August, 191G. 



Amarican ^ae Journal 



275 



^>^^' 



Advertising— A Reply to Bon- 

 ney's Criticism 



BY FRANK C. TELLETT. 



PRODUCING an article is one thing, 

 selling it is quite another. Few 

 men are efficient at both ends of 

 the same business. The fact that ex- 

 pert advertising men draw larger sal- 

 aries than in any other department of 

 commercial activity proves in itself 

 that the game is not an easy one. 



When the Editor asked Mr. Gano for 

 some principles that would assist in 

 getting desirable publicity for honey 

 he did not ask for information con- 

 cerning its production. Fifty years of 

 producing honey for a livelihood 

 equipped the editor to handle that sub- 

 ject himself. Sometimes it is an ad- 

 vantage for a man who would under- 

 take the selling campaign for a com- 

 modity to know nothing of it in the 

 beginning. He very naturally begins 

 to ask questions, and the thing that he 

 wants to find out is what the general 

 public wants to know also. The fact 

 that Mr. Gano did not know whether 

 the bees put the honey into the section 



ing agents make a study of advertising 

 and get results for their patrons at less 

 cost. Otherwise they could not exist. 

 Very few successful business men will 

 risk placing their own advertising. The 

 editor wishing to secure the best pos- 

 sible advice for his readers appealed 

 to one of the largest advertising con- 

 cerns in the world. They handle adver- 

 tising accounts of every conceivable 

 kind from oranges to automobiles. 



In the nature of things they cannot 

 know the details of the production of 

 all the articles, but they do know how 

 to sell them. When the Editor sent 

 the writer to Chicago to see what he 

 could learn about the honey markets 

 and to write the article which appeared 

 in the June number, he visited this 

 advertising agency. To his surprise 

 he found more people employed in 

 their offices than would equal the en- 

 tire population of a half dozen places 

 like Dr. Bonney's town. When the 

 Doctor says that all the supplies the 

 orange growers have to buy are lumber 

 and nails, he makes it evident that he 

 knows less about oranges than he ac- 

 cuses Mr. Gano of knowing. How 

 about cultivators, spraying machinery, 

 etc.? Knowing so little about the pro- 



APIARY OF H, E. ROTH AT STRAWBERRY POINT, IOWA. loo POUNDS PER 



COLONY IN igis 



proves his point that the beekeepers 

 have not been alive to the benefits of 

 well directed publicity. If honey and 

 its process of preparation for use was 

 as well known to the public as is but- 

 ter, more of it would be consumed by 

 men in that class in preference to in- 

 ferior substitutes. 



The fact that we beekeepers some 

 times find it hard to dispose of a crop 

 that aggregates only about a pound 

 per capita for the population of the 

 United States, proves in itself that we 

 are unfamiliar with the rules of adver- 

 tising as practiced in the business 

 world today. There is no reason why 

 the public will not consume ten times 

 the amount of honey that now goes to 

 market if our product is properly 

 placed before the readers of our news- 

 papers and magazines. The average 

 merchant wastes half or more of his 

 advertising appropriation in ill-advised 

 copy or poor mediums. The advertis- 



duction of oranges he is hardly com- 

 petent to attempt a comparison. He 

 would likely be surprised to learn the 

 size of the orange growers' supply bills. 

 Bonney writes from the standpoint 

 of the small producer who has no com- 

 petition in the local market. Mr. Gano 

 writes from the standpoint of a business 

 man familiar with the congestion of 

 the large markets, and with the gen- 

 eral methods of marketing. Every- 

 body who knows anything of the 

 conditions admits that the orange 

 growers are vastly more prosperous 

 since their organization and advertis- 

 ing. Bonney has failed to show that 

 the same principles would not apply to 

 honey producers. Butter !s advertised 

 nationally. If the Doctor was a careful 

 reader of the magazine advertising 

 pages he would long ago have seen the 

 large advertisements of Meadow Gold 

 Butter. Not only this, but several dairy 

 organizations are constantly on the 



watch to guard the dairy interests 

 against unjust competition in any quar- 

 ter. Hundreds of publications carry 

 their advertising calling particular at- 

 tention to the merits to the output of 

 their special breed of cattle, as the 

 Holstein or Jersey clubs. 



A large number of lumbermen who 

 are engaged in sawing cypress timber 

 contribute to the fund that pays for the 

 advertising of cypress lumber that 

 appears in so many high class publica- 

 tions. While any member may not 

 be able to trace a special sale to his 

 own yards as a result of this publicity, 

 he knows that the extent to which the 

 public comes to realize the special 

 merits of cypress lumber for the pur- 

 poses to which it is best adapted will 

 benefit him personally. Lumbermen 

 are doing business on a business basis, 

 and are prosperous as a result. 



While Dr. Bonney's methods may 

 succeed in disposing of a small crop in 

 a local market they are not applicable 

 to the industry as a whole, and cannot 

 be used to make a general market for 

 honey as a commodity in a national 

 way. 



Under present day conditions no in- 

 dustry can thrive greatly without gen- 

 eral cooperation among the producers. 

 When the beekeepers unite and fight 

 together instead of fighting each other 

 then will honey production become a 

 profitable industry. The Doctor's ten- 

 dency to belittle the business is to be 

 regretted. His statement that less than 

 200 persons are largely dependent upon 

 honey production is erroneous. More 

 than that number could be found in 

 many limited localities. 



Atlantic, Iowa. 



Does the Female Osmia Decide 

 the Sex of the Egg? 



BY JOHN H. LOVELL. 



IT has been commonly believed that 

 the queen honeybee can lay drone 

 or worker eggs at will. The obser- 

 vations and experiments of Fabre 

 with several solitary bees belonging to 

 the genus Osmia are in this connection 

 of much interest. Several species of 

 this genus build their cells in a contin- 

 uous series in the hollow stems of 

 brambles, from which the pith has 

 been excavated, or in the old deserted 

 burrows of other solitary bees. When 

 the tunnels are sufficiently long and 

 large to contain a complete laying of 

 eggs, a series of cells containing female 

 eggs is first built, and then a series of 

 cells with male eggs. If, however, the 

 tunnel is short, and it is necessary to 

 break up the laying of eggs and divide 

 it among several burrows, then in each 

 case female eggs are laid first, followed 

 by male eggs, for instance, if the tunnel 

 is only long enough to contain two 

 cells, the bottom one contains a female 

 egg and the upper one a male egg. 



The males of Osmia are much smaller 

 than the females, and the cells in which 

 they live in the larval state are conse- 

 quently smaller and contain a smaller 

 stock of provisions than the cells of 

 the females. The mother Osmia must, 

 therefore, instinctively be conscious 

 that she is about to lay an egg corre- 

 lated with the small cell and the little 



