THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



73 



for and weigh out lioney for less than 

 one-tliird of the price that 1 can af- 

 ford to produce it. 

 Custer, (^ Ills. 



ror tne American Bee Journal. 



How to Market Honey. 



W. C. NUTT, (80—12.5). 



As bee-men in general seem to un- 

 derstand the production of honey 

 better than the aiarketing of it, per- 

 haps it will not be out of place to 

 Sive some of my experience in dis- 

 posing of my crop of honey, which I 

 Jiave found to be quite a success. 1 

 have two prices for it. one I call my 

 wholesale price — for 2-5 lbs. or more — 

 the other retail— -for less than 25 lbs. 



I discovered the advantage of sell- 

 ing honey in this way two years ago 

 when I had what seemed to me a 

 larger quantity of extracted honey 

 than I cared to dispose of in little 

 dribs. Then I was selling honey at 15 

 cts. per lb., whether 5 or 50 lbs. were 

 taken. I would generally sell about 5 

 lbs. to each person, and when he had 

 used that amount, I would have to 

 take him 5 lbs. more. I changed my 

 method and began to sell 25 lbs. or 

 more at ]2>^ cts. per lb., when, lo, the 

 s-;ene was changed ; the 5 lb. customer 

 disappeared almost entirely, and the 

 25 or 50 lb. customer appeared upon 

 the scene. I found much less trouble 

 in disposing of my honey, and at a 

 fair price. I now sell it at 10 and 12 

 cts. a lb., but follow the same method 

 of disposition, which has proven en- 

 tirely satisfactory with me. A lady 

 recently told me "that she wanted lo 

 lbs. of honey (expecting, of course, to 

 get it at 10 cts. per lb.); I told her 

 that if she did not take 25 lbs., it 

 would be 12 cts. a lb., when she said, 

 "If it is nice honey, bring me 2-5 lbs." 

 One must have a tirst-class article of 

 honey and let people know that there 

 is no difference, as to quality, between 

 the honey at 10 cents per lb. and that 

 at 12 cents. The secret is this : Some 

 people will take what they want at 

 once anyhow, but the greater part 

 will take as little as they can conven- 

 iently get at one time, if there is no 

 inducement held out for them to take 

 a quantity. By offering a small in- 

 ducement they will almost invariably 

 take the larger amount, they will nat- 

 urally use it with more freedom, and 

 will soon be ready tor more. 



This method saves trouble in going 

 around, and I think that, in the end, 

 one can sell twice the amount of 

 honey than if it were sold at one price 

 and letting the customer take as much 

 or as little as he chooses. Tlie gro- 

 cerymen here sell for the same price 

 as I do. I sell to them at my whole- 

 sale price, taking an even trade in 

 goods or 10 per cent, oft for cash. I 

 put up my honey in quart and half- 

 gallon tin pails for the groceries, the 

 pails holding -Z^.i and 5 lbs. respec- 

 tively. I also pui nice labels on them. 

 I have stopped liquefying the honey for 

 customers, but have taught them to 

 use it in its candied form, or liquefy 

 it themselves. 



Otley, O Iowa. 



For the Amerlnaa Bee Journal. 



Bee-Lore Mixed and Muddled. 



ALLEN PRINGLE. 



Upon reading in the IJee .Journal. 

 (page .SOS) Mr. Joshua ISuirs lament 

 over the oblique philosophy and prac- 

 tical contradictions of our'most mod- 

 ern bee-keeping, I could not repress 

 what amounted to more than a smile. 

 The smile, however, was not alto- 

 getiier at Mr. Bull's expense, for I 

 felt much sympathy for him. He sees 

 the apiarists, to whom he naturally 

 looks for guidance, all akimbo in their 

 practical teachings, and their philoso- 

 phy " at loose ends," and he cries out 

 in the fullness of his despair, "Whom 

 can we believe ?" For " When doc- 

 tors disagree who can decide V" In 

 trying to struggle through such a 

 hopeless maze of contradictions, the 

 poor novice in bee-keeping is like the 

 strong man in a morass : " The harder 

 he struggles the deeper he sinks." 

 But the going through this apiarian 

 medley of " confusion worse con- 

 founded," which we sapient sages of 

 the quill bring forth from the cranial 

 repositories of our varied experiences, 

 is not without its beneficial effect to 

 the studious and thoughtful bee- 

 keeper so soon as he sees the inter- 

 pretation thereof. AVhen the coun- 

 tryman put his hand into a wood- 

 chuck's hole and soon jerked it out 

 bitten and bleeding, he uttered a 

 principle as well as a fact when he 

 held the bleeding finger up exclaim- 

 ing with glee, "I'm awful glad the 

 critter bit me, for now I know that 

 he is there!"' Pleasant knowledge 

 came to him through the physical 

 pain and tribulation. So, finally, will 

 the fruition of apiarian knowledge 

 come to ^Ir. Bull through the tribu- 

 lation of struggling through an ap- 

 parently hopeless chaos of apicultural 

 literature. It seems all " madness " 

 to the beginner, but there is a 

 " method in the madness," and with 

 the proper key of generalization, order 

 issues from the chaos. 



Now. as to Mr. Bull's first difflculty, 

 viz : Whom to believe and what to do 

 amidst such diversity of counsel, the 

 answer may be concisely put in one 

 sentence, to-wit : After digesting 

 the hash placed before you as well as 

 may be, follow your own judgment, 

 let your own judgment guide you ac- 

 cording to your own special environ- 

 ment. One reason why you see so 

 much divergence of opinion and con- 

 tradictory advice from our leading 

 bee-keepers, is just this: They are 

 writing from all points of the com- 

 pass, and from nearly all degrees of 

 latitude and longitude, and iience the 

 climate and circumstances of almost 

 every winter are different from those 

 of the others. Their experiences, 

 etc., differ with, and because of, their 

 environments. Another reason for 

 this diversity, and for the mysterious 

 success achieved under vastly dif- 

 ferent management, and under sys- 

 tems diametrically opposed to each 

 other, is the flexibility or rather adapt- 

 ability of the little insect which is the 

 subject of all this discussion. 



Another reason is this : In the 



wintering problem for instance (which 

 seems to be the greatest difflculty 

 troubling Mr. B.), one or two essen- 

 tial conditions of successful wintering 

 may be present in a given case, say 

 proper food and temperature, and one 

 or two other conditions little less 

 essential may be all wrong ; but if the 

 bees happen to come tlirough all 

 right the conditions present are gen- 

 erally all put down as good. Now, if 

 we invert this instance as to the good 

 and bad conditions a few times, we 

 will alternately have a whole set of 

 bad conditions strongly recommended 

 as good ; and a whole set of good con- 

 ditions strongly and authoritatively 

 condemned as bad. Mr. B. will see 

 the point. 



As an illustration of the wisdom of 

 being guided mostly by your own 

 judgment in your own special en- 

 vironment, instead of relying too 

 much upon this authority or that, I 

 might revert to some personal ex- 

 perience. Many years ago, about the 

 time of my transition from the old 

 system of bee-culture to the new, al- 

 though I had had considerable experi- 

 ence in the old way, upon adopting 

 the improved methods, I submitted 

 myself almost wholly to the authori- 

 ties — the latest and best— and was 

 guided in wintering, etc., by them. 

 Immediately my ill-fortune set in, 

 and set in with a vengeance too. I 

 did well enough in the summer 

 manipulations, but used to lose all, or 

 nearly all my bees in the winter. The 

 second year, I think, under the new 

 regime, I lost every colony — about 40. 

 Nothing daunted, I purchased in the 

 spring and went in again, following 

 the authoritative wintering wiseacres 

 more carefully than ever, but lost all 

 again. I was greatly disgusted. 

 However, after the lapse of a year or 

 two, I found that I could not live 

 properly without the hum of the bees 

 around me, and I again invested. 

 But this time I dumpe<l all the au- 

 thorities in a corner, and made up my 

 mind that henceforth Allen Pringle 

 would be my own authority in winter- 

 ing bees. And so very disgusted had 

 I become with my ill-fortune and my 

 ill authorities, that I never looked 

 into a bee-paper or a bee-book for a 

 long time, paddling my own canoe 

 through the new system as liest I 

 could. Whatever of "success or failure 

 I met with during those years of 

 stubborn independence one tiling is 

 certain, my bees stopped dying oil in 

 winter. Since that ill-fortune, I have 

 steadily followed the advice of Allen 

 Pringle in wintering, and my winter 

 losses have been small. Not that his 

 judgment is any better than that of 

 others, but simply that it is better in 

 his special circumstances and en- 

 vironment. 



So I would advise Mr. Bull to care- 

 fully read what we all have to say 

 about wintering, as well as other 

 things, and then follow his own judg- 

 ment. He asks : " How are we to 

 decide whether it is best to give our 

 bees honey or sugar for winter food, 

 upward or downward ventilation, to 

 place them in a cellar, in a repository, 

 or to leave them on the summer 

 stands V This is all easily decided, 



