202 



THE AMERICAN BEE KEEPER. 



July 



particular criticism to make in regard 

 to retailing comb honey but I must 

 say that extracted is very poorly mar- 

 keted. 



We put our extracted honey in 60 lb 

 cans, barrels, etc, and ship it to the 

 wholesale or commission dealer. These 

 in turn sell it out to the retail men in 

 small lots; and when they come to get 

 out the honey they find it candied. 

 Even if it did not candy, it is a hard 

 article to retail in this way, because 

 it must be kept warm or else the dealer 

 must spend much time waiting ou it 

 to run out. I have retailed a number 

 of tons of extracted honey and I know 

 what kind of a job it is. If you were 

 a storekeeper and had your choice of 

 selling maple and other syrups in 

 regular packages, or honey drawn out 

 into the customer's vessel, would you 

 not choose the regular package? I 

 am sure you would, and that is just 

 what is done. 



But how are we to get it into reg- 

 ular packages? There is the rub. 

 We have no suitable regular packages 

 — in fact no regular retail package. 

 The Root establishment is supposed to 

 carry about everything of value going 

 and I will just look over this list. 

 First I find glass vessels. There are 

 the Pouder and Muth jars. One- 

 pound size costs about 4 cents each 

 by the 100. Other glass packages of 

 one-pound capacity from 2^ cents to 

 nearly 5 cents each. These are the 

 prices there, not delivered to the pro- 

 ducer. We must pay the freight on 

 these, and then we must beat the ex- 

 pense of casing or crating them in 

 some safe way to ship. The result is 

 that by the time the honey is ready to 

 go to the wholesale market it has cost 

 us about 5 or 6 cents per pound for 



packages aloue. If the honey is 

 worth 5 and the packing 5 moie, there 

 is 10 cents right at your honey-house; 

 and by the time we add freight and 

 commissions to both wholesale and re- 

 tail dealer, say 1 cent freight and 25 

 per cent for commissions, it costs twice 

 as much as the best sugar. 



Of tin packages, first comes the 

 60 lb. can. These are wholesale pack- 

 ages and cost us the can and freight, 

 '4 of a cent per pound on the honey 

 put in them. Next comes the 12- 

 pound square screw nozzel cans. 

 These will come at about 1:^ cents ptr 

 pound — possibly a little more. Then 

 there is the '"Jones honey-pails with 

 screw-cap," that the catalogue says 

 "are the most convenient pails that 

 we know of that are suitable for ship- 

 ping liquid honey in." One-pound 

 size comes at 4^ cents — all of 5 cents 

 by the time we get it; five-pound 

 pails at almost 2 cents per pound. 

 There are next "tin pails with raised 

 covers." but these do not seal, and 

 will not answer. The last on the list 

 is "Record's tight-seal cover pail." 

 These are not made for honey, but for 

 butter and lard. I don't know whether 

 they will shut tight enough to risk 

 shipping honey in them when they 

 are stood on their heads or in any 

 position other than right side up. 

 The cost of these is a trifle less than 

 the others. 



These vessels are not crated or boxed 

 ready to ship full of honey. Even if 

 the cost were low enough, every apiar- 

 ist is not fixed for crating them. By 

 the time we crate them we have put 

 the cost of packages considerably 

 above the foregoing figures — just 

 about what the honey now brings at 

 wholesale in 60-lb. cans and barrels. 



