BEE SUPPLY PRICES 



We are here going to make an absolutely frank statement about bee-supply prices, for we know 

 that many beekeepers feel that the present prices are not warranted. They are under the impression 

 that prices of the material we use in manufacturing bee supplies have fallen greatly, and that a drop 

 in bee-supply prices is due. We wish this were true; but, unfortunately, it isn't true. 



For more than a year, during all the time when prices of materials used in our manufacturing 

 were m'ounting higher and higher, we refrained from advancing our prices. W^e hung to the old prices, 

 hoping every day that the turn d'ownward in material prices would come. But this turn didn't come. 

 The result was that we found ourselves manufacturing much the largest part of our bee supplies at 

 an actual loss. We couldn't continue this, and on July 1, last, we made the advance to present prices. 

 Some commodities in general public use had begun to fall by that time. So it seemed to many that 

 our price advance came when the turn downward in all prices was at hand. But the fact is that the 

 prices of material we had to have in our manufacturing lof bee supplies did not turn downward. These 

 prices were still holding level, or going up. Clothing prices could go down because wiool and cotton 

 took a tremendous drop. We don't use wool and Cotton in our manufacture. We do use high grade 

 lumber and metals — and these didn't go down. 



Only today, January 7, 1921, the best quotations we can get on the grade of white pine lumber we 

 require for manufacturing our hives and hive parts, is exactly the same quotation that was made us 

 on April 1, 1920 — and we cannot get a lower qutotation. Lumber comprises fully 75 per cent of our 

 product. 



SOME PLAIN FIGURES 



We ask every fair-minded beekeeper to study the following table a moment. This table takes as 

 a basis of comparison $100 worth of raw material in 1913, and shows what thii same $100 worth of 

 raw material cost us in 1920, and the per cent 'of increase. It also takes $100 worth of our goods in 

 1913, and shows what this same $100 worth of goods costs the beekeeper in 1921, and the per cent of 

 increase. Note how very much less the increase of our prices than the increase of the raw material 

 (and our labor cost has increased 70 per cent since 1913, also). 



PRICES OF RAW MATERIALS 



1913 Costs. 1920 Costs. Per Cent Increase. 



Pine $100 ^273.33 to $333.00 173% to 233% 



Basswood 100 419.00 to 451.00 319% to 351% 



Cypress 100 273.52 to 302.00 173% to 202% 



PRICES ON ROOT'S GOODS 



Per cent Increase 



1913 1920 1921 1920 1921 



$100 worth of hives $164.32 $253.81 64% 1547o 



$100 worth of sections 226.08 382.60 126% 282% 



$100 worth of foundation 141.70 157.49 41% 57% 



You can learn from this table that lumber prices as quoted in 1920, can fall more than 100% of 

 the price of 1913, and yet show a greater increase of cost than the increase of the present prices of bee 

 supplies. 



Railroad freight rates have so greatly increased that our freight bills amounted to $75,000 more 

 in 1920 than the same amount of freight from and to the same points would have cost us in 1913. 



We would have been justified in advancing to our present prices a year earlier than we did, as 

 most manufacturers in all lines did do. Had we done so then, our beekeeping friends wiould have ex- 

 pected it — but they would not have got one year's supplies, much of which they bought at a figure 

 below the manufacturer's cost. 



THE SITUATION TODAY 



Prices of lumber of the grade we mostly use are not lower today than the average price of the 

 same grade of lumber during 1920. Large lumber operators tell us this price is up to stay up, because 

 of scarcity. This is the big item in our manufacture. The price we pay for labor is still the high- 

 est figure. The price of metals is somewhat lower, but that price is still higher than the advance pro- 

 vided for in our catalog prices. 



With these price facts placed squarely before our beekeeping friends, we say to them that our 

 prices are warranted and necessary. Another season we expect they may be lowered. But we do not 

 Ivope that we can lower them during the beekeeping season of 1921. We wish we could. 



THE A. I. ROOT COMPANY, Medina, 0. 



