October, 1907. 



American liee Journal 



679 



-' ^)>^^igfe»>i 



ficially to as high a degree as it will 

 bear without softening the combs too 

 much, can be extracted quicker and 

 cleaner than honey as it usually comes 

 from the bees. Another thing, there is 

 no need of any hurry about it. Just 

 have plenty of supers, and pile them up 

 until the season is over, then take off 

 the honey with bee-escapes, and extract 

 it at your leisure. In this way, bee- ' 

 keeping is robbed of much of its stren- 

 uousness. Of course, it is not absolute- 

 ly necessary to leave on all the honey 

 until the season is over. When the 

 honey in a super is all sealed over, it 

 may be removed, and such full supers 

 may be stacked up in the house until 

 we are ready to extract." 



As the subject of producing only well- 

 ripened extracted honey is such a vital 

 one, not only to bee-keepers themselves, 

 but also to the dealers in honey, we 

 wish to make a few more extracts from 

 that same copy of the Review. The 

 following is written by Mr. E. D. Town- 

 send, a leading Michigan bee-keeper: 



"Gr.\ding Extracted Honey." 



"For several years our extracted 

 honey has been graded; that is, our 

 early, white honey for table use, with 

 our system of giving additional upper 

 stories on top, any partly - full upper 

 stories are on top at the close of the 

 season, when we do our extracting. Of 

 course, with this way of managing, es- 

 pecially as we try to have every upper 

 story possible sealed, and finished, still, 

 with all^ the precaution one can take 

 along this line, with these 50-pound-ca- 

 pacity upper stories, there will be a 

 good many partly-full upper stories at 

 the close of the season, the best we 

 can do. The way we manage to get 

 our superior grade of honey that sells 

 for one or 2 cents above the market 

 price, is to take off all these partly-full 

 upper stories, and extract them by 

 themselves. As they are all on top, 

 this is not much additional labor, and, 

 in a good season, this first extract- 

 ing will not amount to more than one- 

 fourth the crop. We call this grade 

 No. I, as even this, our lowest grade, 

 is superior to the ordinary honey on 

 the market. 



"Another way, where one has two ex- 

 tractors, and a little more time, is to 

 set up two extractors, near together for 

 convenience, then run all the partly- 

 sealed combs through an extractor be- 

 fore uncapping. In this way, we get 

 a larger percent of the superior grade 

 of honey, but it is some more work. 

 With this latter plan the unsealed honey 

 is not of as good quality as our No. I 

 mentioned above, and ought to go for 

 some other purpose than table use. This 

 plan of using two extractors, originat- 

 ed with me. and our whole crop at the 

 Kalkaska County yard was handled this 

 way during season of 1905. 



"The reason for using two extractors 

 is that the sealed combs of honey would 

 get so cold standing around, waiting 

 their turn, that it would be impossible 

 to extract the honey unless it was re- 

 turned to the bees to be warmed up. 

 If one had artificial heat to apply in 

 the latter case, it would work fine. Some 

 of the slickest, cleanest, drycst combs I 



ever extracted were heated up arti- 

 ficially. 



"I'KOUUCiNG AN AktJCLE THAT ENABLES 

 TilE i'uOUUCER TO SeT THE PriCK. 



"It will not be necessary to tell the 

 experienced extracted honey producer 

 that this hoiu;y, after being left on the 

 hive clear through the season, then, hav- 

 - ing all the latest-gathered and unsealed 

 honey taken away, and kept in a grade 

 by itself, that we would be likely to get 

 a fine article; more, it would be the 

 acme of perfection. Isn't the system 

 very simple.' Just add a few more up- 

 per stories, keep giving the bees more 

 comb-room clear through the season, 

 then leave it as long as there is no dan- 

 ger of getting dark, or inferior, honey 

 mixed with it, even if it is the last of 

 August, if you have no fall Mow, and 

 I assure you, you will not regret it. 

 You will have an article in a class by 

 itself. To find its value, you do not 

 have to look at a market quotation. You 

 make customers; there is a scramble 

 for it. 



"Any one producing the ordinary arti- 

 cle of honey one finds on the market, 

 is not only losing much on his own crop, 

 but is a very great damage to the fra- 

 ternity at large. It is an undisputed 

 fact, that every pound of good honey 

 that is put on the market increases the 

 det:iand for honey, while every pound 

 of inferior honey decreases the demand. 

 Can't you see how the land lays? Have 

 you been producing just the ordinary 

 honey in the past? Has the price been 

 unsatisfactory, and the sales slow and 

 far between? If so, there is a better 

 way. The better way is so simple that 

 there is not a particle of excuse, for not 

 practicing it. Brother bee-keeper, let 

 us produce just a little better Jioney 

 during 1907 than we did in 1906." 



The following are two of Mr. Hutch- 

 inson's editorials, taken from the same 

 number of the Review, as they bear di- 

 rectly upon- the subject under considera- 

 tion ; 



"Get Good Prices for Your Honey and 

 Don't Fool It Away. 



"Last winter and spring were terri- 

 bly hard on bees; the mortality was 

 great. Then, on top of this, came an 

 almost total failure of the white honey 

 crop. The result is one of the shortest 

 honey crops that this country has ex- 

 perienced in a long time. 



"The National pure food law has cut 

 out the glucose competition and large- 

 ly removed the suspicion of adultera- 

 tion. 



"Coupled with all of the foregoing 

 comes a general advance in the price 

 of nearly all commodities, and bee- 

 keepers certainly ought not to be so 

 far behind the times as to neglect to 

 take advantage of this opportunity; or, 

 rather, to claim what is rightfully theirs. 

 I do not advise the 'asking of an ex- 

 orbitant price, even if it could be ob- 

 tained; and it can't, as honey is a lux- 

 ury (not a staple like bread, meat and 

 potatoes) and few people will pay a 

 fancy price for it. 



"Under these circumstances, I think 

 strictly first-class, white, extracted hon- 

 ey should bring 10 cents at wholesale, 

 and the same grade of comb honey at 



least 16 cents. I believe any man having 

 any of that grade of honey can secure 

 those prices between now and January 

 if he only holds on to his honey and 

 takes the proper course to secure cus- 

 tomers. 1 am already getting orders 

 for my honey at that price; but there 

 is occasionally a retail dealer who 

 'balks' at that price, saying his trade 

 will not allow him to pay that figure. 

 The prices at which honey has been re- 

 tailed in the past will not allow such 

 a price at wholesale, but retail prices 

 must be advanced, and there never was 

 an opportunity like the present for ad- 

 vancing them— 'there is a reason.' Re- 

 tail dealers must explain to their cus- 

 tomers that bees died largely as the 

 result of the late cold spring, that the 

 clover harvest was almost a failure, 

 and the result is a very short crop with 

 the consequent advance in price. Call 

 attention to the additional fact that the 

 prices of nearly everything are advanc- 

 ing — people know this, and can compre- 

 hend why the prices of honey should 

 also be advanced. A little careful ex- 

 planation like this on the part of the 

 retailer will enable him to put the price 

 of honey where it ought to be under 

 the circumstances." 



"How 10 Get Good Prices." 



"I have urged my readers to ask a 

 good price for their honej-, but simply 

 asking is not enough. It is a very easy 

 matter to ship off a crop of honey to 

 some dealer and get the ordinary, rul- 

 ing market price for it. If you wish to 

 secure more than the market price, then 

 some effort must be put forth. In the 

 first place, there must be some reason 

 why a good price shall be received. 

 Take my own case, for instance; my' 

 honey is not ordinary honey, it is rasp- 

 berry honey. 1 hen it is thoroughly 

 ripened — lett on the hives weeks alter 

 it is capped over — and is thick, rich and 

 delicious; and it is put up in bright, 

 new 60-pound cans, it is impossible to 

 produce an article superior to this. 

 Having produced such a fine article, 

 and put a proper price upon it, the next 

 step is to let consumers know about it — 

 advertise it and send out samples. I 

 am now advertising it in three of the 

 bee-journals. Of course this costs some- 

 thing, and if a man were to be in the 

 business only a year it might not pay 

 him, but a man can gradually build 

 up a trade, and secure a class of cus- 

 tomers that will buy his honey year after 

 year without any advertising. 1 am now 

 receiving orders from men who bought 

 honey of me last year. They don't 

 even ask for samples; they say, 'If your 

 honey is like that of last year, you may 

 send me so many cases,' and they send 

 on the cash. 



"Now, friends, isn't it worth while to 

 have such a trade? To be able to sell 

 your honey year after year to the same 

 men — those who are willing to pay 3"0U 

 from one to 2 cents a pound above 

 market price, and send cash with the 

 order, because they know that no finer 

 honey can be produced, and that it is 

 worth what you ask for it? The whole 

 thing can be told in a few words : Pro- 

 duce honey of superior quality, and 

 then let consumers know about it — the 

 latter is fully as important as the first." 



