June, 1916. 



191 



American l^ee Journal t 



this. The average for the whole case 

 should be well above this figure, and 

 some of the buyers are requiring it. 

 Weight of the honey carries farther 

 than some of us realize. 



Another thing that I have noticed is 

 the packing of decidedly light amber 

 and even amber combs in with white 

 fancy honey. The objection to light 

 amber and amber fancy honey cannot 

 be well made, but the mixing of grades, 

 shades and colors will not do. Let us 

 follow the spirit and the letter of the 

 rules as closely as it is possible for us 

 to interpret them. 



The poor quality of a few beekeepers' 

 grading has driven buyers away from 

 some of our heavy producing districts. 



Boulder, Colo. 



Marketing 



BY ARTHUR C. MILLER. 



•• MO man is so far from market as 

 M he who has nothing to sell," is 

 an old saying, but perhaps more 

 true today than ever before. "Nothing 

 to sell," means nothing which the mar- 

 ket wants quite as much as absence of 

 anything whatsoever. Some of the 

 veteran producers, as well as some of 

 the big producers who are not veter- 

 ans, will say it does not apply to them. 

 Perhaps so ; however, it may. Let us 

 see. 



The Ontario man produces some 

 crystal clear honey and tries to sell it 

 to persons who have always had a 

 strong dark honey. It does not sell. 

 Reverse the conditions and the results 

 are the same, but more understanda- 

 ble to the producer of light honeys. 

 Honeys of familiar colors but unfa- 

 miliar flavors cause more trouble. They 

 retail readily on their looks, but "re- 

 peat orders" fail to come. To the pro- 

 ducer this is often hard to understand. 

 To him his honey is as fine as the 

 finest. All was well while he marketed 

 it where the consumers were familiar 

 with it, but when he sent it into other 

 markets he was disappointed. There- 

 fore, producing a good honey is only 

 one step towards selling it. Knowing 

 whereto market it is equally important. 

 The producer far from big centers of 

 consumption must sell to jobbing 

 houses who know where and how to 

 place the honeys of all sections. So, 

 also, must many producers nearer to 

 markets but for sundry personal rea- 

 sons not able to sell direct to retailers 

 or consumers. 



To these two classes quantity of crop 

 (per colony yield) is the first consid- 

 eration and quality is the second. 



To the man selling to retailers or 

 consumers, quality is or should be (and 

 eventually will be) the first considera- 

 tion, and per colony yield the second. 

 These men can well aff^ord to shift 

 their apiaries until they find locations 

 giving honeys of the finest flavors — 

 natural blends. I have several times 

 heard this policy scoffed at and quite 

 as many times I have seen men who 

 appreciated it take the market right 

 away from the scoffers and often at 

 higher prices. And the longer I raise 

 and sell honey the more am I confirmed 

 in ray belief that all producers will 

 profit by placing quality first. By qual- 

 ity I not only mean well ripened honey 

 but fine flavored honey. The ignorant 



marketing of ill-flavored honeys or 

 honeys not fitted to the markets they 

 are offered in has been the cause of 

 many persons stopping buying honey. 

 There are but few of us who have not 

 known or heard of such instances. 



Therefore, as the first condition of 

 good marketing let us place <]ualil\\ 

 good flavor, good body and good color. 



As the second essential the honey 

 should be put in new and perfectly 

 clean packages fixe 1 break-proof. Sec- 

 ond-hand cans and other packages of 

 an inferior character cost the producers 

 each year many times more than they 

 save in the first cost. It is almost im- 

 possible to make some men see this, 

 but sooner or later it will come home 

 to them in a forceful unpleasant way. 



The foregoing applies particularly to 

 extracted honey. In the matter of 

 comb honey there are several other 

 factors. First, is the importance of a 

 fine honey from the same source year 

 after year, and the locations giving a 

 natural blend prove to be the most sat- 

 isfactory in the long run. The pro- 

 ducer can well afford to search long 

 and carefully for suitable locations. 

 And when he fails to get his sections 

 filled with his usual grade of honey he 

 had better dispose of it in anyway than 

 to his regular trade. Comb honey of 

 any particular brand is expected by the 

 consumer to be the same year after 

 year. The difficulty in obtaining this 

 result will be well appreciated by all 

 veterans. 



I believe that no sections should be 

 shipped away to any general market 

 unless the combs fill the sections from 

 top to bottom and are fully sealed; in 

 other words, of extra fancy finish. I 

 believe such a policy will in the long 

 run prove the most profitable one. 

 Could the producers see the sticky 

 messes which reach the markets they 

 might or at least some of them might 

 be convinced of the folly of trying to 

 ship sections other than those fully 

 filled. Cartons remedy this somewhat, 

 but often these are so sticky as to be 

 almost or quite unsalable. If No. 1 or 

 less perfectly filled sections w«iV be 

 sent to more or less distant markets 

 they should be re-cartoned after reach- 

 ing their destination if at all soiled. 



Another cause of trouble with comb 

 honey is insufficiently ripened honey. 

 Sections containing honey naturally of 

 light body or with unsealed cells con- 

 taining honey, should be subjected to a 

 drying process until the honey is thick 

 and "gummy." Still another cause of 

 trouble is the use of the cheapest pos- 

 sible cases. Use cases big enough for 

 a layer of corrugated paper beneath, 

 and all around. And the thicker the 

 bottom and top of the case, the better. 

 If the store clerk is watched for a few 

 minutes and you see the way one case 

 is banged down on top of another or 

 dropped onto the floor with a bump, a 

 better understanding will be had of the 

 need of amply corrugated cushions 

 and thick cases. Fumigation before 

 shipping is desirable unless the honey 

 is to be repacked at its destination. 

 Successful comb honey marketing is a 

 fine art which cannot be acquired in a 

 day. If you do not fully understand it 

 in all its intricacies you had better, 

 both for yourself and for the rest of 

 us, turn it over to some one who does. 

 The third essential of general selling 



is a knowledge of markets, something 

 which relatively few producers have. 

 It will be far better for most of them 

 to join in a producers' association 

 which can employ an expert to do the 

 selling. And this brings up the matter 

 of expenditures for literature, for 

 knowledge of markets, and for associa- 

 tions. Beekeepers, like so many other 

 agriculturists, are worse than parsi- 

 monious in such matters. Men whose 

 incomes range from $3000 to $10,000 a 

 year will haggle over dues of a dollar a 

 year to an association and will say 

 they can only afford one trade paper 

 and at that will take a h% cent one in 

 preference to a dollar one. Ask them 

 to spend $25 for such things and they 

 will drop in a faint. 



It would take a surgical operation to 

 get wisdom into the heads of those 

 persons. But there are others who if 

 shown a saving or a profit in such ex- 

 penditures will make them. Unfortu- 

 nately the men best fitted to explain 

 the matter are not always the ones on 

 whom such duty devolves. The broad 

 gauge men are not always the ones 

 who take the most active part in the 

 beekeepers' associations, and in the 

 cooperative marketing bodies they are 

 all too frequently outnumbered and 

 out-voted by men of small experience 

 and narrow vision. For a short time I 

 have been urging the big fellows of 

 certain sections to get together, assess 

 themselves a sufficient amount to yield 

 a substantial fund for work and take 

 on the lesser men only as they find 

 them willing to cooperate and be 

 "broad gauge." The policy heretofore 

 has been to " bid low to get the crowd." 

 It surely has been tried long enough to 

 prove its wisdom; now it is time to 

 chang^. 



Many producers for sundry reasons 

 prefer to do their own selling, and if 

 they had accurate knowledge of condi- 

 tions of crop and markets would do so 

 successfully. But it is seldom that they 

 have such information or know where 

 to get it. They depend on some one 

 trade paper, and if that chances to err 

 they suffer. To illustrate: Last fall one 

 of the trade papers said that, owing to 

 the large crop, prices would rule 1.5 to 

 20 percent below last year. Depending 

 on that many producers sold for about 

 that much less. But other producers 

 knew better; they had the National 

 Government's crop report, reports from 

 various associations and personal let- 

 ters from different parts of the country 

 and they sold for30 to 50 percent above 

 what the others got. That fuller knowl- 

 edge did not cost those who had it over 

 three or four dollars a year. Did it 

 pay? Was it not safer to depend on 

 half a dozen sources of information and 

 base action on deductions from them 

 than to depend on one which this time 

 happened to be wrong ? For the crop 

 proved to be short of the market and 

 prices were equal to and in some places 

 above last year. 



Finally there is the matter of the 

 cost of producing the crop. 



Figuring costs is not a simple matter 

 and needs fuller consideration than 

 can be given it now. Perhaps it should 

 have preceded this article on market- 

 ing, but the latter is still fresh in your 

 minds (painfully so with some of you), 

 so I guess it is as well to treat it first. 



Providence, R. I. 



