1898 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CTLTURE 



83 



nioie. Ill this way Uie storekeeper has no 

 risk to run nor money tied up in it. 



I am now using some of Muth's honey jars. 

 I leave them ihe same way. Always use a 

 nice attractive label with your name on. I 

 also iTse one reading like this : 



" The honey contained in this package is 

 absolutely pure, ami complies with the pure- 

 food laws of Michigan." 



This has lots to do with satisfying the peo- 

 ple that it is pure. 



Well, 30U will ask, " Do you sell much? " 



The answer is, " Yes, I am now on my 7000 

 lot." Do I lose any p or accoun;;- ? No. If 

 there is a storekeeper who gets hard up, and 

 owes me, and cant p y, I take groceries, as 

 my family can always use them. If a store- 

 keeper says he would like some comb honey, 

 and hasn't the cash that day, I always leave 

 what he wants. If yoii have had any expe- 

 rience, such men are not very particular about 

 the qualit}-. When I can I leave them some 

 No. 'J, honey to sell out. In th s way I get rid 

 of all that comes to me. I never crowd an}- 

 one for my pay — give all the time needed. 



Well, you will say this takes capital. Yes, 

 it does in a town like Jackson. About !f300 

 will do. If you produce the honey, then you 

 don't need an\ . As I produce vv.ry little, I 

 have to buy my sui)ply. I pay cash. 



Now let ine give you a point right here. If 

 you start in to lurni.'-h your town, keep it up 

 and Sj;e they all ha>e honey in their stores. 

 If you neglect this you will find s-juie one else 

 has been the e with honey, and you are out. 

 Aiwa3-s buy all the local honey oiTered you, 

 pa\ing whatever you can afford. In this way 

 it keeps the honey off your market, and has a 

 tendeucv to keep prices up. 



I think the no-bee-way section is going to 

 take the lead. Mr. Aspinwall, of Jackson, 

 has 3000 lbs. in this kind of section. I tell 

 you. it is worih seeing his honey. It is as 

 square as a piece of plank, and no holes in 

 corners at all. Put me down as one in favor 

 of no-bee- wav sections and fence separator. 



Jackson, Mich., Dec. 23. 



[Your last paragraph, friend Soper, is ver\- 

 opportune, for I nm going to throw it right in 

 the face of friend Niver, who, in referring to 

 these same corner holes, says I must not "put 

 that point too strong." By the way, I am go- 

 ing to ask friend As-pinwall to send us some 

 photos of that same honey, and will have 

 them repjoduced in half-tone. — Ed ] 



"FACING" COMB HONEY. 



To What Extent Does the Practice Exist? Is it 



True that Comb-Honey Pnulucers are a 



Dishonest Set ? 



BY AARON SNYDER. 



I have been buying and selling honey f i r 

 many years, and can come to no other conclu- 

 sion, after repeatedly seeing positive evidence, 

 than that bee-keepers who produce comb hon- 

 ey (I will say nothing about extracted-honey 



] roducers), and crate and market the same, 

 are dishonest. Let me tell you why I have 

 come to this conclusion. Almost every case 

 of comb honey I ever bought has been "fac- 

 ed " — that is, the outside row of sections, next 

 the glass, was nicer than the rows in the mid- 

 dle of the case filled up with inferior quality, 

 and that very act alone, done, too, by the pro- 

 ducers themselves, has caused more mischief 

 and done more to lov\er prices than all other 

 evils combined as regards the standard of 

 comb honey production. 



A few da_\ s ago I went into a store in this 

 city to sell some extracted honey. The lady 

 who mgnages the store used very plain lan- 

 guage in lelling me that all honey -men were 

 frauds. I tried to convince her my honey was 

 pure and all right, which it was r but she 

 would not listen to me. She then called mj- 

 attention to a case of comb honey she had 

 lately bought, saying : "Just look at that case 

 of honey ov<.-r there on the counter;" and 

 added that if we bee-ketpers would cheat in 

 comb honey we would cheat in extracted hon- 

 e}- too, and gave me to understand she wished 

 I would leave the store. This lad\' had bought 

 what she supposed to be a case of nice honey. 

 The outside rows of sections were very nice, 

 but the middle ones '^ ere very inferior. She 

 said she would never buy an\ more horey of 

 that house, meaning commission man ; but 

 don't you see the conmiission man was not so 

 very much to blame? Most likely he had nev- 

 er opened the case, supposing it was put up 

 honestly, and kno2i'i?io- it should have been ; 

 and now don't you realize the whole blame 

 re>ts on the man who crated the honey ? He 

 was dishonest. Grocers the world over are 

 finding fault with us bee-keepers for tiutting 

 up honey as we do. They call us frauds, dis- 

 honest slick article, and the like. It is a 

 shame w-e as a great army of men must be 

 looked upon as frauds, humbugs, dead btats, 

 etc. ; but there is no one to blame but our- 

 selves. We deserve just what we are getting, 

 and shall, so long as we continue to practice 

 fraud and deception in trying to pull the wool 

 over our neighbors' e3es in order that we may 

 get a few more cents than honestly belong to 

 us, while, in fact, we are getting less and less 

 all the time, just bt cause honey-buyers can 

 not trust us. It's on the same principle of 

 the farmer putting up apples when he puts a 

 few nice ones in the bottom of the barrel then 

 fills it up abiiut two-thirds wnth little ones, 

 then tops it out with the very best. Don't 

 you see? Then he laughs to himself to think 

 how nicely he has cheated some one ; but, in- 

 stead, he has cheated hinifelf. 



I knew a farmer who several years ago had 

 a lo'- of poor bog haj% and conceived the idea 

 that he would bale it up in such a way that it 

 would sell for first quality ; so he engaged a 

 man to " fix it up " by wrapping good hay all 

 around the poor bog hay when baling it, put- 

 ting the bogs entirely out of sight. This man 

 ship];ed the hay to New York for sale, and in 

 a few dajs had to pay a very nice sum as dam- 

 ages in order to avoid being arrested for fraud. 

 It served him ju;t right. He ruined his repu 

 tation as a man, and just so we bee keepers 



