THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



331 



on his person, he also carried a very 

 old pipe in his mouth on his daily rounds, 

 all of which got more or less mixed 

 with the milk. He quit the milk busi- 

 ness in a short time. Of course if you 

 should sell j'our own honey, then these 

 remarks may apply to you. Remem- 

 ber that not only your own appearance 

 but that of your cans, pails, horse and 

 whole out-fit influence the buyer. 



UNRIPE HONEY A GREAT DRAWBACK. 



A dislike of, amd a failure in the 

 business of selling- extracted honey is 

 <lue mainly to two causes: 1, unripe 

 hone}% and 2, in going- where you are 

 >/oi wanted and not knowing where 3'ou 

 are wanted. 



The great prerequisite to success in 

 extended honey selling is a well 

 ripened, full-flavored honey. It is a 

 disgrace to our calling and a con- 

 tinual menace to our business, that 

 many prominent bee-keepers continue 

 to advocate the extracting of honey 

 when only from one-half to two-thirds 

 capped, and that other ridiculous 

 notion of artificial ripening. Honey 

 gets that desirable honey-flavor in the 

 hive, and you can no more give it that 

 flavor in the drying room than you can 

 give the lemon flavor to the pie without 

 the lemon. 



You may fool some of your customers 

 part of the time, but it is only a ques- 

 tion of time when they will begin to 

 tiilk in this strain: "Our folks don't 

 seem to care for honey any more, we've 

 got some of the last 3'et. " I want 

 them to say: "That tastes like honey, 

 I know it is pure" and "the only kick 

 was I got too small a pail." 



Good honey sells itself, and gets 

 orders from all the neighbors and dis- 

 tant friends who taste it. 



Extracting- honey half-capped is 

 mixing good with bad, the good flavor 

 of the ripened portion being gradually 

 absorbed, and finall3' lost in the wild, 

 rank taste of the unripe; and in a short 

 time it doesn't "taste like honey," and 

 for an appetizing- food, the poorest and 



cheapest syrups are better— "cheaper 

 and better than honey." Bee-keepers 

 should awaken to the fact that we are 

 running- up ag-ainst new and improved 

 varieties of Corn Syrup every year. 



If you extract your own honey, see 

 that it is capped "clearn up to de bot- 

 tom," and if you buy it, insist on your 

 producer doing- the same, "and don't 

 let him fool you more than once.''' If 

 the hone}' comes to you in the liquid 

 state, it should have a full honey taste 

 and flavor. 



But its grade is more easily dis- 

 cerned in the candied state. The flavor 

 should be distinct, and the honey 

 should be fine g-rained, fine as flour, 

 the unripe is coarse g-rained like ker- 

 nels of rice, and is flavorless, and their 

 relative values about as 16 to 1. You 

 and some of your readers, Mr. Editor, 

 will remember that I brought out this 

 matter of grain at our State Conven- 

 tion last February. I am glad to 

 know that so good an authority as Mr. 

 Dadant makes the same distinction. 

 (See an April No. of A. B. J.) The 

 uncertainty of alwaj^s getting well 

 ripened honey causes me to put forth 

 more and more strenuous efforts to 

 produce my own. 



PACKAGES TO GET FOR HONEY. 



For the grocery trade I put up the 

 whitest and best in labeled glass, and 

 if basswood, the name should be on the 

 glass. I am using at present two 

 sizes, the yz pint jelly cup and a glass 

 top sealer called the 12 oz. tall Colum- 

 bia holding nearly a pint, retailing at 

 15c and 25c respectively. I get them 

 direct from the Illinois Glass Co., Chi- 

 cago, at a cost of l^c and 2c respect- 

 ively. The cap is perfect and so is 

 the jar. I carry the pints in a neat 

 shipping case furnished by the Glass 

 company, holding two dozen, and the 

 Yz pints in one of the same boxes with 

 the bolstering removed, but with five 

 perpendicular cleats on each side, Z% 

 inches apart, for the purpose of hold- 

 ing a partition board to keep the cupg 



