138 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Feb. 2S, 1904. 



PRICES OF EXTRACTED AND COMB HONEY. 



"What price must extracted honey be sold for to make 

 the average colony as profitable as it would be if run for 

 comb honey which sells for is cents per pound? 



Mr. Baldridge— That depends upon whether you are go- 

 ing to wholesale or retail it. No man has any right to sell 

 extracted honey for any less than comb honey at retail. I 

 charge the same price and I give my customers their choice, 

 and my books will show that go pounds in ico are extracted. 

 What is the use of giving your honey away? I was in exis- 

 tence as a bee-keeper before extracted honey was brought 

 about. Nobody would ever have asked bee-keepers to have 

 done it if thev hadn't done it themselves. 



Dr. Miller— Mr. President, Mr. Baldridge isn't answering 

 the question at all. 



Mr. Baldridge — Fifteen cents. 



Mr. Wilcox— That is a subject that I commenced study- 

 ing a good many years ago, and I thought that I could find 

 it by referring to the back numbers of the American Bee 

 Journal, and I spent a week at it. and now I am obliged to 

 guess at it, that about two pounds of extracted to one of comb 

 is an equal matter with the average. Of course, conditions 

 vary one season with another, and one locality with another, 

 and there are several circumstances to be taken into consid- 

 eration. It is a very practical question, and a very important 

 one for beginners. I wish to get at the facts. I produced 

 comb honey for ten years exclusively, and I was satisfied then 

 that that it was the most profitable, and I changed finally to 

 extracted because my locality produced principally dark honey, 

 and I am sure it is more profitable than the comb. I tried again 

 to produce the comb honey but I can't produce it now as well 

 as I could ,30 or 40 years ago. I believe I have lost the art. 

 I think when you take into consideration the losses, and 

 risks, and breakage, that it is about a fair and equal thing 

 to us, and that the price of comb honey should be just double 

 the price of extracted. That's my rule. 



Mr. Horstmann — If you sell comb honey at 15 cents a 

 pound I think extracted ought to be sold for 10 cents. I have 

 produced both comb and extracted and I watched it very 

 closely. I produce more extracted than comb. I get 15 cents 

 for extracted honey ajid 20 cents a section for the comb 

 honey, and I am satisfied that the extracted honey at 15 

 cents a pound pays a good deal better than the comb honey 

 at 20 cents a section. There is no section to buy, no founda- 

 tion to buy, and after we have our frames in shape we can 

 use them over and over again, and there is less labor and it 

 is a great deal less expensive. The first cost is the principal 

 cost, and I believe about 10 cents a pound would make a 

 fair price for extracted, while comb sells for 15. 



Dr. Miller — That's one of the questions that's perennial. 

 It began shortly after the extractor began, and it will be a 

 question for every beginner when you and I are dead. Mr. 

 Wilcox stated the full case when he said circumstances vary. 

 One man says it ought to be the same price. Every locality 

 is diff'erent. In many cases they ought to be just about the 

 same price. In other cases about twice as much. There is a 

 man sitting before me just now whose father years ago made 

 fun of me because I would do anything at producing comb 

 honey at all. I could do- much better by producing comb. 

 It wasn't difficult for me. What is true for this year may 

 not be true for me ten years from now, and you will never 

 get that question settled so that you will have one answer 

 that applies all over. 



Mr. Moore — It is so hard to cover the whole case rightly 

 so that somebody won't be under a misapprehension. After 

 selling honey 17 years it is my conviction that when you sell 

 to the consumer you should sell comb and liquid honey at the 

 same price. When selling to the wholesale trade it is a differ- 

 ent case. You must get as much as you can. To us who are 

 catering to the city trade it is an entirely different thing from 

 those who are catering to the country trade. I have been told 

 that I ought not to sell extracted as cheap as the comb. 

 It is worth more to cat. As long as the trade is better satis- 

 fied to pay comb-honey price I say charge them the comb- 

 honey price every time you sell to the consumer. 



Mr. York — I was in the honey business long enough to 

 know that honey is worth all you can get for it. 



Mr. Niver — I wanted to know in a large apiary what was 

 the relative proportion of comb honey and extracted honey that 

 could be produced on the average, and how many colonies 

 could the apiarist or operator handle well during the same 

 year to make it the most profitable for his time to run for 

 extracted or comb, provided comb was selling at 15 

 cents. What would be the market price for extracted honey 



to make it equally profitable? Of course, the sections, the 

 foundation, the work, all put in, and the breakage, amounts 

 to three cents per section on the average. 



Dr. Miller— It is a little bit high. 



Mr. Niver— I can take care of about three times as many 

 bees for extraced as for comb honey during the season. 



Dr. Miller — Do you mean taking in the expense? 



Mr. Niver — Yes, sir. 



Dr Miller— It is hardly high enough then. 



Mr. Niver— If I can get twice as much extracted from a 

 colony as I can of comb, and take care of three times as many 

 bees, I could sell the extracted honey at S cents, and make 

 as much money at it as I could selling comb honey at 15 

 cents. That would be about my judgment. 



Dr. Miller— There is that "if." 



Mr. Moore — I want to call on a gentleman here to an- 

 swer that question. He is very modest and seldom talks 

 unless he is called on. What can the average bee-keep>'r 

 do in producing comb and extraced honey? If he produces 

 1,000 pounds of extracted, how much comb can he produce' 

 Mr. France, will you answer that? 



Mr. France — That has been fairly well answered. Gen- 

 erally speaking, I find about two pounds of extracted to one 

 of comb, taking it over Wisconsin. The amount of labor is 

 less in producing extracted, and the labor and expense of 

 producing comb are more. 



Mr. Moore — ^Do you mean to say that Wisconsin pro- 

 duces twice as much extracted as comb? That isn't the point. 

 The question is. If a man with 100 colonies can produce $1,000 

 worth of comb honey, how much extracted can he produce 

 with the same colonies, the same year, in the same conditions? 



Mr. Francfe — About two to one. I think Mr. Wilcox one 

 year set apart a portion of his yard and it went a little over 

 three, did it not? 



Mr. Wilcox — More than that. 



Mr. France — I know that he was so converted to ex- 

 tracted honey that he has produced hardly anything else 

 since. 



Mr. Starkey — This question is raised. If an apiary has 

 produced 1,000 pounds of comb honey in this locality I would 

 rather think they could also gather 2,000 pounds of extracted 

 honey ; that this locality would be suitable for twice that 

 number of bees if run for comb honey. I see in that a solu- 

 tion of over-crowded districts, where people running for 

 extracted get 2,000 pounds of honey, twice the number of 

 bees will certainly get the honey and store it in combs. 



Mr. France — I was a little interested right along that 

 line, so I took my home yard of 100 colonies half for comb 

 and half for extracted, and kept a memorandum of it, but 

 I wasn't satisfied with one year. That year it ran three to 

 one in favor of the extracted. The next year it was two and 

 one-tenth in favor of the extracted. It varies so with sea- 

 sons. There are other reasons more than the pounds of 

 honey. You must put in the additional labor and additional 

 cost. It is the net orofits you are after. 



Mr. Wheeler — There is one point that has been over- 

 looked, and that is the weight of the hive when the bees 

 are ready for winter. I find if you produce comb honey you 

 have a colony that's better prepared for the winter than when 

 you produce the extracted. 



Mr. Longsdon — I am somewhat of the opinion that we 

 are exaggerating the amount of extracted honey that can 

 be produced over the comb. I will have to quote that old 

 saying, "In my locality." There were three or four bee- 

 keepers out there, and they had had considerable discussion 

 about this extracted and comb honey business, and one man 

 was radical on the side of comb honey, and he didn't believe 

 that they could produce so much extracted. One of them 

 ran about 40 colonies for extracted and the other ran 40 

 for comb, and they came out very nearly even, and 'they 

 gave both parts of the apiary the same kind of care. By the 

 way, the one party who ran entirely for comb took more comb 

 honey than any of the other parties did of extracted, and all 

 in a circle of five miles, and the locality was very nearly the 

 same. The one comb-honey man took and weighed it care- 

 fully, and I helped him weigh it. By the way, he produced 

 it in two-pound sections, and he took 215 pounds, of comb- 

 honey to the colony in big hives, 35 of them. I agree, al- 

 though he is perhaps a little too much on the other side, 

 but I believe extracted ought to sell for very nearly the 

 same amount as comb. 



Mr. Wilcox — Supposing there were 225 pounds of comb 

 honey to the colony, then we will agree that there should 

 not be much difference in the price. 



Mr. Horstmann — There is a great difference in locali- 



