THE BEE-KEEPERS' "REVIEW 



361 



handle butter, eg'g's, berries, etc., to 

 weekly' customers whose husbands are 

 lawyers, doctors or other professional 

 men, most of whom make it a point 

 never to leave a cent of money in the 

 house, you will keep reg"ular accounts 

 with them, and climb the stairs to their 

 offices every 30 days. The best book to 

 keep these accounts in is the little red 

 index book, (lettered along- the margin). 

 I use the smallest sized pencils, carry- 

 ing one in each book. 



For a ledger book at home, I keep 

 my accounts in a book 7x11 which cost 

 me 4 cents at our "racket store." In 

 this book I keep the "cash account," 

 "grocery and livingexpenses, " "doctor 

 bills and dentistry," "poultry account, " 

 "dairy," "bees and honejs" and "fruit 

 accounts." 



MELTING HONEY WITHOUT SCORCHING 

 IT. 



We buy and store honey in the 60- 

 pound cans, and melt it up the day 

 before the sale, two cans at a time, in 

 the boiler. We have a wooden, slat- 

 sling, with wire bails, for each cati. 

 There is a screw-ej'e in the joist over 

 the stove to attach a set of small blocks 

 or even a lever, for lifting- the cans. 

 The honey is put on the stove early in 

 the morning-, and when the water gets 

 as hot as you can bear your hand in, 

 we raise the boiler an inch or tivo and 

 are careful that \\. gets no hotter. We 

 pour the honey through a flour sack 

 strainer into a tin can; and run it into 

 the bottles and pails through an inch, 

 oil faucet, while hot. The g-lassed, 

 and most of the comb honey, g-oes to 

 the g-roceries and meat markets; but 

 for my customers I want 120 pounds of 

 extracted to 10 pounds of comb honey, 

 in cartons; for if I sell ripe extracted 

 honey at a shilling, and comb at 18 

 cents to 20 cents, the chances are that 

 the extracted honey will be gone first. 

 Sell your poorest hone}' to bakers, sec- 

 ond class boarding houses and big 

 amllies, at any old price, in the 60 



pound cans. The past year I packed 

 my pails in the wooden honey jackets, 

 and if I brought any of it, or any of 

 the glassed honey, home, I put it in a 

 three-cornered cupboard in the hottest 

 corner of the kitchen. 



WHAT MUST BE DONE TO SECURE CUS- 

 TOMERS. 



Not every person likes honey, but 

 there are enough in every 5,000 to con- 

 sume from 15,000 to 20,000 pounds of 

 ripe extracted honey each year, but you 

 have got to take it to their doors, show 

 them what you have, and, if necessary 

 to remove a lot of false impressions, 

 let them sample it. It's the only way 

 to sell large amounts. You can't de- 

 pend on mail and telephone orders for 

 selling extracted honey, from adver- 

 tising. Nearly all people are preju- 

 diced against extracted honey, from 

 helving eaten an unripe or improperly 

 handled article. I want to impress it 

 upon producers that, although they 

 have sold lots of unripe honey, they 

 can't always, do it. I myself have 

 bought honey by the ton of men who 

 cati't sell me any more. The best honey 

 I ever bought had to remain in the 

 combs until I got the cans empty from 

 a former lot and sent back. Such 

 honey is worth five cents a pound more 

 for my table, or my trade, than is half- 

 capped stuff. 



WORKING UP A ROUTE. 



When you get ready to work up a 

 new territory, begin at the end of the 

 street and canvass every house. Find 

 out who use honey and who do not. 

 You will make quicker work and more 

 sales by carrying a pail or two in your 

 hands and a good sample in glass in 

 your pocket. Some cold day in Sep- 

 tember is the best time to commence, 

 and if yon have a good article you ought 

 to sell a pail of some size at every third 

 house, and get orders to call at an- 

 other third the next trip. Usually I 

 pay no further attention to the other 

 third, though in many cases, where 



