1920 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



127 



crwise, there was less of the old-time 

 bickerings and strife. 

 Washington. 



Retailing Honey 



By W. S. Pangburn. 



ON page 23 of the American Bee 

 Journal for January, C. C. 

 Baker seems to be out of pa- 

 tience with the journals for giving so 

 much encouragement to beekeepers 

 to cultivate their home market, and 

 seems to be pleased that the editors 

 criticise some of the ways of the re- 

 tail producers. 



We have carefully read both arti- 

 cles, and we heartily agree with all 

 the editors said on the subject on 

 ^age 301, September number. 



We cannot, however, agree with 

 Mr. Baker's ideas of what should 

 take place in the handling of our 

 product, and Iwe believe there are 

 many beekeepers who would not 

 agree with him. 



Just what would happen if the "big 

 jobbers" were given full swing in the 

 handling of our honey "exclusively," 

 would be an easy guess. 



All we have to do is take a look at 

 other lines that are in the grip of a 

 comparatively few individuals. 



Mr. Baker seems to think that, be- 

 cause a salesman is selling the prod- 

 ucts of these "big fellows," that they 

 know all there is to be known about 

 honey and the selling of it. On the 

 contrary, very few of them know 

 anything about honey, how it is pro- 

 duced, and make some big blunders 

 in selling it. 



The first requirement in a good 

 salesman is a thorough knowledge of 

 the line he is selling. 



Simply because a salesman makes 

 a sale is no sign that he is creating a 

 demand for honey, and that he can 

 go back and sell to the same customei- 

 again. If he cannot do this, some- 

 thing is wrong. Either his price was 

 too high, he was not selling quality 

 goods, or he used poor judgment in 

 making his sales. 



Whenever a salesman goes into a 

 small town and unloads a lot of 

 high-priced bottled goods onto a mer- 

 chant who has to retail the goods at 

 a price far above what the people 

 will pay, he is neither "creating a de- 

 mand" nor is he a good salesman. 



I can cite three instances of this 

 kind in my own territory. These 

 merchants will buy no more of this 

 kind of goods. They have not sold 

 the honey, which shows there has 

 been no "demand created," and it 

 shows poor salesmanship, though be- 

 ing done by these "live salesmen." 

 If the salesman had known his busi- 

 ness, he never would have sold a lot of 

 6-ounce and 1-pound jars of extracted 

 honey, and cantoned comb honey, in 

 these small towns. 



Sales like the above are a detri- 

 ment to our business instead of a 

 help, and never should have been 

 made. We have learned that the 

 small container, which necessarily 

 comes high, has no place in the small 

 towns except in a very limited way. 



The bottler has a place in the 

 ranks; we need him to get a lot of 



city trade the average beekeeper can- 

 not reach. He is entitled to a reason- 

 able profit and should be encouraged. 

 We, retail producers, also have our 

 place, and can reach another class of 

 buyers that the bottler cannot. 



Mr. Baker claims that "not one bee- 

 keeper in a thousand" is a salesman. 

 I do not know just what Mr. Baker 

 considers a salesman, but I do know 

 that the beekeepers are selling their 

 honey, and at good figures. We have 

 had considerable correspondence 

 with beekeepers in the past two or 

 three years, in regard to buying 

 honey, and in that time have only 

 been able to get hold of 1,000 pounds 

 at a price that we could pay and get 

 out. Very few had anything to offer, 

 as they iwere sold out. Talk with 

 beekeepers at conventions, and short 

 courses, or anywhere you chance to 

 meet them, and how many of them 

 are complaining because they cannot 

 sell their honey? I have found none. 

 If there is anyone better qualified to 

 sell honey, tell how it is produced 

 and answer the many questions asked 

 about bees and honey, than the up- 

 to-date beekeeper, who is it? It 

 surely is not a man selling a pipeless 

 furnace. I had a fellow of this kind 

 who wanted to sell my honey along 

 with the furnace this fall, and while 

 he could talk furnace, and was a good 

 salesman in his line, he knew nothing 

 about honey, and I decided he had 

 better stick to the furnace and let 

 honey alone. 



Mr. Baker points to the packers as 

 being the solution of the farmer's 

 troubles in the selling of his stock. 

 This is not a farm paper, but I can 

 say that there is not one farmer in 

 a million that would not like to see 

 this ring of 5 big packers broken up 

 and put into competition with one an- 

 other, if possible. If the exclusive 

 buying of the farmers' product has 

 been so satisfactory, why do the 

 farmers feel this way? I have been 

 a farmer for 30 years and know what 

 the farmers think of this sort of 

 thing. 



Why did the California fruit grow- 

 ers organize? Simply because they 

 were up against a similar proposition, 

 only they could help themselves, and 

 did. The same thing will happen if 

 we allow our honey to be handled 

 "exclusively" by the big fellows, as 

 Mr. Baker suggests. 



"Why should we worry about what 

 the jobber makes on our honey? 



Just this much. Whenever the job- 

 ber gets an extortionate profit on 

 honey, and has the sale of it exclu- 

 sively, he is curtailing the demand, 

 and people will stop buying honey; 

 defeating the very object that all 

 beedom is working for. There are 

 some good men in the honey business 

 •who do not produce a pound of 

 honey, and we need them, but if the 

 business was to be turned over to a 

 few big fellows, it would soon be 

 overrun with parasites, and they, like 

 "cooties," make life miserable, and 

 multiply fast. 



We believe in the doctrine of the 

 bee magazines, to cultivate our home 

 markets as much as possible. Every 

 beekeeper should further the sales of 



honey in his own territory. We are 

 on the ground, know the situation, 

 and what the market requires, better 

 than any organization. We each have 

 our place in this selling and adver- 

 tising proposition, and should not 

 think for one minute of turning the 

 selling of our product over to some- 

 one else "exclusively." If the bee- 

 keepers in general ever consider a 

 thing of this kind, let us make it co- 

 operative, and "keep it in the family." 

 There is a possibility that this may 

 come in time, but as yet it is not 

 looming in the distance. 

 Center Junction, Iowa. 



A Strainer That Doesn't Clog 



The following plan will make it 

 possible to strain honey thoroughly 

 as fast as extracted. The idea is 

 really A. G. Kursten's, as he and I 

 have exchanged work for years: 



With three platforms of different 

 elevations, the honey need not be 

 handled, but is drawn from the ex- 

 tractor into the settling tank and 

 from the tank into the containers. 

 The top of the honey tank should be 

 about six inches below the bottom of 

 the extractor. An insect-tight tube 

 should extend from the extractor 

 outlet for a foot over the edge of the 

 tank. With a yard and a half of mus- 

 lin, make a long bag which will rest 

 lightly on the bottom of the tank and 

 close the top tightly about the tube. 

 Tie a canvas cover over the top of 

 the tank to keep out dust and dirt. 

 The strainer cloth must not be a 

 stingy affair, but a big, generous bag 

 as large as a two-bushel grain sack. 

 The honey strains through the mus- 

 lin sidewise, while foreign matter 

 floats on top. With this kind of 

 strainer one can work from morning 

 till night without clogging the 

 strainer, and can draw off honey at 

 any time. WALTER REPPERT. 

 Iowa. 



More Wire Kinks 



In the December issue of the 

 American Bee Journal the article by 

 F. B. Richardson interested me much 

 and I thought it was just what I had 

 been looking for. I never could keep 

 the wires strung tight. They would 

 be tight on completing the wiring of 

 a frame, but in a short time they 

 would be loose. So Richardson's nail 

 hook method appealed to me. I at 

 once tried to put it in practice, but 

 either I did not go at it right or my 

 fingers were too clumsy to accom- 

 plish vi'hat was intended. I could pull 

 the wire tight all right, but could not 

 fasten it and keep it tight. 



While puzzling over it I lit on this 

 way: Fasten the wire around the 

 head of one of those fine nails used 

 in nailing frames, drive the nail 

 through the end bar so it is about 

 half way through, and clinch on the 

 outside. The nail to be driven from 

 the inside. Fasten the other end of 

 wire to another nail, first having de- 

 termined the proper length, and drive 

 it through the end bar as before, but 

 on the opposite end of the frame, or 

 far enough to tighten the wire until it 

 sings; then clinch the nail. 



