842 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 1. 



"They look real sociable in there, so close 

 together." 



After one has heard such questions upward 

 of a thousand times he begins to be tired; but 

 after all, they show how much interest is taken 

 in the subject by people who can easily be 

 turned into honey-eaters. 



One lady m as heard to say to a friend , •' That 

 strained honey is a fraud. I bought some 

 once, and it all went hack to suc^ar. T was 

 real careful of it, too, and kept it in the ice- 

 box." 



Such things show the ignorance with which 

 we have to deal, and the need of popular edu- 

 cation about honey. 



Another lady said to me, "That honey," 

 pointing to a glass jar of it, " is the nicest I 

 ever saw." It was just like all other honey, 

 except that it was put up in better style. Such 

 things demonstrate the necessity of making 

 it attractive Only a few feet away tliere was 

 an open box of one-pound tin cans of honey. 

 Nothing had been done to bring it to the no- 

 tice of buyers. No one bought it, and not 

 many people even knew it was there. 



There is one means of effecting sales which 

 is particularly gocd, and ought not to be neg- 

 lected. It is giving free samples. If you can 

 succeed in getting a spoonful of hone\ into a 

 person's mouth he will want more. I found 

 that this bait would catch not less than five 

 people out of six. 



The honey used was California sage, and 

 every one of the thousands who tasted it was 

 very much pleased with it. Some other kind 

 might have answered as well, but this it was 

 which was used. 



[I will explain to our readers that Mr. A. B. 

 Weed is a brother of Mr. E. B., the founda- 

 tion-man. For some time he has wanted to 

 demonstrate that he could sell honey by mak- 

 ing a show of live bees in a hive. When he 

 told me his experience in that line, aid how 

 he drew crowds in the city of Detroit. I told 

 him he might at least make an attempt. He 

 prepared an exhibit, consisting of an observa- 

 tory hive containing bees and a queen, some 

 small cages containing each a queen, a few 

 bees, and some drones. Along with this was 

 an assortment of extracted honey put up in 

 glass, an extractor, and comb honey in sec- 

 tions. 



The experiment was tried first in our own 

 town ; but owing to the faci that everj'body 

 in Medina is famiUar with bees it did not take 

 as well as it di I in Detroit. But still it helped 

 materially the sale of honey in our local gro- 

 cery, where tlie experiment was tr:ed ; an I as 

 Mr. Weed w.is desirous of trying it in aiioth'. r 

 place, he prepared a similar exhibit for Akron, 

 a city of about -10,000 inhabitants, about twenty 

 miles east of here. As he explains, he took 

 along two gross of jars ( No. 2.")) of honey, and 

 a can or two of California sage in bulk. The 

 exhibit was madfc at one of the most promi- 

 nent groceries, and the effect was instanta 

 neons. Not only were crowds drawn, but 

 honey began to sell in that grocery as it had 

 never sold before. Mr. W. intended to .stay 

 only a week, because we were fearful the 



experiment would not be a success ; but at 

 the end of that time he had cleaned out nearly 

 all of our extracted mountain sage, and nearly 

 all other odds and ends, and received instruc- 

 tions from Medina to keep right on. We now 

 have a whole carload of beautiful mountain 

 sage on the way, and we hope to be able to 

 suppl}'^ Mr. Weed with extracted honey of fine 

 quality, to permit him to carry out his dreams 

 that he has been incubating for sev^eral years, 

 to make hone^ sell in groceries where it had 

 been slow sale before. 



When Mr. Weed calls on a grocer he asks 

 simply for the privilege of space in a window, 

 and stipulates that, for the first two days, he 

 will make the display and sale of honey for 

 him without charge. The groceryman makes 

 all the sal 'S, but is to buy the honey (of us, of 

 course), and his profit will be the difference 

 between wholesale and retail. In two or three 

 instances Mr. Weed was requested to stay not 

 onlv two days, but a whole week, at each 

 grocery : and the way our women-folks have 

 been busv putting up the extracted honey the 

 past week or so shows prett}' conclusively that 

 the scheme is a success. 



Live bees are indeed a real novelty to the 

 average person. The habits of the interesting 

 inst cts are briefly explained by Mr. Weed, 

 the method of producing comb honey illus- 

 trated, and the modus operandi oi extracting 

 shown. 



I omitted to ?tate that, on top of the observ- 

 atory hive, is put a row of sections of sealed 

 comb honey. Mr. Weed explains how the 

 comb honey is produced. He has also some 

 extracting - combs filled with sealed honey. 

 When he gets big crowds he extracts two or 

 three co'ubs to show how the job is done. 

 This one fact alone inspires confidence in the 

 consumer, and of course he not only buys 

 what is real honey, but what he honestly be- 

 lie'i'cs to be a pure article. 



Mr. Weed has another scheme. When the 

 crow Is will not buy he has on hand a lot of 

 piper spoons — oblong strips of stiff paper 

 about two inches long Pud an inch and a 

 quarter wide. He curves one of these into a 

 sort of trough, dips it into the thick mountain 

 sage, and tran=;fers it to his mouth. Handing 

 out the " spoons " he invites the crowd to do 

 likewise. Of course, there is a smacking of 

 the liiis (the spoon thrown away), and, " Um, 

 um ! that's good ; I must take some home to 

 my wife." 



Perhaps it is a little late yet to make an ex- 

 hibit of live bees, but we are doing it all the 

 same, and I can as=ure you it is a great holi- 

 day attraction. — Ed ] 



SELLING HONEY DIRECT TO GROCERS. 



Giving Commission Houses the Go-by; Selling 



Honey by the Piece Rather Than by Weight; 



a Racy and Interesting Article. 



BY MORTON'S BROTHER-IN-LAW. 



One day, about the first of October, Morton 

 and I were busily scraping sections, and not 

 sorry to see the end of that tedious task ap- 



