1917 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



57 



place of honey, as honey was not gen- 

 erally used before glucose was discov- 

 ered, as butter was used befoie oleo 

 was made. Moreover, so surfeiting is 

 pure honey that if the glucose com- 

 pounds were not available, sugar syrup 

 would be used, as it was generally 

 when I was a boy. 



I want to impress, it on the minds of 

 my readers that I am writing for honey 

 producers, not the laity. Not one in 

 ten thousand non-producers of honey 

 will see this, and that is why I reit- 

 erate that while I like honey I do not 

 want it every day. The same with 

 maple syrup, common and cheap when 

 I was a boy, which I tired of quickly 

 and went back to the syrup mother 

 used to make of "C" sugar, I think it 

 was, a light brown and a very sweet 

 article. My next delight was " New 

 Orleans molasses." Gee ! but it was 

 good! Honey is so rich and sweet 

 that it is cloying, and while it is a pre- 

 digested food, or partly so, is apt to 

 disagree with some stomachs, so that, 

 as sellers, our last condition is worse 

 than our first. We have lost a custo- 

 mer. I honestly believe that were we 

 to advise people to mix a thick, warm 

 syrup half and half with honey we 

 should see largely increased sales. I 

 have even thought of putting such a 

 compound on the market, but there 

 are many reasons why we should not, 

 though while it would not cheapen 

 honey it would no doubt largely in- 

 crease its consumption. 



Oleo compounds, " butterines," take 



year's honey advertising experiment I 

 am going to start a campaign with 

 hotel keepers to use a card or a sign 

 to read: BONNKY HONEY SERVP;D 

 MERE. (What would the world do 

 without BONNEY H0NI:Y?) If others 

 would do the same for their product it 

 might greatly increase the consump- 

 tion of our goods. BUCKWHEAT 

 CAKES AND HONEY TODAY,-wouId 

 look good, while a small individual 

 cream jug of the sweet would fill the 

 bill. 



The marketing of honey was pretty 

 well discussed at the last Iowa Bee- 

 keepers' Association in Des Moines, 

 and to my mind this was demonstrated : 

 Each man must dispose of his own 

 stock, locally, by retail if possible, or 

 at least to the stores, and it were vastly 

 better for him to sell at 8 cents to local 

 trade than 7 cents to some jobber, 

 while there is no reason on earth why 

 10 cents cannot be made the minimum 

 price in Iowa for large quantities, and 

 better prices for mail containers. One 

 of the best things I ever hit on was a 

 an advertisement in local papers: 

 BRING YOUR OWN CONTAINERS 

 AND GET BONNEY HONEY FOR 

 10 CENTS A POUND. One man 

 brought in 20 quart Mason jars. He 

 remarked: " I would have brought in 

 a big can, but I thought I had to have 

 the jars." He paid me $6.00, and I was 

 ahead the price of a 60-pound can. 



This, of course, calls up the question 

 of advertising, but for small towns this 

 is a simple matter, a sign conspicu- 



NO. 7 -APIARY OF F, J. SEVERIN, A MODEL OF NEATNESS 



the place of pure butter on hundreds 

 and thousands of tables, public and 

 private, and here is something else to 

 show Mr. Pellett's error : If a public 

 place, even a popcorn " stand " uses 

 oleo compounds a sign of specified 

 size must be posted, "WE SERVE 

 OLEOMARGARINE HERE." As corn 

 syrup compounds compete with honey 

 and pure sugar syrup, very common in 

 the South, while they are a substitute 

 for nothing, the users cannot be com- 

 pelled to put on such a sign or any- 

 thing similar while we may sometime 

 be able to induce hotel men and res- 

 taurant keepers to post signs IOWA 

 HONEY SERVED HERE, or PURE 

 HONEY SERVED HERE. For next 



ously displayed, HONEY FOR SALE, 

 in connection with a good label is all 

 that is needed. When one goes to 

 branching out it calls for more prin- 

 ter's ink, but if in a town of 300 to 500 

 and the adjacent countryside a man 

 cannot dispose of several thousand 

 pounds of honey at a cost of a fraction 

 of a cent per pound for printing, there 

 is something wrong. In most county 

 seat papers an advertisement an inch 

 deep by one column wide can be had 

 at about 15 cents per we?k or 60 cents 

 per month, and it would be very strange 

 indeed if the bill could not be paid in 

 honey. Considering the work neces- 

 sary to send out cards and circulars, 

 the newspaper is, probably, the cheap- 



est form of advertising we can get. 

 Addressing thousands of cards and 

 envelopes and folding circulars is no 

 small task. As a circular or card is 

 read by not much more than one per- 

 son, and a newspaper advertisement by 

 one to five persons, the paper has the 

 larger circulation. If "local" adver- 

 tising is resorted to at about 5 cents 

 a line, practically every reader of the 

 paper will see it. 



As to prices, honey producers are 

 foolish and unwise. Actually, HONEY 

 is the ONE THING which has NOT 

 INCREASED IN PRICE in the past 

 two years. This is almost unbeliev- 

 able, but at our association meeting 

 a member got up and declared that 7 

 cents was a fair price for honey. True, 

 he later said 20 cents was a fair price, 

 but the damage was done, as a reporter 

 was present and his nimble pencil got 

 the 7 cents. He was not present when 

 the 20 cents was quoted. The gentleman 

 was talking from the jobber's stand- 

 point, as he handles large quantities 

 of honey annually. I hope to live to 

 seethe day when white clover honey 

 will bring more than 7 cents per pound. 

 If I do I shall see it sold without the aid 

 of the middleman. Sixty percent is now 

 sold locally, according to government 

 reports. If every one will try to sell 

 locally, or at least without the aid of 

 the jobber, we can average a fair price 

 for our surplus stock. 



It is claimed that the low price of 

 honey is due to the fact thaf it is a 

 " luxury." Well, ice cream is a lux- 

 ury, more so really than honey, yet the 

 people of the United States last year 

 spent ONE and A HALF BILLION 

 DOLLARS for ice cream. The soda 

 fountains made it possible for one 

 thing. While our raw material costs 

 us nothing theirs costs dollars, yet we 

 sell less than $40,000,000 worth of 

 honey. Forty million dollars compared 

 to ONE AND A HALF BILLION. 

 How may we explain it ? 



One great error has been fastened 

 onto us, owing to the fact that if comb 

 honey is not sold by Christmas, it is 

 apt to granulate. Honey producers 

 have for a generation or more been 

 urged to get rid of their crop early. It 

 seems that producers of extracted 

 honey are so imbued with that idea 

 that they are in a panic to sell at any 

 price. Air. Root told us in Des Moines 

 of a case this year where his firm was 

 offered some perfectly good white 

 clover honey at b% cents a pound. I 

 refused an offer from them of 7'4 cents 

 f. o. b. Buck Grove, but then it was 

 Bonney honey. 



Buck Grove, Iowa. 



Dear Bonney : — I did not say that 

 butter and oleo, and honey and corn 

 syrup sustained the same relation in 

 the sense that you give. What I said 

 was that because of the organization 

 and interest of the dairymen there are 

 laws regulating oleomargarine, and 

 this same agitation has made a strong 

 prejudice against oleo. On the other 

 hand, the beekeepers have slept quietly 

 and allowed the corn syrup fellows to 

 take the syrup market without acquaint- 

 ing the public with the superior quality 

 of their product. I did not attempt to 

 make any other comparison. I only 

 tried to show that the same prejudice 

 against glucose would have existed if 

 the same effort had been made. If you 

 were a lawyer instead of a doctor you 



