64 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



if they were satisfied with my grading. In 

 one grocery store where I found my honey 

 on sale I noticed some combs in an open 

 case that had been injured by careless hand- 

 ling. I inquired of the proprietor how he 

 managed to dispose of such damaged combs. 

 "Oh," he replied, "some of my customers 

 are particular and some are not," and he 

 gave me to understand that those who were 

 not, got the damaged boxes, and were as 

 well pleased with them as the other class 

 were with the perfect combs. " I looked on 

 and received instruction," and have many 

 times since wondered if honey producers 

 were not far more fastidious in their choice 

 of honey than the average consumer. 



There is another side of the question. 

 The whitest combs do not always contain the 

 choicest honey. For my own eating I much 

 prefer a comb that has remained a month or 

 more on the hive with a strong colony in it 

 to a comb taken from the hive as soon as 

 sealed, however white it may be. In a neigh- 

 boring town, a honey is produced at the 

 close of the basswood season from which the 

 bees construct the whitest of combs, but the 

 flavor of the honey is execrable. Who shall 

 say that these whitest combs alone are 

 "fancy" and all other inferior? Is there 

 not a little danger of our following too close- 

 ly the " color line ? " Should not the palate 

 have supremacy in these matters ? 



And this reminds me that it is quite as 

 important that honey be classified as graded. 

 Would it not simplify matters to place all 

 honey in three classes, say "white," "am- 

 ber " and " dark," or " buckwheat ? " Then 

 each class can be subdivided into three 

 grades if you please. This will give ample 

 room for all honies produced in this country 

 except Aphis honey, which should not be 

 offered for human consumption, except per- 

 haps a very small per cent mixed with other 

 honey, 



I see no good reason why the producer of 

 a first class grade of buckwheat or golden- 

 rod honey has not just as good a right to 

 label his honey "Fancy B." or "Fancy G." 

 as the clover honey producer has to label his 

 honey " Fancy C." Let each grade be de- 

 scribed by a descriptive adjective rather than 

 a comparative one. No. 2 or No. 3 will be 

 sure to prove unsatisfactory. 



But I wished to speak of another thing. 

 The weight of sections was not mentioned 

 in connection with the rules laid down by 

 the Northwestern convention, nor at Albany, 



and perhaps wisely ; and yet, the weight is 

 of quite as much importance in grading 

 honey as some other things it seems to me. 

 Although the weight may not be a quality of 

 a given grade of honey, yet it is a most im- 

 portant factor in its sale. Let me illustrate. 

 Of the first five hundred cases of honey I 

 put up last summer I suppose 480 cases were 

 marked "20 boxes 20 (lbs.) net," or "25 

 boxes 25 (lbs.) net;" each case containing 

 exactly as many pounds of honey as sections. 

 Suppose I had made two grades of the lot, 

 what would have been the result 'i It is easy 

 to be seen that the highest grade containing 

 the best filled sections would have weighed 

 twenty-one pounds per case of twenty sec- 

 tions, while the other grade would have 

 weighed but nineteen pounds. Now if the 

 honey so graded had been placed upon the 

 New York or Boston markets how would it 

 have been sold ? Do you suppose the best 

 grade would have brought a cent a pound 

 more than the other ? I doubt it. Why ? 

 The greater weight would have balanced the 

 extra appearance of the higher grade. At 

 the same price per pound a case of the best 

 grade would have cost the retail merchant 

 thirty cents more than a case of the lower 

 grade, and as he sells by the box and not by 

 weight, he would be very slow to ofl'er more 

 than that. But some one will say my sec- 

 tions are too large. I think not. Two years 

 ago the same size of case of twenty sections 

 that averaged twenty pounds this year, 

 weighed only about eighteen pounds to the 

 case ; honey not being so abundant that year. 



In all my experience in marketing honey 

 nothing has surprised me so much as the 

 difliculty of getting prices to correspond to 

 the quality of the different grades of honey. 

 I usually make three or four grades of my 

 honey, and have not infrequently received 

 as much into two or three cents per pound 

 for my poorest grade of white honey, com- 

 posed of light, unfinished sections, as for my 

 best grade. I can only account for it on the 

 theory that the consumers are " not par- 

 ticular." 



That was a very pretty theory of J. H. Nel- 

 lis', at Albany, about grading up instead of 

 down, but I suspect the X's increased on the 

 flour barrels much faster than the quality 

 improved. When it was found that the X 

 quality sold quickly at a better price was not 

 that grade soon crowded with inferior flour ? 

 and it required XX to represent the same 

 grade and so on to the end. If "fancy" 



