302 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



September 



They all came through the winter in 

 good condition." (Kentucky. Glean- 

 ings in Bee Culture.) 



"The goldenrod is one of our main 

 sources for a fall flow. The bees us- 

 ually fill one or more supers from it." 

 (Connecticut. Gleanings in Bee Cul- 

 ture.) 



"My bees have gathered lots of 

 goldenrod honey this fall and at 

 times the odor has been offensive to 

 the neighbors." (Vermont. Glean- 

 ings in Bee Culture.) 



"Smartweed and goldenrod grow 

 here, but do not furnish any honey. 

 Never saw a bee on them." (Iowa. 

 American Bee Journal.) 



How I Dispose of the Crop 



By W. S. Pangburn. 



WHEN I commenced to produce 

 honey for the market, some- 

 thing like twelve or thirteen 

 years ago, I wanted to sell my honey 

 in a lump to the jobber, and be done 

 with it. I had, and still have, a farm 

 in connection with the bees, or vice 

 versa (I really do not know which 

 myself), and thought it would be the 

 best way for me to dispose of the 

 crop. 



I soon learned, however, that if I 

 were to receive what my honey was 

 worth, I had to look to someone 

 other than the jobber to buy it. 1 

 also reasoned that if I ever expected 

 to advertise my business and the 



quality of my honey, and get my 

 name before the public as a producer 

 of honey, I must sell to people who 

 used honey, not those who bought 

 honey and sold it under a different 

 label from my own. You may sell to 

 a jobber all your life, and the public 

 will never know you are a producer 

 of honey, and this I consider goes a 

 long ways in disposing of the crop 

 to good advantage. 



A business that is not worth adver- 

 tising, isn't much of a business. 

 There was one instance that cured 

 me of the jobbing trade, and was the 

 means of my starting the direct-to- 

 the consumer trade. Five years ago 

 this winter I took a little trip into 

 Chicago to visit a friend who at that 

 time was selling about a ton and a 

 half of my honey each year. 



One afternoon we went down to 

 the loop district, where the best 

 stores are located, and took in The 

 Boston, The Fair, Siegel Cooper, and 

 Rothschilds department stores, 



where my friend had tried to dispose 

 of my comb honey a short time be- 

 fore. The price they offered him for 

 fancy white comb honey was 11 and 

 12 cents, delivered in Chicago. 



We went direct to the honey de- 

 partments and found comb honey 

 selling in the different stores at from 

 24 to 28 cents per section. 



The e.xtracted honey in 6-pound 

 jars was bringing 20 cents per pound. 

 The thing that stirred me most was 

 that this extracted honey was put up 

 by a jobber and bottler who had 



PIG. 5.— BUSHY GOLDENROD (SOLIDAGO GRAMINIFOLIA), A FINE HONEY PLANT. 



(Photograph by Lovell.) 



tried to buy my extracted honey for 

 8 cents delivered. 



I said "No more for me ; I have had 

 plenty," and I went after the direct- 

 to-the-consumer trade. I might add 

 that I have never been able to land 

 a sale of e.xtracted honey to a real 

 jobber in my life. 



During the first half of my bee- 

 keeping experience I did not try to 

 do much with my local market. There 

 were at that time quite a few small 

 beekeepers scattered through the 

 neighborhood who nearly always 

 produced some honey for the market. 

 This honey was sold at about as 

 many different prices as there were 

 beekeepers, and some clover comb 

 honey was sold at 8 cents per pound. 



This, as every good beekeeper 

 knows, is the hardest kind of compe- 

 tition. I would rather compete with 

 a producer who was putting out a 

 good article and asking a reasonable 

 price, than with the average farmer 

 beekeeper wV"- knows nothing of the 

 price he snoufd receive for his honey, 

 much less of how it should go on the 

 market. This kind of competition, 

 however, is getting easier to handle, 

 especially with the merchants, as 

 they are commencing to realize that 

 a first quality honey put up in an at- 

 tractive manner is, as one merchant 

 told me last fall, half sold as soon as 

 it gets on the counter. 



There is no question but what dis- 

 play advertising pays, and should be 

 followed more than it is. I never 

 have seen a display that did not at- 

 tract attention if it was gotten up in 

 an attractive style. 



The average merchant does little 

 in this line. More's the pity. Just 

 before the holidays I saw a beautiful 

 window in a nearby town with al- 

 most everything in the eatable line 

 you could think of, even to vinegar 

 and glucose syrup, but no honey, and 

 this same merchant had all kinds of 

 honey for sale. I never could un- 

 derstand this, but it is nearly always 

 the case. 



I have come to the conclusion if 

 honey is ever advertised and put on 

 a level with other foods as it should 

 be, it is up to the beekeepers to do 

 it, and if we wait until we have a 

 large sum to start with, it will be 

 some time before honey will receive 

 the prominence it should. 



National advertising will never ad- 

 vertise your honey locally, nor work 

 up a personal trade. Don't wait, get 

 busy. 



Do not think that because you live 

 in a small town it will not pay you to 

 advertise by putting in a display. It 

 will not only sell honey in your own 

 town, but people passing will look 

 through curiosity, and often times 

 buy. A person came a distance of 35 

 miles in an auto to my apiary and 

 purchased honey for four different 

 families, stating he saw the display 

 at the grocer's in town. 



The merchant tells me he sells lots 

 of honey to people from other towns, 

 who see the honey and buy it. I have 

 done away with the tin containers so 

 far as the store trade is concerned. 

 I have proven that twice the honey 

 can be sold in glass as in tin. I 

 use the IS-ounce jars, 1-quart milk 



