November, 1912. 



American Hee Journal 



w>=^^^ 



the propolis removed as possible. Hives 

 which have been elevated by means of 

 extra strips should be let down on their 

 regular bottoms, using the side with 



the shallower entrance. Covers made 

 of sap lumber should by all means be 

 painted, for a lot of moisture will be 

 sure to penetrate. 



Contributed 



Advertising Honey Through 

 the Nails 



BV C. M. DOOl.ITTLE. 



"If I am right. Mr. Doolittle sent samples 

 of extracted honey through the mails a long 

 lime ago. and in this way built uii quite a 

 trade. Now that extracted honey is slow of 

 sale in the markets, my thoughts have been 

 turned in the direction of advertising and 

 selling honey in a mail order way. and 1 

 therefore ask you to give us something of 

 what vou did along this line before you 

 turned your attention much to comblioney 

 production. ■'\s I am a reader of the Ameri- 

 can Bee lournal. will you please tell us of 

 this matter through the columns of that 

 liaiier?" 



Yes, at one time I did quite a busi- 

 ness in selling honey through samples 

 sent in the mails. I would put an at- 

 tractive advertisement in a paper hav- 

 ing a large circulation, stating that I 

 would send a sample of my honey for 

 ID cents, and allow the 10 cents to ap- 

 ply on the first purchase amounting to 

 $K00 or more. Hy way of preparation 

 for doing this, I made the winter be- 

 fore, from section material, little boxes 

 holding '4 of a pound of honey, so that 

 this, together with the box and wrap- 

 ping, would weigh a little less than It 

 ounces, so that 6 cents would cover 

 the postage on the same. 



These boxes were waxed on the in- 

 side, so they could not leak, and then 

 stored away in a dust-proof box, wait- 

 ing until next September or October 

 when the nice, thick clover or bass- 

 wood honey would begin to candy. As 

 soon as signs of candying were dis- 

 covered, the whole mass was stirred, 

 which hastened the candying, and gave 

 the honey a more even and liner grain 

 than if no stirring was done. 



At the time of making these little 

 boxes for samples by mail, I made 

 other boxes of !,-inch stufT, that would 

 hold ■>2J2, :! and 10 pounds each, wax- 

 ing these the same as the others. 

 When the honey had become as thick 

 as it would conveniently run, all of 

 these boxes were "run" full, set away 

 and the honey allowed to harden, say 

 up to about Dec. 1. A printed slip was 

 then folded and put in the top of each 

 box, brielly describing extracted honey 

 (many at that time not knowing just 

 what extracted honey was), and telling 

 how, through a proper degree of heat, 

 this hardened, granulated honey could 

 be brought back to li(iuid again; then 

 the covers were nailed on and I was 

 ready to proceed. 



Nice honey of this kind was so at- 

 tractive to me, that I argued that thou- 

 sands of people would he glad and 

 happy to buy nice, ripe, thick, rich 

 clover and basswood honey, if they 

 only knew where they could get it ; 

 could feel sure that they were getting 



Articles^ 



it direct from the producer, and thus 

 know that it was pure. I also believed 

 that the man in the country, right in 

 and by his own apiary, and advertising 

 what he had for sale, as honey from 

 "Linden Grove," or "Clover Meadow 

 Apiary," in the iDeautiful scenic regions 

 of central New York, had a better 

 chance of building up a trade than did 

 the man who lived in a large city and 

 bought his honey at wholesale in that 

 city market. 



As extracted honey in those days 

 brought from 18 to 22 cents per pound, 

 I put the price of the 2;i pound pack- 

 age at 50 cents; the .j-pound package 

 at $1.00. and the 10-pound package at 

 $2.00, delivered at the railroad station. 

 Or, if so desired, I would mail the 2'/i- 

 pound package, if 00 cents accompanied 

 the order. Quite a lot was sold in this 

 way, and with only the once advertis- 

 ing. 



While lying awake one night a new 

 scheme occurred to me, which was to 

 mail one of the '4-pound packages to 

 the postmaster in some place along the 

 Atlantic coast, or some interior city 

 where there was so little forage for 

 bees that few if any were kept, using 

 for this work places having from 20,000 

 to .jO,000 population, such places as 

 were not liable to have large shipments 

 of honey sent to them. The next 

 morning found me mailing samples to 

 three different places, requesting that 

 the postmaster, or one of his deputies, 

 after sampling the honey, call the atten- 

 tion of his friends, or those coming 

 after their mail, to the matter, and if 

 sales could be made amounting to $.j.0O, 

 I would include a 2,'^-pound package 

 free for his or the deputies' trouble, or 

 if a sale of $10 was made, a .'j-pound 

 package would be sent free. In this 

 way several could "form a club," so 

 that the freight on the shipment would 

 be very much less to each one. 



I believed this to be a generous ofTer, 

 but as it was to be in the way of an ad- 

 vertisement, I thought it would pay 

 well, as it would be likely to secure 

 permanent customers. These, through 

 being pleased, would call the attention 

 of their friends to the matter, and in 

 this way a trade would be built up that 

 would expand to large proportions. 



This took all the extracted honey I 

 could spare that year, and undoubtedly 

 would have led to a large business had 

 not two things happened. The first 

 was. that my father became helpless, so 

 that I had to devote much of my time 

 in lifting him and caring for him dur- 

 ing the remaining •'i years that he lived, 

 which called for retrenchment rather 

 than expansion in the bee-business. 

 And the other thing was, that I was 

 offered for all the comb honey I could 



produce one-half more than could be 

 obtained for the extracted, even did I 

 carry out this advertising by mail plan. 

 And the comb-honey offer took «// of 

 my crop without any effort on my part 

 further than to deliver it to my nearest 

 city and get the cash for it all in one 

 lump. 



Then there was another thing which 

 changed the whole outlook of the ex- 

 tracted honey matter, coming on soon 

 after this'; the big dealers in extracted 

 honey began to mix glucose with it, so 

 that they might reap a greater profit. 

 From this the cry of "adulterated 

 honey" was rampant in the country, 

 and the price of extracted honey was 

 soon cut nearly in half. For all these 

 reasons I felt justified in keeping on 

 with the comb-honey part of our pur- 

 suit, and have produced but very little 

 extracted honey during the last quar- 

 ter of a century. 



During that quarter century many 

 changes have taken place, and mail- 

 order houses have sprung up for almost 

 all kinds of merchandise. If we could 

 only have such "parcels post " in this 

 country as they have "across the 

 ocean," extracted honey could be sent 

 to any place in the United States, as 

 well as all other goods of different 

 kinds. 



Of course, comb honey will never be 

 handled by mail very much on account 

 of the liability of breakage; but ex- 

 tracted honey can be sent in jacketed 

 tin cans if it is not considered best 

 to send it in boxes. However, when 

 put up in boxes, as has been given above, 

 and allowed to candy solid in these 

 boxes there is nothing nicer, to my way 

 of thinking. Again, I think a better 

 rate of freight could be obtained with 

 these boxes should they once come into 

 fashion. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



Blew Out the Safety Valve 



BY EUWARU F. BlGELOU. 



We were running at high pressure, 

 nearing the end of the season's con- 

 tract, when the boiler exploded and 

 the pieces landed in the branches of 

 an oak tree. It was about the second 

 week in September, when the honey- 

 bees of a particularly good coliuiy were 

 working at high pressure. The weather 

 was warm and extremely favorable, and 

 in almost every direction were acres of 

 golden-rod just coming into perfect 

 bloom. I thought to make an experi- 

 ment, and to intensify the work of the 

 bees by holding them down to the 

 capacity of a 10-frame hive with a 

 doulile super on it. 



With most colonies such capacity 

 would have been great enough, but 

 this had been an unusually large colony 

 all summer, one that I think would 

 have done justice to .'50 frames. But I 

 had been reading so much about keep- 

 ing more bees and working more with 

 your bees, that I decided to accept the 

 advice and " make the bees do more 

 work." They were responding with 

 extraordinary diligence. A cloud of 

 bees was going back and forth from 

 that hive. They swarmed around the 

 entrance, and at times they covered 

 the front. When the cover board of 



