14 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



over and over again, it is too bad that 

 honey that the producer receives only 

 seven or eight cents for, should cost the 

 consumer from twenty-five to forty 

 cents a pound; but 'tis often so. Thesug- 

 gestions you make as to the necessity of 

 studying the problem is a good idea. 



The value of bee keepers retailing their 

 own crop, either by pedling or through 

 mail orders, cannot be worked in some 

 sections; where population is sparse it 

 is doubtful if it will pay. [A mail 

 order business is all right anywhere — 

 Editor.] Some of my neighbors, in 

 seasons when the price of comb honey 

 was low, have carried it over a year, 

 and sold when prices were much higher, 

 with decided profit; but we can hardly 

 advise the average bee keeper to do this; 

 and yet, a skillful bee keeper with the 

 right conveniences will make it pay. 



For more than forty years I have pro- 

 duced honey in considerable quantities, 

 and bought and sold also, and can look 

 on both sides of the subject with some 

 degree of fairness. Sometimes those 

 who have bought my honey have lost 

 money in so doing, and this always 

 makes me feel bad, and, sometimes, 

 we have bought honey only to little or no 

 profit, or even an actual loss. 



What you say as to the manner of 

 putting up honey is to the point. In the 

 long run, honey well graded, will bring 

 more than honey poorly graded. 



THE FOLLY OF DISHONEST GRADING AND 

 PACKING. 



We have found cases packed with 

 well-filled combs outside, while those in 

 the center were little more than half 

 full, if that. In one lot, a yeir or two 

 ago, we found combs a year old, granu- 

 lated nearly solid, and the cappings 

 cracked and wet with honey, packed 

 with new honey. Those who pack in 

 this way would do well to think about 

 marketing fifteen days instead of fifteen 

 minutes. 



I remember, many years ago, 1 was 

 puzzled to know what honey would bring, 

 or was worth. All the honey quotations 



I could get were from the New York 

 Tribune; and these were meager indeed. 

 So I left my work and went to New 

 York City, 260 miles away, and learned 

 that honey was unusually scarce and 

 high. I came home and bought all the 

 honey I could find for sale, about 2,000 

 lbs., got it ready and shipped with my 

 own, some 6,000 lbs. in all. I paid every 

 one, of whom 1 bought, all he asked, 

 from 11 to 30 cents a pound, and, after 

 deducting commission and expenses, 

 netted about 35 cents. I should prob- 

 ably have sold outright for 30 cents 

 early in the season, but, by taking the 

 trouble to look up the markets first, it 

 netted me five cents more, or $300, on 

 my own with what 1 bought. 



That was in 1872, before bee journals 

 gave us every monthly or semi-monthly, 

 the size of the crop and the prices in all 

 the principal cities of the country. And, 

 while I made well on the sale of my honey, 

 it is doubtful if those of whom I bought, 

 could have paid what it cost me to find 

 out what the market was, and made 

 any thing, as they did not have enough 

 to make it pay. But times have changed, 

 and all may know just about what honey 

 should sell for, in a very short lime. 



PROFITS MADE IN SAVING FREIGHT. 



We still buy honey, paying the pro- 

 ducer what it will net him by shipping 

 to the large cities. It costs us about the 

 same to sell honey that it does the large 

 wholesale dealer, but, if a man sells to 

 the city dealer he has to ship it to him, 

 and then it has to be shipped out again. 

 We ship more direct. Suppose a man 

 up in Maine wants fifty cases of honey, 

 we can sell and ship to him direct, while 

 my neighbor who sells to a wholesale 

 house in Boston, and pays cartage from 

 railroad station to store house, and back 

 to the railroad station, and then the 

 freight to Maine, which would amount to 

 about a cent more a pound than it 

 would for me to ship to him. A cent a 

 pound is a small profit, for there is con- 

 siderable risk in shipping comb honey; 

 but the use of corrugated cases has 



