THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



147 



Friend Newman. — Believing that I am 

 as successful as anybody in the introduc- 

 tion and sale of machine-extracted honey, 

 and as the ready sale of the article is just 

 as important as the production of it, allow 

 me to add to the exhibition in your office, 

 two of my cases of honey jars. They 

 are the style in which I have been selling 

 honey to the trade for years, and it is the 

 best merchantable shape in which I have 

 seen honey put up, so far. 



I object to putting a piece of comb into 

 a jar of " pure machine-extracted honey," 

 because it is, in my estimation, only 

 pleasing to the eye of the ignorant, and 

 because it can only be calculated to con- 

 vince the purchaser that the article ispure 

 honey. Every honey producer knows 

 that machine-extracted honey is the only 

 pure honey possible, while we have wax 

 and other little impuritiea with the 

 choicest kind of comb honey. Choice 

 machine-extracted honey will recommend 

 itself; and a piece of comb in ajar is just 

 as insufficient to convince a sensible con- 

 summer of the purity as the crumbling 

 of dry comb on top of a jar. Besides, 

 after granulation has taken place, a jar 

 of machine-extracted honey, with a piece 

 of comb in it, is unsightly and unsalable. 



We should have, as near as possible, a 

 uniform shape in which to offer our 

 honey to the trade. To our neighbors we 

 may sell it in any shape to suit them, of 

 course. But we are in the habit of see- 

 ing canned peaches put up in tin cans, 

 and other fruits in some certain pack- 

 ages. Similar it should be with honey. 

 Round jars can be furnished for about 

 $1.00 less per gross than square jars. But 

 I prefer the latter because everybody uses 

 round jars for almost everything, and be- 

 cause square jars have a neater appearance 

 and pack better. 



Permit me also to place on your table 

 one of my knives. There are no more 

 practical uncapping knives made, and 

 they are cTieap. Chas. F. Muth. 



We have taken pleasure in examin- 

 ing these articles. The one pound honey 

 jars look very much like the ordinary 

 square pickle bottles. On one side is 

 blown in the glass the figure of an old- 

 fashioned straw hive or skep, and the 

 words "1 Pound Pure Honey." The 

 remaining three sides are plain to admit 

 such labels as the producer may wish to 

 put on them. We do not remember be- 

 fore to have seen a label of directions like 

 the one Mr. Muth puts on the jars of 

 honey he sells. Something of the kind 

 should be on every jar of honey sold. 

 The label reads as follows: 



" AH pure honey will crystalize, [of course he 

 means granulate— Ed.] especially if exposed to 



the cold. Putliug the jar in hot water, will bring 

 the candied honey to its fluid state without the 

 least injury to the quality. In order to save the 

 glass the corks should be loosened and the water 

 heated gradually." 



In this connection we also give the 



printed instructions Mr. C. O. Perrine 



sends out with his goods: 



"To restore candied honey to its original liquid 

 condition it must be heated. 



"Nearly all pure honey will form into granules 

 in cold climates in time. Some honey so forms 

 sooner than others, and in some seasons honey 

 will so form much more than in others, owing to 

 atmospheric conditions aside from absence of 

 heat. 



"When I have any jars of candied honey I take 

 the covers ofl', to guard against bursting with con- 

 fined heat, and place them over a steaming kettle 

 of water, setting them on strips of wood and 

 covering them over with a cloth, so as to keep the 

 heat in. If comb honey, care should be taken 

 that they do not heat too quick or get too warm, 

 as a very little excess of heat above that required 

 to melt the honey, will melt the comb (wax) too, 

 as well as the liquid honey about the comb, which, 

 when melted, will float on the honey. 



"If the jars be set in an oven the same result 

 will follow, placing strips of wood under them to 

 keep the heat from breaking the glass. 



"To those having them to sell, I will say if they 

 will warm them before they are candied through, 

 a very little heat will do." 



Mr. Muth's 50-cent uncapping knife is a 

 rough looking affair, but the blade being 

 of good steel it will doubtless do good 

 work. Some would rather give $1.00 for 

 a nicely finished knife, while others 

 would rather save 50 cents and have some- 

 thing less tasteful in appearance. 



The bee veil of Mr. Muth is made of 

 thin, white material, all but the part be- 

 fore the face which is black and very fine, 

 so as not to impede the vision. It comes 

 down to the waist at front and back, mak- 

 ing a very thorough protection ; in fact 

 too much of a protection for an old bee- 

 keeper, who will want a veil ready to be 

 thrown down quickly over the face as oc- 

 casion may require. For the timid who 

 want to feel sure that no bee can get near 

 them, this veil is just the thing. 



I!:^" Don't write anything on the face of 

 a postal card but the address. We very 

 often have to pay 5 cents for a postal card 

 sent us because the sender has put the 

 date on the face of it instead of the other 

 side. Let all remember this. 



^^ In a private letter, one of our 

 most prominent bee-keepers remarks that 

 our April number was "the best bee-pa- 

 per" he "ever saw, Wagner's administra- 

 tion not excepted." Our determination is 

 that each future number shall be "like un- 

 to it." 



