276 



GLEANmGS IK 13EE CULTURE. 



Ai'ii. 



LOW PKICE3 OF HONEY. 



SHALL WE KETAIL IT AT HOME, OR SEND IT TO 

 THE CITYV 



flilEND ROOT:— In your comments upon my 

 article in Gleanings, pag-e 133, you say that 

 you have heard of no one selling- his houey 

 forScts. per lb. If you turn to the market 



reports you will tiud the (]Uotati{ins from 6 to 

 8 cts. in Boston. Some quotations say no demand 

 for extracted honey; comb honey all the way from 

 10 to 15; mostly centers on 13;4. My crop of honey 

 was 80l!0 lbs. I have been working- off 3J00 in the 

 home market; .5000 I shipped to diUerent parties in 

 New York. One lot was sold for 6 cts. per lb. After 

 paying freightage, commission, and taking out cost 

 of barrels, I find the honey nets me 5 cts. per lb. I 

 Avrote to friend Muth, our relinblo cash buyer, ear- 

 ly in the winter, for his prices for extracted bass- 

 wood honey. He would give 6 cts. but I must deliv- 

 er it. By the time it was put down in Cincinnati 

 the freightage and cost of barrels would leave me 

 but about .5 cts. per lb. 



In relation to working up the home market, I 

 have the same experience as Mr. Todd, of Philadel- 

 phia, only in a less degree. He says, " I have tried 

 to develop a honey business here; and with a mil- 

 lion people I can only say it is a heart-breaking 

 job." Perhaps it is because it is Philadelphia. I 

 have wondered many times why we never had quo- 

 tations, or any indications of a honey mai-ket at all, 

 in so large a city as Philadelphia. 



Every bee-keeper who has had any degree of suc- 

 cess has more or less competition. Other bee-keep- 

 ers in his own and adjoining towns enter the mar- 

 kets with him; and where his crop is in tons he can 

 not work it all off. It has been recommended as an 

 excellent plan, to i)lace honey on sale in stores, far 

 and near, and visit the stores often erough to keep 

 up the supply. The honey will have to be put up in 

 small packages, and sold at a low price, with a com- 

 mission to the grocer, which, added to the expense 

 of keeping a team on the road, will reduce j'our 

 profits again to 5 cts., or so near it that you will 

 wish you had got rid of all the fuss and worry by 

 shipping your honey in bulk to some reliable com- 

 mission house. To show you how rapidli' honey 

 ^yill sell when leftin the show windows of a grocery, 

 I give you the following: Oct. 11th I left 16 pails of 

 honey with a reliable gi-oeer in a thriving manufac- 

 turing village of about 10,000 population. The hon- 

 ey was put up in pails, nicely labeled. 1 lef t — 

 Four 5-Ib. pails at (10 pts. each, to be soldjfor 7.5. 



Kour2M-lb. •■ " 32 ' 40. 



FourlK-lb. " '-17 " " " " " " 2.'>. 



Four lib. " " 12 ' " " " 18. 



My price per pail would average mo 10 cts. per lb. ; 

 then adding- the price of the pail gave me my prices. 

 The last column gives the prices sold at, and the 

 dift'erence between that and the ne.xt <M;>lumn gives 

 the grocer's profits. In six weeks after leaving this 

 small lot I called and found a few of the smaller 

 pails sold. A few days ago I called again and found 

 all sold but two 5-lb. pails. The grocer thought he 

 would want more of the small pails, but he would 

 let me know by postal. The postal has not arrived. 



At the same time I left some comb honey, and 

 that was as slow sale as extracted. In another vil- 

 lage I have a cash purchaser for small lots put up 

 in the Jones pails. His sales have been a little bet- 

 ter, but not enough to give much enthusiasm. 

 . There is one peculiarity about, the sale of honey 

 that I presume every boe-kcepcr has ncticed. You 



may have an excellent customer for your honey for 

 a time, when all of a sudden he stops short rtf; and 

 when you inquire the reason he tells you that the 

 children eat so much of it they all get sick, and 

 can't bear the sight of it on the table, "and wife 

 and T don't like it so well as we did." Eating honey, 

 with some people, is like eating quails. You soon 

 get satisfied, and no more goes down. In relation 

 to comb honey at 10 cts. per lb., I was informed that 

 a large producer sold his honey at so near 10 cts. 

 that, after taking out expenses of shipping, etc., I 

 was safe in saying 10 cts.; furthermore, dealers in 

 New York quoted me comb honey at ISij cts. Now 

 take out commission, freightage, and breakage, and 

 how much are you above 10 cts.? 



These low prices are facts wc have got to face. 

 You say you would give 5 cts. for any quantity. 

 Perhaps you are so fortunate as to receive cash 

 orders from remote points, and can aflord to sell 

 your honey thus; but we haven't all got that wide 

 reputation, and we find it costs money to get it. 



Hartford, N. Y., Feb. 24, 1886. J. H. Martin. 



Your facts are somewhat discouraging, 

 friend M. ; but even if facts are stubborn 

 things, I suppose it is good to have them. 

 Will friends France and Coggshall, who 

 make honey-extracting a business on a large 

 scale, tell us if their honey does not net them 

 more than 5 cts.V When I spoke of the price 

 5 cts., I supposed you meant that you sold it 

 at that figure, and were obliged to furnish 

 barrels, and deliver it besides. Probably 

 the grocer in that town of 10,000 inhaliitants 

 sold only a very small part of the lioney re- 

 tailed in that town ; and if other grocers 

 sold as much as he did, it might not be such 

 a very bad showing, after all. It seems to 

 me that the fact that he sold all except two 

 of the largest pails would be a fair indica- 

 tion that it would pay to give him another 

 supply. 



THE VANDEUSEN CLASP, 



FOR F.\STENING STORIES TOGETHER, FOR FASTEN- 

 ING MOVABLE BOTTOM-BOARDS, ETC. 



tOTTOM- BOARDS nailed fast, or bot- 

 tom boards loose from the hive, have 

 been discussed and argued over until 

 the question has been dropped by mu- 

 tual consent— one party declaring they 

 never wanted another loose bottom-board iii 

 the apiary, and almost as many declaring 

 they never want a hive with the bottom-board 

 nailed fast. To accommodate both parties, 

 one of our veteran bee-friends, Mr. C. C. 

 Vandeusen, of Sprout Brook, N. Y.. some 

 years ago invented the device tigured below. 



THE VANDKl'SEN CLASP AS IT APPE.VRS ATTACHED 

 TO A HIVE, CLASPING THE UOTTOM-BOAKD. 



Little hooks, made of malleable iron, have 

 been used for this purpose, so arranged as 

 to catch on two screws ; but these are objec- 

 tionable, because theve is not suflicient pow- 



