498 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Aug. 9, 1900. 



who thru ignorance or necessity eat adulterated food pro- 

 ducts, but it works great harm to many producers by crea- 

 ting a prejudice in the minds of the people against their 

 product. This is the case in our pursuit. There is no use 

 in our trying to dodge the fact that our product is lookt 

 upon with more or less suspicion by the general public. 

 Many people reallj' believe that bee-keepers feed their bees 

 sugar, glucose, cane-syrup, and the like, in order to have 

 them "make" honey from it. In fact, I myself, a few 

 years ago, accused one of the bee-keepers in this State 

 of producing and selling comb honey made from sugar, but 

 I now know I was in error, and that it can not be done. 

 Yes, I tried it ; gave it a most thoro trial, not because I in- 

 tended to practice it if it was profitable — no, I intended that 

 if sugar-honey could be produced for 10 and 12 cents a 

 pound at wholesale, to pull right out of the whole business ; 

 but I have no fears of any actual adulteration of this kind 

 ever being done, even if the wholesale price of honey should 

 be double what it has been the last few years. Not because 

 I think there are none who might not practice it, but simply 

 because it could not be done with profit. 



But the belief in ray locality became so strong, that 

 bee-keepers were selling honey made from sugar and cane- 

 syrup, that it seemed impossible to increase its sales. As a 

 matter of fact, I lost considerable trade already workt up- 

 When this feeling was at its hight, the following notice ap- 

 peared in one of the local papers : 



$500 REWARD. 



Five hundred dollars will be paid by us to any one who 

 proves by analysis or otherwise that any honey sold by C. 

 Davenport or his agents is adulterated in any way or man- 

 ner ; or, in other words, if it is not pure nectar gathered 

 by bees from flowers. This offer holds good a year from 

 date. & Co., Bankers. 



This notice appeared only once, but that was sufficient, 

 for I secured a large number of the papers. One old lady, 

 to whom I showed the notice, said : " Of course that settles 

 it, and I am glad you have quit feeding your bees stuff. 

 Genuine honey from flowers is what I want." She was one 

 of mj' regular customers, but had previously that year re- 

 fused to take any, saying frankly that she was afraid it 

 was adulterated ; and I could not convince her that it was 

 not, but a guarantee of fSOO did, as it did almost all others. 

 Of course, there are always a few that nothing can con- 

 vince. But suspicion gradually died out, until some time 

 ago, when it began to revive again. This distrust of honey 

 was not confined to my immediate neighborhood by any 

 means, but extended over a wide extent of territory. 



A less amount of money as a guarantee of purity will 

 answer, as I found when working up trade in other towns, 

 but in a locality where no suspicion about the purity of 

 honey locally produced exists, it would be folly to bring up 

 the subject and offer any reward at all. 



This brings us to the other reason to be discust, why 

 the local demand is not greater. This is on account of in- 

 difference, and general ignorance of its worth. As a means 

 of overcoming this cause or reason, short but numerous 

 paragraphs should appear in a local paper, calling attention 

 to its great value as a daily article of food on account of its 

 healthfulness ; that, besides being one of the most delicious 

 sweets known, it possesses great medicinal virtues in many 

 forms of throat, lung, and stomach troubles ; how some of 

 our most eminent physicians attribute many forms of kid- 

 ney diseases which so often terminate fatally, to the free 

 use of cane-sugars ; and that some of these patients are 

 forbidden any form of sweet food except honey. 



Call attention to the remarkable fact that when man 

 lived to be 300 or 400 years old, honey was the only form of 

 sweet known ; how bees and their product have from these 



earliest times descended to us of the present time un- 

 changed by the evolution of ages. 



I have emphasized the fact and explained why some 

 honey may be much inferior to others ; that on account of 

 devoting ray whole attention to its production, with the 

 most modern hives and appliances, what I sell is warranted 

 to be the best of its kind ; that the great improvements in 

 hives, a better understanding of bees, and the increast 

 numbers in which thej' are kept, have caused honey of late 

 to be sold at such a price that its use is no longer a luxury 

 to be enjoyed only by the rich, but that it can now be used 

 by all classes, even as a matter of economy under some 

 conditions. 



All the short paragraphs I have caused to appear re- 

 lating to the subject have been put at the head and sand- 

 wicht in between paragraphs relating to local events. 

 Small notices of this kind put among regular advertise- 

 ments are apt to be overlookt, but all who take a paper care- 

 fully read the local notes, because otherwise they raight 

 miss something of great importance, said either about 

 themselves or their neighbors. So, just after reading how 

 Miss Jones wore her new bonnet to church last Sunday, 

 the next paragraph may inform them that C. Davenport, 

 while it lasts, is offering choice mixt clover and basswood 

 extracted honey for 8 cents a pound. 



Tho every one does not take the local paper, those who 

 do not may borrow it of their neighbors. 



A person who formerly lived here but who is now a 

 resident of Dakota, had the local paper from here, his old 

 home, sent to him, and saw these notices. He wrote in re- 

 gard to honey, and has since been a large customer, buying 

 on an average about 500 pounds a year, part of which he 

 probably retails at a profit amongst neighbors ; and from 

 this one customer that I secured by this means, I have re- 

 ceived a number of times the amount above what I could in 

 the city markets, to pay what my newspaper advertising 

 has cost me, all told. A single announcement in a paper 

 merely offering honey for sale, stating its price and telling 

 where it can be obtained direct from the producer, will un- 

 der some conditions bring results that could not by some be 

 obtained in a week's work of peddling. l/ocal newspaper 

 advertising rates are very low, and I have been able to pay 

 most of these bills with honey. 



And if the immediate returns from this form of adver- 

 tising are not what is expected, it should not be hastily 

 condemned or abandoned, for its later effects are often far 

 greater. I am acquainted with a bee-keeper who has, in a 

 comparatively short time, almost entirely by this means, 

 workt up such a trade that altho he keeps 200 or 300 colonies 

 himself, he has to buy thousands of pounds annually to 

 supply the demand. His advertising, tho, is not limited or 

 confined to his local paper; much of his trade is in other 

 States. Besides receiving a much better price than could 

 be obtained in the general wholesale markets, he gets the 

 cash before the goods are shipt. 



Southern Minnesota. 



Mountain Honey-Dew— Eucalyptus Honey. 



BY PKOF. A. J. COOK. 



A FEW days ago I did what I wish every bee-keeper in 

 America could do — visited the far-famed Yosemite 

 Valley. Think of a valley seven miles long and one 

 mile wide, surrounded on all sides by rocks which rise 

 almost vertically to a height of nearly one mile ! Think of 

 the Yosemite Falls, 2,600 feet high, and with one leap of 

 1,600 feet ! Try to picture to other falls on the larger 

 Merced River, the Nevada Falls and the Vernal Falls, near 



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