December, 1916. 



H?i^-rV^T2l 



American Hee 



41; 



<v^_] 



honey, it seems to me, the case is dif- 

 ferent. Any one, after tasting corn 

 syrup and honey, ought to be able to 

 recognize the difference in sweetness, 

 the former containing less than 30 per- 

 cent of saccharine matter, while the 

 other has about 80 percent. As far as 

 the contents in sugar are concerned, 

 the poorest honey is worth about three 

 times as much as corn syrup ; and 

 when we think of the substances used 

 to transform starch into sugar in manu- 

 facturing commercial glucose, we cer- 

 tainly should figure honey at four or 

 five times the value of corn syrup. 



But it is as Mr. Pellett says, there has 

 been no active official support of honey 

 against glucose. In the butter indus- 

 try there is an army of officials repre- 

 senting the diverse interests of the 

 dairymen, in the State agricultural 

 associations, in the colleges, even in 

 the State governments and the United 

 States Department of Agriculture. The 

 farming interests are carefully fostered, 

 but the beekeepers have thus far re- 

 ceived scant recognition and their 

 rights have been left in their hands. 

 We all know how little efficiency there 

 has been as yet in our associations, 

 whether State or National. 



Yet, I believe every person who is at 

 all acquainted with the subject will agree 

 with me that the unhealthfulness of 

 glucose as compared to honey is greater 

 than that of margarine as compared to 

 butter. The fight, if it is made for 

 honey, ought to bring an easy victory. 

 In this case, what we need is to have in 

 our colleges, our boards of agriculture 

 and in all official places where the dairy 

 interests are cared for, men as active 

 and efficient as those who represent the 

 farmers' main products. 



But is this all and will that be suffi- 

 cient to secure an increased recogni- 

 tion of honey on the consumer's table ? 

 It certainly ought to help. 



A very good argument concerning 

 the food value of honey may be pro- 

 duced, while the same argument does 

 not exist in comparing butter and mar- 

 garine. Those two substances have a 

 very similar food value. The food 

 value of honey has been shown by an 

 entirely disinterested autfiority, W. B. 

 Barney, State Dairy Commissioner of 

 Iowa, and those of your members who 

 have read the American Bee Journal 

 for December, 1915, have found out 

 that, at present prices, honey is one of 

 thecheapest articles of human food. 



However, with all these convincing 

 arguments, we will probably be still 

 confronted, for years to come, with the 

 problem of creating an increased de- 

 mand for honey. We must then con- 

 sider the principal requirements. 



Marketing honey can properly be 

 divided under two separate heads, en- 

 tirely different. The first is packing 

 and preparing the product. The sec- 

 ond is seeking customers. 



Many beekeepers who are unfit for 

 drumming their honey market, or at 

 least consider themselves unfit, are 

 quite expert in putting it up for sale in 

 neat form. It takes cleanliness and 

 judgment. Comb honey cannot bring 

 the value it deserves unless it has been 

 properly stored by the bees in neat 

 sections and is afterwards put up in 

 attractive cases. It must also be offered 

 in regular grades. The law which 

 compels us to sort out the sections of 



different weights so the retailer will 

 not run the risk of offering a 10-ounce 

 section at the same^price as a 14 ounce, 

 is really a benefit to us, though we did 

 not realize it at first. All that is needed, 

 to make sure of it, is to start out 

 among the retailers. We make them 

 secure against the most common com- 

 plaint of the consumer, short weight, 

 when we offer them a package in which 

 each section has its minimum weight 

 marked upon it. 



The careful beekeeper, who has sup- 

 plied his bees with up-to-date supers 

 and good foundation guides, is usually 

 the one who also most carefully grades 

 it. He is likely to put up his extracted 

 honey, without a mote or a blemish, 

 in neat tins or glasses. He crates 

 everything so that it may travel safely 

 without leaking. But he usually is the 

 man who does not like to go from 

 grocer to grocer, or from neighbor to 

 neighbor, begging for them to try his 

 product. However, I believe that, as a 

 rule, he may be easily persuaded to 

 advertise. This, of course, if rightly 

 conducted, will make matters much 

 easier for the drummer. 



A very good advertisement, suggested 

 by our old friend, the erewhile cow-boy. 

 Dr. Bonney, is the little red slip "EAT 

 HONEY "to be pasted upon everything, 

 everywhere, as " SOZODONT " used to 

 be. It has been tried. The American 

 Bee Journal household alone have sup- 

 plied over a million of these, not only 

 here, but in foreign countries as well. 

 But that is not enough. Let me ask 

 the question whether any of you have 

 seen these slips in public places, except 

 where you have yourselves pasted them ? 

 "SOZODONT" was painted on the 

 walls of buildings, on fences, on side- 

 walks, and I have even seen it written 

 in almost inaccessible places, on rocky 

 bluffs, along the Mississippi river, in 

 letters 10 feet high. Our beekeepers 

 cannot do that with " EAT HONEY" 

 stickers, but they can each spend a 

 few dimes to call the people's atten- 

 tion to a long forgotten sweet, of which 

 the most respected authorities say: 

 "Eat honey, my son, for it is good." 



I will never forget the reply I re- 

 ceived once from a good friend of 

 mine, now deceased, who used to sell 

 thousands of pounds of my honey, 

 although he was neither a grocer nor 

 a drummer. He was just an office 

 man, busy at his desk almost from 

 morning until night. How do you 

 succeed, I asked him, in selling so 

 much of my honey, apparently without 

 any effort ? His reply was : 



" My boy, there is no difficulty in sell- 

 ing honey. If I had to handle tobacco, 

 or whisky, among my friends, although 

 many more people use those articles 

 than honey, yet I would daily meet peo- 

 ple who would say to me: Aren't you 

 ashamed of offering such stuff for sale? 

 But honey ? Why, no one objects to 

 honey. Everybody knows that it is 

 good, sweet, healthy. Only once in a 

 great while do I meet some one who 

 says honey has made him sick, and I 

 answer that he or she probably ate too 

 much of it. The funny thing is that it 

 is almost always true. The only ques- 

 tion people ask is whether it is real 

 honey, pure honey. And when I say 

 that the producer of this honey lives in 

 the country and is a friend of mine 

 and that I can guarantee his goods 



pure, I make a sale, especially if I can 

 give them a sample to taste." 



That is all the secret of marketing 

 honey. Make the people think about 

 honey for a minute. Then let them 

 know you have it and let them be con- 

 vinced, in an undoubted way, that it is 

 really honey from the bees and your 

 sales are assured. 



I said that honey marketing could be 

 separated under two heads, packing 

 and drumming, but I have now mixed 

 them up. I have tried to convince the 

 careful producer and packer of honey 

 that he can also be a good drummer. 

 But it is out of the question to get 

 some of our best beekeepers started in 

 peddling honey. One of our best pro- 

 ducers said to me : 



"I can raise honey as well as any 

 one and I can put it up in fine shape, 

 but I am no good at offering it for sale. 

 If I make a trial at it and go into a 

 grocery, if they say no, I walk right out 

 without trying to argue the point and 

 lam ashamed to try the next. When 

 it comes to going to private houses, it 

 is still worse. I always feel as if they 

 considered me as a book agent or a 

 beggar. If I happen to have enquiries, 

 it gives me a little courage, but just as 

 soon as I meet a refusal or a doubt of 

 the quality or purity of my product, I 

 want to be a hundred miles away, as 

 soon as possible." 



There is too much truth in that state- 

 ment for the good of honey marketing. 

 The only remedy for that bashfulness 

 is the securing of a good talker, or 

 thorough advertising. However, with 

 a little self-reliance, a man can get a 

 start and if he succeeds, he becomes 

 encouraged. 



I cannot too much urge the selling 

 of our crop or as much of it as possi- 

 ble, even in our own vicinity. Person- 

 ally, we have sold our own crops 

 usually without difficulty, and we now 

 sell three or four times as much as we 

 produce. But even with all the adver- 

 tising that we do, every now and then 

 we find that other honey has been sup- 

 plied where we could have furnished it, 

 had we more thoroughly covered the 

 ground. 



Cheap sweets, which can in no way 

 be true substitutes for honey, are the 

 greatest hinderances to its sale, since 

 they apparently fill the demand, through 

 the positive ignorance of the masses 

 concerning the difference in food value 

 and healthfulness. 



So we must openly and unrelentingly 

 fight the cheap sweets. We should 

 demand the help of our agricultural 

 officials and colleges in this fight. 



Thoughts When Reading the 



Leading Article in the 



June Number 



BY F. GREINER. 



HONEY, it is true, could be on the 

 market every day in the year, be- 

 cause it is not as perishable as 

 many fruits, grapes, berries, etc., and 

 still, like them, has its season. People 

 have accustomed themselves to demand 

 honey in the fall and early winter; 

 there seems to be but little call at any 

 other season. On the other hand, a 

 continuous demand might be created 



