726 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Nov. 15 1900. 



every bit as good, and sells as well. Barrels don't come as 

 liigh as tin cans, and in some manner are preferable. 



Dr. Mason — "Why do you prefer tin cans ? 



Mr. Weber — I buy it any way it comes. 



Dr. Mason — AVhich do you prefer ? 



Mr. Weber — It wouldn't make any difference to me at 

 all, if it comes in cans or barrels ; I take it any way at all. 

 We are prepared to take it out of barrels and sell it in that 

 way, and put it up in glass jars. 



Pres. Root — Do you pay any more for it in tin cans ? 



Mr. Weber — We try to buy in barrels on that account ; 

 we want to buy it as cheap as possible. 



Mr. Hatch — You like to put it in cans yourself ? 



Mr. Weber — We don't put it in cans, but in small glass 

 jars, so as to bring a little bit more, if we have to pack it 

 over. 



Dr. Mason — Do you sell on commission ? 



Mr. Weber — No, I buy outright. 



A Member — I would like to ask the gentleman if he 

 handles any honey from New York State put in 210-pound 

 white poplar kegs ; all kinds of honey. 



Mr. Weber — We do not get any light-colored honey from 

 New York. We used to get some buckwheat honey from 

 there, and can use that in barrels just as well as not. 



A Member— We almost all use 210-pound kegs. 



Mr. Weber — Small packages are more easily handled 

 than big ones. 



A Member — Our barrels are made of white poplar, and 

 come from Maine. We have very little trouble with their 

 leaking. 



Mr. Weber — Last year we had a shipment from Mississ- 

 ippi — a lot of barrels that were old molasses barrels; the 

 head was out of one, and not a drop of honey left in. We 

 were lucky enough to secure pay for the honey from the 

 railroad company. I would not advise molasses barrels, in 

 general they are very poor ; cedar barrels are better. 



Mr. Aikin — We did not hear all these gentlemen were 

 talking about, do the best we could. We couldn't get the 

 gist of their talk, and I fear we are stealing some of Mr. 

 York's thunder. We will have to be a little bit careful what 

 we do and say just now until his paper comes; but I 

 would like to ask some questions still further, and get the 

 opinion of these commission men. I would like to ask this 

 question and get an answer from each of them : What por- 

 tion of the extracted honey passing thru your hands goes 

 to the manufacturer, and what portion for table use ? It 

 has a direct bearing on this question of packages — what we 

 are to put our honey in. I don't wish just now to discuss 

 that matter thoroly. I am loaded down heavy on that sub- 

 ject, but I am not going to steal Mr. York's thunder, but 

 try to lay the foundation for something that is to come 

 hereafter. May we have the answer to that question ? 



Mr. Burnett — As I am likely to be here at some of the 

 other meetings, and my colleague may not be, I would like 

 to have Mr. Bishop answer. 



Mr. Bishop — I was trying to think what kind of an an- 

 swer I would give to that question, and I believe that dur- 

 ing the past two or three years the largest proportion of 

 my sales have been to consumers, from the fact that there 

 has been a sort of an organized effort on the part of manu- 

 facturers to secure their supplies direct from certain buyers 

 in the country who have bought and re-sold it to them. 



Mr. Weber — My last year's experience was that about 

 ^4 of the honey which I handled was used by manufacturers, 

 and the balance went into the retail trade. It is awfully 

 hard, these days, to make people believe that honey is pure ; 

 they have an idea all the time that it is adulterated ; we 

 have to overcome that. For my own part I am going to 

 have signs made, and warrant the honey with a certain 

 sum of money to show them that it is all right. I don't see 

 how we can do it any other way, because they have doubts 

 all the time. 



Mr. Aikin — Lest a wrong impression get out, I want 

 to say that my question was intended in no way to reflect 

 upon these gentlemen as dealers in honey, but to get at the 

 real truth of the matter, where our extracted honey goes to, 

 what use it is put to, because, as I said, that has a direct 

 bearing upon the question of how we shall pack it, and 

 without entering into a full discussion of that, I want, as I 

 said, to lay the foundation to get the people to thinking ; 

 when Mr. York gets thru we can enlarge still further upon 

 the subject. I hope before the close of the convention to 

 touch these matters indirectly myself, and of course we 

 don't want you to steal all our thunder before we come on 

 the floor with our papers. 



Pres. Root — I would explain here that Mr. Weber is 

 located in Cincinnati. A great deal of his honey is South- 



ern honey, and dark — that has to go for manufacturers' 

 purposes, that means for bakers' use, principally. The 

 National Biscuit Co. use a great deal of dark Southern 

 honey, and that accounts for his percentage being so differ- 

 ent from the percentage of Mr. Bishop, who has white 

 honey. 



D. H. Coggshall — I would like to make a statement. I 

 was in one of the National Biscuit Company's plants a year 

 or so ago. I went up overhead where they were melting 

 honey, and askt them with regard to putting it into cans or 

 barrels. They took the cans and heated the honey to get 

 it out, but they took a knife to cut around the ends of the 

 can, and took out the bottom of the can, so the can was 

 thrown away ; and in a barrel where the honey was candied 

 they knockt the hoops oft", cut the honey in chunks and 

 melted it. Where a man uses a keg or barrel, the storage 

 costs only about '4 cent a pound ; where we use cans it 

 costs -'4 of a cent a pound ; we sell just as readily with bar- 

 rels, or 210-pound kegs, and it is a great labor-saving way. 

 A barrel you can throw down, or roll, or pick up and carry it. 



Mr. Aikin — There are three States west of the Mississ- 

 ippi and Missouri rivers that cover a great deal of territory. 

 I would like to ask some of the Eastern people what they 

 are going to do with us when we have to buy their barrels 

 to ship our honey, and ship it back to them and pay S2.25 a 

 hundred for first-class freight from Denver to Chicago, and 

 90 cents for fourth-class, which is the class honey goes in. 

 Are we to go to New York or Wisconsin to buy our barrels 

 to put our honey in ? There are two or three sides to this 

 question. 



Dr. Mason — Qo there, if 3'ou want to. 



Pres. Root — In going thru the country I noticed that 

 the kegs and barrels, especially when I visited Coggshall 

 brothers, are used almost exclusively. In the Western 

 States I see the tin cans are used almost exclusively. In 

 the first place, they can't get the barrels ; in the second 

 place, kegs and barrels would not do in that dry climate. 

 I remember looking in Mr. Aikin's apiary, near Denver, 

 and seeing how the barrels had warpt and twisted. Any- 

 thing in the nature of wood held together by hoops could 

 not be used there. Mr. C. A. Hatch has had the same ex- 

 perience. 



F. P. White — They get some honey that isn't ripe. 

 What do they do with unripe honey ? Do they sell it to put 

 on the table to eat, or to manufacturers for manufacturing 

 purposes ? 



Mr. Bishop — I am going to tell you a story about ex- 

 tracted honey ; it is a living joke on me in our part of the 

 country. I bought 5,000 pounds of honey, and as it came in 

 I listened to it, and there was a good deal of humming about 

 it — no bees in it, but there was a music, and I rapt out one 

 of the bungs to see what might be in there, and up it came, 

 and you know I just caught it in my beard, and I was a 

 sweet looking individual for a few minutes, I assure you. 

 That was the first time. The next year the same party 

 came to me and wanted me to buy his honey, and I heard 

 the same sound. I knew what was there. I was working 

 to get him around to look at the keg, hoping he might get 

 the same thing I got the year before, and / got it again. 

 Well, he told the story all about, and he said, " The strange 

 part of it is. Bishop didn't swear." You know that wouldn't 

 be very nice for a bishop to do [laughter], and I don't think 

 it is either gentlemanly, polite or wise for any man. So 

 much for the moral side. When we get honey of that kind 

 it is a very hard thing to manage, I tell you. You realize 

 that from what I have told you. We put such hone.v in a 

 cool place, and keep it until cold weather, and sell it the 

 best we can, but we can not always sell it at the highest 

 point, because it has not the quality in it. Sometimes it is 

 almost as good, but it gets into a store, and, before we 

 know, they come back and say, "That honey you gave us 

 isn't right ; there is something the matter with it." Sol 

 advise you as apiarists to be sure your honey is ripened be- 

 fore you send it to market. 



A Member — Mr. Weber, what do you do with thin 

 honey ? 



Mr. Weber — I do not have any thin honej- — don't get 

 any ; but if there should be some shipt in such a condition 

 I would not buy it. I expect only good honey, and will 

 buy only good honey. 



Mr. White — I produce extracted honey, and my object 

 in finding out what these commission men do with that un- 

 ripe honey is simply this : If they will sell that to their 

 customers for use on the table as food, it is certainly help- 

 ing the comb-honey trade, because if people get hold of that 

 kind of honey, they want comb honey, and I don't blame 

 them. I would like to see people put good extracted honey 



