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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



December 



SELLING THE HONEY CROP 



Pointers from Fifty Years of Personal Experience 

 in Selling Large Crops. — By C. P. Dadant 



I HAVE read somewhere, lately, 

 the statement of a honey dealer, 

 "that the selling cost of honey 

 will run at least 100 per cent over 

 that of production." Probably it 

 does, and that is an argument in favor 

 of the beekeeper selling his honey 

 himself, for in many cases he is not 

 very busy at the proper time for 

 honey sales. But not all beekeepers 

 do it. 



Perhaps, in order to show how one 

 may succeed in selling one's crop, I 

 had best give an account of my early 

 experiences, which resulted in our 

 success in honey sales. 



In the previous number of this 

 journal, I narrated my disgust and 

 disappointment at the slight given to 

 my fine extracted clover honey, water 

 white, by the first man to whom I of- 

 fered it. This, however, did not per- 

 manently discourage me. I am rather 

 of a tenacious disposition, and faulty 

 opposition makes me more obstinate. 

 A man is very strong, when he knows 

 that the goods which he offers are as 

 represented. However, for 3 or 4 

 years, we sent a part of our crop to 

 commission men in Chicago and St. 

 Louis. Our experience with Chicago 

 was at the time of the Chicago fire, 

 1871. Luckily, the commission man 

 to whom we had sent our clover 

 honey had sold it and made returns 

 before the fire. We brought the fall 

 honey to the railroad station, to be 

 sent to him, on the day of the fire, 

 and the railroad company refused it. 

 This saved us a loss, as the man went 

 into bankruptcy. 



In 1873-4-5, we made exhibits at 

 the Iowa State Fair, which took place 

 at Keokuk, 4 miles from us. This 

 brought so many sales that we became 

 convinced that honey could be dis- 

 posed of locally, if only we became 

 known as honey producers. We took 

 first premiums. I doubt that bee- 

 keepers in general realize the great 

 profit which their business may se- 

 cure from such advertising as can be 

 had at State Fairs. It is true that it 

 costs money, but if you accept the 

 statement contained in the first para- 

 graph of this article, the expenditure 

 of $50 or $100, for an exhibition, is 

 but a small matter, if you have 5,000 

 to 10,000 pounds of honey to dispose 

 of. Only a cent or two per pound is 

 a trifle when you consider the in- 

 crease in price that you may secure. 

 Besides, the results of such advertis- 

 ing last a number of years, even if 

 you have exhibited at only one or two 

 fairs. Local fairs, county fairs, are 

 good in the same proportion, and the 

 expense is less. 



What is worth doing at all is worth 

 doing well. If you exhibit honey, it 

 must be fine, in looks as well as in 

 taste. My best winning exhibit was 

 that of 3 Quinby-Dadant full-sized 

 frames of white honey, staged in a 

 home-made show case, one behind the 



other, so that the first comb concealed 

 the bottom bar of the next, and the 

 second concealed that of the third, 

 making tiers covering about 30 inchw^s 

 in height. People stopped and asked 

 questions; that was the only require- 

 ment to help sales. 



I believe we were the first to put 

 up honey in 10-pound tins. Those 

 holding a gallon were too large; so we 

 had our tinner make such as are now 

 used, except that we did not then 

 have the improvement of the "fric- 

 tion-top" and the lid fitted over the 

 top of the pail. We aimed to sell all 

 the honey in granulated form or to 

 warn the customer of the likelihood 

 of its granulation. 



My first real active sales of ex- 

 tracted honey were in that shape. One 

 small grocer took 120 ten-pound tins 

 in one winter. But he had visited our 

 apiaries while we were producing the 

 honey and had seen us extracting, and 

 he positively knew that Dadant's 



honey was all right and did not hesi- 

 tate in guaranteeing it. That is a 

 great point. 



Then came the demand for smaller 

 packages, to my great sorrovi', for the 

 smaller the packages are, the more 

 sales you have to make for a stated 

 amount of honey. But when I called 

 upon the grocers, I was glad to be 

 able to supply packages as small as a 

 single pound. It is an unfortunate 

 thing that the consumer who can 

 least afford it, buys his supplies in 

 the most reduced shapes. The day 

 laborer, who gets his pay envelope at 

 the end of the week, is not wealthy 

 enough, or does not think he is 

 wealthy enough, to buy a whole hun- 

 dred-pound sack of sugar, or a 

 60-pound tin of honey at one time. 

 Yet he is the one who needs to buy in 

 large lots, so as to get his food sup- 

 plies at the bottom figure. But it is 

 useless for us to deplore this, since we 

 cannot help it. We must supply things 

 as demanded. 



Nothing did me more good, on 

 honey sales, than a friendly lecture 

 from a drummer of wholesale gro- 

 ceries. He explained to me, at 

 length, the necessity of convincing 

 the retailer, by all possible means, of 



Monument on a public stiuare in Florence, Italy, showing swarm of bees on a pedestal of the 

 statue of Ferdinand De Medici. (Courtesy of Sig. Ugo Lori). 



