236 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



peddlers, the majority being bee-keepers 

 who have a good retail trade, inese 

 bee-keepers after selling out their own 

 production, still have calls for honey 

 and looking through the honey quota- 

 tions in the bee journals, see quite a 

 margin between these wholesale prices 

 and what their honey sells for readily, 

 are tempted to buy some of this honey 

 at wholesale and sell at retail. It might 

 not be a bad thing to stop here long 

 enough to tell of the methods pursued 

 by the most successful. 



Extracted honey in glass, or small 

 packages, sells from the grocer at from 

 20 cents to 30 cents per pound, and 

 comb honey from 20 cents to 30 cents 

 per section, in the retail way. Of course 

 there are exceptions to this rule, tor in 

 some producing centers, honey sells at 

 retail at extremely low prices. The 

 more successful dealer lives in the loca- 

 tion where the honey sells at the higher 

 price and buys in the producing center 

 where the price is low. Now I relate 

 the secret "as they told me." Good 

 white honey is bought of reliable pro- 

 ducers ; honey of a quality that "tastes 

 like more," — clover, basswood or rasp- 

 berry being favorite kinds. This honey 

 is carefully remelted and put in gallon 

 and half-gallon friction top tin pails. 

 The gallon weighing 12 lbs. and tlie 

 half gallon 6 lb. net. Some use the 5 

 lb. and 10 lb. size of pail, but the larger 

 package seems to be preferred by the 

 majority. These pails, in fact any tin 

 package needed by bee-keepers can be 

 bought at wholesale from the manufac- 

 turers. 



C.\NV.\SSING FOR ORDERS. 



The honey to be sold is not taken 

 with them on their first trip, but a can- 

 vass of the territory is made and orders 

 taken for delivery at some future time. 

 If the canvasser is working a manu- 

 facturing district, the delivery is made 

 shortly after pay day at the mills. In 

 other locations, perhaps a week or ten 

 davs is allowed between the canvassing 



trip and the delivery. The object of 

 this period between the taking of the 

 order and the delivery, is so that the 

 good housewife may have an oppor- 

 tunity to save up the money to pay for 

 it. One "secret of the trade," is to 

 sarry the sample of the honey in the 

 largest pail one has for sale and say 

 nothing about having honey for sale in 

 any smaller package than the one shown, 

 until it is known that the larger pack- 

 age cannot be sold, then, as a "last 

 chance" ofifer the smaller package. 



I am now ready to tell the main se- 

 cret of success, of selling honey direct 

 to the consumer, it is in asking a good 

 fair price, so that big wages can be 

 made. No one likes to work for noth- 

 ing, or small wages. I have seen bee- 

 keepers start out to buy and sell honey 

 on a cent or two margin, in the retail 

 way, but they do not stay in the busi- 

 ness long, other ways "turn up" where 

 more money can be made and the honey 

 business has to go. 



GETTING AS MUCH FOR EXTRACTED AS FOR 

 COMB. 



One of the partners of the most suc- 

 cessful "sell direct to the consumer" 

 firm, visited us a few years ago, buying 

 ^Hchigan honey for their trade and in 

 the course of his conversation, (it being 

 early in the season) asked my opinion 

 as to how comb honey was going to 

 retail from the grocers that fall. This 

 was one of those seasons of scarcity of 

 good honey and I told him that the 

 prospects were that No. 1 comb honey 

 would retail for not less than 25 cents 

 per section, on the average. 



He being a buyer of honey, I could 

 not quite understand the pleased ex- 

 pression that passed over his face at 

 this period. It all became clear though, 

 when he smilingly said "that's good, we 

 will get 2S cents per pound for our 

 white extracted honey in 12 lb. pails 

 this year." He then explained that the 

 previous season they sold at 20 cents 



