

 jects to honey! Everybody knows that 

 it is good, sweet, healthy. Only once 

 in a while I meet someone who says 

 honey has made him sick and I answer 

 that he or she probably ate too much 

 of it. The funny thing is that it is 

 almost always true. The only ques- 

 tion people ask is whether it is r^al 

 honey, pure honey. And when I say 

 that the producer of this honey lives 

 in the country and is a friend of mine 

 and that I can guarantee his goods as 

 pure, I make a sale, especially if I can 

 give them a little sample to taste." 



That is all the secret of marketing 

 honey. Make the people think about 

 honey for a minute. Then let them 

 know you have it and let them be con- 

 vinced, in an undoubted way, that it is 

 really honey from the bees, and your 

 sales are assured. 



I said that honey marketing could be 

 separated under two -heads, packing 

 and drumming, but I have now mixed 

 them up. I have tried to convince the 

 careful producer and packer of honey 

 that he can also be a good drummer. 

 But it is out of the question to get 

 some of our best bee-keepers started 

 in peddling honey. One of our best 

 producers said to me: 



"I can raise honey as well as any- 

 one and I can put it up in fine shape,, 

 but I am no good at offering it for sale. 

 If I make a trial at it and go into 

 a grocery, if they say no, I walk right 

 out without trying to argue the point 

 and I am ashamed to try the next. 

 When it comes to going to private- 

 houses, it is still worse. I always feel 

 as if they considered me as a book: 



