Feb. 22, 1900. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



117 



honey at 6 cents a pound. Thi.s is contrary to the general 

 practice of business. But by so doing' I get the custom of 

 poor people. I sold them just the honey at that price and 

 charged for the pail. I offered to sell honey thru the stores 

 in my town at the same time. I wholesaled it to them, giv- 

 ing 3 cents to the dealers for four pounds sold. Our trade in 

 extracted honey is doubling every year. 



As to maintaining the price, this year a buyer offered 

 me 5'^ cents. I said to him, "You can't have it. I will 

 sell it to you for 6 cents, which is cheaper than I am selling- 

 it to the people here." He bought it for 6 cents. I was at 

 first afraid to raise the price in the home market for fear I 

 would drive away my customers, but I am now selling it at 

 home for 7 cents a pound. 



I first run the honey from the extractor to a tank, then 

 into pails and stack them up till the honey is candied. It 

 does not cost me much more than to put it in cans. When 

 I first started, 3-pound cans of corn-syrup were sold for IS 

 cents. I can not compete with that, but I have to compete 

 with sugar. As to the fancy trade of honey, that is differ- 

 ent. If I were at Denver, I would perhaps employ different 

 tactics. 



To-day the dealers in our town are demanding the 15- 

 pound pails of honey instead of the small pails. That shows 

 it is getting to be a staple with them. If we produced ten 

 times as much as we do, and sold to compete with other 

 sweets, it would be easier to sell. It would be like hogs and 

 corn in Iowa — the buyers come and buy at the dooryard be- 

 cause there is a quantitj' to buy. When we produce in large 

 quantities, and keep it before the people all the time, there 

 is an inducement for the buyer to come around. 



I should also say that I trade honey for nearly every 

 last thing I can use. R. C. Aikin. 



Mr. Porter — Locality comes in again. We could not do 

 much of that in Denver. However, there is something in 

 not putting the price too high. I sold some jars to a grocer 

 for 35 cents apiece, and after some time found he had not 

 sold them. He had markt them 50 cents. Another dealer 

 at the same time was selling them for 45 cents. It is not 

 the wealthy people in Denver who buy honey. For exam- 

 ple, I recently sold a 5-gallon can to a brickmaker for 8 

 cents a pound. The wealthy people want fancy packages, 

 and a very little at a time. 



H. Rauchfuss — I have had the same experience. To get 

 some people to use honey I had to give them some. Then 

 they bought small glasses. People should always be kept 

 supplied with the kind of honey they are accustomed to. 

 As long as we sell them alfalfa honey they eat it, but when 

 they get cleome or other honey they say they are tired of 

 honey. I know the time when hardly any extracted honey 

 was sold in Denver. Now it is sold in a great number of 

 stores. 



Mr. Porter — I sold the secretary of one of the lumber 

 companies a can of sweet clover honey, after having sold 

 him alfalfa honey. The next time I saw him he said he 

 was getting tired of honey. If we get customers educated 

 to alfalfa honey, we should never change. There is a trade 

 that prefers the strong honey. 



H. Rauchfuss — The Jews prefer the dark and strong 

 honey. 



Mr. Rhodes — I don't believe we ought to ship much 

 honey out of Colorado. I produced four or five tons of 

 honey in the early days of bee-keeping. One of the mer- 

 chants have ordered two carloads of California honey to run 

 us out. I followed that right up till I re-establisht my 

 trade. I never saw a vessel that exhibited honey better 

 than a stone jar. Extracted honey poured into a stone jar 

 has something very attractive about it. I sold only one day 

 in the week, but could have sold all the time. Six cents a 

 pound at home, without the package, is a good industry. A 

 party in town selling extracted honey to the stores puts in 

 a show-case with it, and guarantees it. Retailers would 

 stand by us if we would get to them in that way. 



Pres. Aikin — That party keeps the goods on hand all 

 the time. That is a strong point. If your grocer runs out 

 of sugar and coffee a few times, you are going to patronize 

 some other grocer. 



SBLWNG CANDIED HONEY. 



Mr. Root — Bee-journals have not done their duty in 

 recommending the sale of candied honey. It is suitable for 

 men with whiskered mouths, and handier to give to chil- 

 dren. I don't know any reason why store-keepers shouldn't 

 sell candied honey if they could know it was good bee- 

 honey. 



Mr. Gordon — Will adulterated honey candy as pure 

 honey will ? 



Mr. Porter I have samples of that honey, that was re- 

 ferred to as sold in the stores, that show no signs of candy- 

 ing. One of them .shows a few little cubical crystals near 

 the top. If we could put up honey as Mr. Aikin does, we 

 could down that kind of honey. The grocers are learning 

 that pure honey will candy. Extracted clover honey will 

 not candy as quickly as extracted alfalfa honey. 



Mr. Root — I tried an experiment with adulterated 

 honey. I put up one sample containing '/l glucose, one 73 

 glucose, one ;V glucose, and one of pure honey, and have 

 kept them four years. The pure sample candied solid. The 

 mixtures clouded and made flakes. The glucose seemed to 

 separate from the honey. The glucose and honey, there- 

 fore, will candy in time, but it candies in a peculiar way, so 

 that it is readily distinguishable from the candying of pure 

 honey. But sugar syrup will prevent candj'ing longer than 

 anything else. 



Mr. Porter — This firm claims to have a process for de- 

 laying granulation. They would exchange the candied 

 honey of others found in the stores for their own. This 

 was about five years ago. 



Mr. Rhodes — They must have something new, because 

 their honey now is in better condition. 



Mr. Root — The fact that the honey is solid is absolute 

 evidence that it is pure. One of our workmen prefers can- 

 died honey to liquid honey. 



Mr. Rhodes — Candied honey is good because the flavor 

 is not driven off by heat. 



H. Rauchfuss — I have a tank for liquefying by dry heat, 

 which works better in that respect than by setting the cans 

 in water. It holds six cans, and has a cover. It is double- 

 walled, with water between the walls. The delicate flavor 

 that alfalfa honey has is easily driven off. In selling to 

 candy factories, I have learned they have a way of keeping 

 the flavor, in making it into candy, but do not know what 

 it is. 



Pres. Aikin — I have some samples kept for several 

 years. They remained candied solid for two years. One is 

 now part liquid and part granules, and is much darker. 



H. Rauchfuss — I have some samples kept a number of 

 years. One of sunflower honey is solid yet. A sample of 

 cleome candied honey turned liquid, then granulated, then 

 turned liquid again. 



J. B. Adams — I had some packages at the World's Fair 

 that I have yet. One is part liquid and part candied, and is 

 darker. Another is now in layers of granulated and liquid 

 honey. Another is of different colors. 



Pres. Aikin — I have a sample of white clover honey IS 

 years old. It is entirely liquid now, and as black as sor- 

 ghum, tho at first it was fair honey. 



Mr. Porter — Some honey I had distributed to stores 

 granulated and came back. I put it down cellar. I lookt 

 at it some time ago, and found half of the jars as clear as 

 crystal, and as nice as could be, while the others were can- 

 died solid. 



H. Rauchfuss — I sold some honey in a can that was 

 poured into jars. One jar remained liquid, and the rest is 

 solid. 



Mr. Rhodes — That shuts out the explanation that one 

 colony would gather one kind of honey and another another. 

 But I believe light has some effect. 



Mr. Root — I have thought that moisture, or stirring, 

 might have something to do with it. 



J. B. Adams — Every one of my packages is glass-stop- 

 pered and sealed. 



H. Rauchfuss — Some of my 60-pound cans of honey 

 candied and some did not. They are sealed yet. 



Mr. Gordon — Some honey sealed since 1889 with a rub- 

 ber band did not candy. 



Mr. Hackney — Have these packages been exposed to 

 the heat ? Some days in the summer are quite hot. 



J. B. Adams — I doubt if any of my packages were in- 

 fluenced in that way. They were in a plastered northeast 

 back room. 



H. Rauchfuss — Mine were in just such a room, where 

 they candied and liquefied. 



Mr. Porter — Usually froth rises when candied honey is 

 melted. This year I liquefied a great deal, and not a single 

 can had any froth on, but they were as clear as could 

 be. It was not alfalfa honey alone that acted so. 



Mr. Brock — I observed no difference this year. The 

 froth was there as usual. 



H. Rauchfuss — I had the same experience as Mr. Por- 

 ter. I had always thought it was the air-bulbs encased in 

 extracted honey that caused the froth. 



Mr. Porter — I restore the froth to honey, when I have 

 it, by putting it in a separate can, setting this in water, 



