December, 191 1. 



American 'See Jonrnal j 



Contributed 



Articles^ 



Marketing Honey— Good Advice 



BY ARTHUR C. MILLER. 



The rules for marketing honey are 

 much like the old darkey's rule for 

 rabbit pie: First catch your rabbit. 

 What have you to sell ? What did it 

 cost you ? Those two things must be 

 known or else you can not form an 

 intelligent idea of the marketing. 



What is your honey ? Is it light or 

 dark, mild or strong, thick or thin ? 

 According as to what it is, you must 

 be guided as to whereto market it. If 

 you do not know the markets you will 

 do much better to turn it over to the 

 man who does know, and give him a 

 good commission for selling it, than 

 to try to market yourself. 



For many years white honeys have 

 been looked upon as the best, ambers 

 as next, and darks as last. For sev- 

 eral years past, however, white honeys 

 have been steadily declining in popu- 

 Iarit;r in some markets, and amber, or 

 golden honey, has come into popular 

 favor. Just what the reason is it may 

 be hard to determine, but I believe 

 that one very potent cause has been 

 the advent of alfalfa honey. It lacks 

 character; it is insipid, and consumers 

 are quick to drop it. A common re- 

 mark is that " it is sugar-fed honey," 

 and I have heard that from many a 

 person who has never seen a bee-mag- 

 azine or text-book. At any rate, the 

 honey is not what they want. The am- 

 ber honeys have been found on trial to 

 have a " real honey-taste ;" the golden 

 color looks attractive on the plate, and 

 it is becoming popular. 



Persons familiar with honeys have 

 their preferences for that from one 

 flower or another, and so doubtless we 

 will always have a market for particu- 

 lar flavors in both the strong or dark 

 honeys, and in the mild and light, and 

 where that trade exists it must be sup- 

 plied. But how about the great mass 

 of consumers who only know honey as 

 honey ? What are we to do with the 

 assortment of kinds which many of us 

 get ? If you have a keen sense of taste 

 assort them by mild, medium, strong 

 as well as by light and dark. If your 

 taste is not keen, employ the assistance 

 of some one who can do the work. The 

 very strong must go by itself. If it is 

 light in color it may perhaps be advan- 

 tageously mixed with a dark that is 

 milder, and so make both marketable 

 at an advanced figure. 



The milds and mediums must be 

 blended so as to give a sprightly flavor 

 and a bright golden color. If you have 

 too much of any one kind, buy enough 

 of some other grade to mix with it so 

 that you may have all your table honey 

 of one uniform flavor, color and body. 

 Or if you can not buy, then sell the 

 straight kind to some other producer 

 and let him blend. 



Many of the big handlers of honey 

 today carefully sample every lot of 



honey received, and then skillfully 

 blend it. When bottled and in the 

 hands of the retailer it is uniform in 

 all bottles, each lot is the same, and the 

 consumer finds the flavor always to be 

 depended upon. 



Where the honeys are not blended 

 the flavors and colors vary, the display 

 is not good, and the consumer never 

 knows what is coming. It is much like 

 eating assorted chocolates — the first 

 piece is delicately flavored, and the 

 ne.xt is filled with rank peppermint 

 which you may detest. But with the 

 candy you have but one piece, while 

 with the honey you may have a pound 

 or more which none of the family will 

 eat. So I say, blend your extracted 

 honey. 



Comb honey must receive exactly 

 the opposite treatment. Each kind 

 must be kept carefully by itself, and 

 two kinds never put in the same case, 

 or sent to the same market if it can be 

 voided. Fortunately most of the 

 comb honey is produced on the yield 

 of one kind of flower, and this ensures 

 fair uniformity in the crop, but where 

 conditions are otherwise, keep the 

 kinds apart. 



As to colors : The golden honey is 

 coming to the front in this as well as 

 with extracted. 



On packages for market I can not 

 say much to you that you do not already 

 know. 



For extracted honey in bulk I would 

 urge you to use only new cans well 

 washed out before using. See to it 

 that the cans are put into strong cases. 

 There is much complaint among pur- 

 chasers that the cans are poor, weak, 

 etc., and the boxes are so weak that 

 cans are often badly damaged. How 

 far you can afford to go in buying bet- 

 ter cans it is hard to say, but I feel that 

 you will gain rather than lose by buying 

 better cans and cases even at a consid- 

 erable increase in price. 



In retailing bottled honey, it makes 

 little difference what sort of bottles 

 yon use so long as they are uniform. 

 But for your own sake, and for the 

 sake of the whole fraternity, see to it 

 that every one is sealed tight, and that 

 there is not a particle of stickiness on 

 the outside. Then when transporting 

 the bottled goods pack them so break- 

 age is imi)0ssible. For a label get one 

 of your own — one that is distinct from 

 everybody else's, and stick to it. 



For marketing comb honey there is 

 as yet no satisfactory way. The re- 

 tailer hates to handle it for it is always 

 being cracked or broken, and getting 

 everything near it sticky. Until some 

 sticky-proof yet transparent and secure 

 package is found, comb honey will not 

 be popular with the retailer. When he 

 can handle it as safely and easily as he 

 does candy or bottled honey, then we 

 may look for an increased demand and 

 a better price. At present every clerk 

 avoids pushing its sale because hand- 

 ling means sticky fingers and clothes, 



and general delay, and the employer 

 looks for a higher percent of profit to 

 compensate him for the annoyances 

 and loss from breakages. 



Until we can overcome these troubles 

 comb honey will not compete on an 

 equal footing with other sweets, and 

 will not yield the profit it should. 



Above all things, keep out of the 

 market all rank honey, regardless of 

 what it is. And one of the worst and 

 most dangerous — because it is of a 

 beautiful golden color and fine body — 

 is honey from mustard. Bitterer than 

 quinine, it ruins any honey it is mixed 

 with. 



Providence, R. I. 



Feeding Small Colonies During 

 Winter 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Can you tell us something throueh the 

 columns of the American Bee Tournal about 

 wintering bees where the colonies do not 

 have their hives full of combs? I saved quite 

 a lot of afterswarms and other swarms com- 

 ing late in the season. These do not have 

 their hives full of comb, and some of them 

 do not have enough stores for wintering 

 through till spring. I winter them in the 

 cellar under my house.— Correspondent. 



The cellar is a much better place for 

 such colonies than trying to winter 

 them outdoors, for bees can not well 

 be fed during the winter in this climate 

 when wintered outside, except by set- 

 ting in frames filled with comb and 

 honey. 



As the correspondent does not tell 

 us whether his bees are in frame or box 

 hives, the only way to answer will be 

 by way of supposing that he has a part 

 in each. Where such colonies are in 

 frame hives, and they so build their 

 combs bv starting the cluster at one 

 end of the hive that half of the frames 

 are filled with comb and honey while 

 the other half is empty, or nearly so, 

 then the proper course would be to 

 take out the empty frames and insert a 

 dummy close up to the frames left. If 

 the bees are in box-hives, or where the 

 comb is built in all tlie frames about 

 half way down, the middle frames con- 

 taining more and the outside less, then 

 I think it better to leave them as they 

 are, for they can not be helped much 

 by any contraction of the hive which 

 could be done. It would not be best 

 to fill the space under the combs, even 

 could we do so, for bees winter better 

 with a vacant spaceunder the combs in 

 any event. Dr. Miller found this out 

 years ago, and so set to work and gave 

 the bee-keepers of the world a bottom- 

 board which can have two or more 

 inches under the combs during winter, 

 and only bee-space, or little more, dur- 

 the working season. However, I am 

 not advising having combs only partly 

 built down, for in such cases the bees 

 are sure to fill out the remainder of the 

 space below with drone-comb when 

 the working season arrives the next 

 year. 



It is much better to allow weak colo- 

 nies, or swarms light in bees, only what 

 hive-space it is thought they can fill, 

 which is easily done with frame-hives 

 by using a dummy on one side of the 

 cluster. Should the season prove bet- 

 ter than we expect, and this space al- 

 lowed become filled so they need more 



