the United States, imposing heavy 

 penalties, or making it a criminal 

 offense to so adulterate, or vend adul- 

 terated honey. 



The following paper was then read by 

 the Secretary : 



How to make Honey a Staple Product. 



Some arrangement to bring our honey 

 market on some reliable foundation, as other 

 products are sold, is very desirable. As 

 matters now are, we have nothing to guide 

 us ; there are so many hee-keepers who take 

 no bee paper and do not keep posted in any 

 way respecting the crop ot honey or its 

 value, who will rush into the market with 

 honey out of season, and take any price 

 "sharpers " feel disposed to pay them, and 

 thereby establish a market price at about 

 one-half its value. This has much to do 

 with the interests of the honey raiser ; it is 

 so often done that many honey buyers know 

 that the old maxim is just as true as ever : 

 "Fools are not all dead"— and many of 

 them watch for such honey men and will 

 not talk with those who they know are well 

 posted in the value of honey. 



Last week I was in the city of Utica and 

 called on a honey dealer, 1 offered to show 

 him the report in the Bee Journal and 

 other papers, but he would not look at it. 

 He replied he did not care anything about 

 the report— he could get all the honey he 

 wanted. He said a man was there on the 

 previous day with one pound boxes and 

 offered them at 14c. per lb. You see his 

 offer was little over one-half of what honey 

 is worth. His actions spoke louder than 

 words that " fools were not all dead," and it 

 was for that class of men that he was 

 watching to obtain his honey. 



Can there not be something done to keep 

 such inexperienced men out of the market 

 and prevent the honey sharpers from getting 

 our honey at half its value ? I hope this 

 question will be fully investigated by the 

 National Convention. K. Bacon. 



Verona, N. Y. 



C. F. Muth, Ohio, gave the following 

 review of honey-production : It is now 

 only 12 or 15 years since our honey yield 

 averaged about 10 to 15 lbs. per colony. 

 I remember well that I managed to sell 

 from season to season all I had pro- 

 duced. To my sales were added occa- 

 sionally a few boxes of comb honey pur- 

 chased from neighboring farmers. My 

 ambition was modest like my produc- 

 tion. When I obtained the first 500 lbs. 

 in a season, its production was an event 

 as unexpected as the sale of it. Comb 

 honey came to our market in almost 

 every shape. Combs built in large 

 boxes were offered for sale, as well as 

 promiscuous-looking combs, cut out 

 and placed in barrels, stone jars and 

 wooden buckets. People desiring to 

 buy honey had to take it in such shape 

 as it was offered. 



Mr. Muth said times had changed. 

 Since the honey extractor has come into 



use, we have not only increased our pro- 

 duction manifold, but we are also pro- 

 ducing the finest honey we ever dreamed 

 of. We produce the choicest comb 

 honey in any desirable shape, and our 

 extracted honey cannot be excelled. As 

 honey-yielding' flowers bloom at differ- 

 ent times, we can keep separate almost 

 all the different kinds, such as fruit- 

 blossom, locust, clover, linden, buck- 

 wheat, etc. These are about all the 

 principal honey plants in our neighbor- 

 hood, not mentioning a large number of 

 fall flowers, such as goldenrods, hearts- 

 ease, etc. By means of the honey ex- 

 tractor we have produced a large quan- 

 tity of honey all over the country dur- 

 ing the last 10 or 12 years. Our markets 

 were over-stocked and prices went down 

 until they became unsatisfactory to the 

 producer and dealer. Low prices, how- 

 ever, brought on a demand. Manufac- 

 turers using sweets found honey to be 

 a finer and purer sweet than molasses or 

 syrup, and as cheap as any, and when 

 we had no idea of selling a barrel of 

 dark honey to anyone a few years ago, 

 we sell now a few hundred barrels of it 

 in a comparatively short time. Ex- 

 tracted honey has become a staple arti- 

 cle, and is getting in better demand 

 with every year. 



The price of an article is a matter of 

 consideration with every business man, 

 and the price of honey is no exception 

 to this rule. I find, for instance, that 

 dark honey will sell to manufacturers at 

 about 7(fl)10c. per lb., according to qual- 

 ity and quantity purchased, when they 

 would not buy any at a higher price. 

 Our best comb honey will retail sowly 

 at 25c. per lb.; it selis well at 20c; but 

 everybody buys it at 15c. Comb honey 

 will remain a fancy article ; only when 

 choice white, and in neat shape, will it 

 bring a good price. 



The last 3 years have been discourag- 

 ing, as our product hardly paid for our 

 labor ; but, if times gone by are a cri 

 terion, this has been an exceptional pe- 

 riod. A poor honey season was an 

 exception, and not the rule, and it is my 

 conviction that bee-keeping is a paying 

 business if we can realize 10c. per lb. for 

 extracted, and 12@16c. per lb. for comb 

 honey, for the reason above given, that 

 the demand is more than proportionably 

 greater. 



This was followed by a paper on the 



Best Methods for Marketing Honey. 



I It has been estimated that there are some 

 300,000 persons who keep bees in North 

 America ; an average of 10 colonies each, 

 will place the number of colonies at three 

 millions ; and if these produce 25 lbs. each, 

 the honey product amounts to 75,000,000 of 

 pounds, valued at $10,000,000. 



