Gleanlngs'in'Bee Culture 



liie-sling applied to the arm for curin? rheumatism. 



EDUCATING THE GROCER. 



Some of his Objections to Handling Honey. 



BY WESLEY FOSTER. 



In the course of a little experience in sell- 

 ing honey to dealers, various objections 

 were otTered, some of them by hundreds of 

 dealers, showing that there was and is 

 ground for the objections. The writer has 

 had all these to overcome in many cases, 

 and will try to give the objections in the 

 order of their importance as shown by the 

 persistence of their repetition. 



1. Honey does not sell here at all. I nev- 

 er have a call for comb or strained honey. 



2. It is too expensive. My customers can 

 not afford it. They buy corn syrup and 

 New Orleans molasses instead. 



3. There is no profit in handling honey. 

 The jobber and producer want it all. 



4. All honey is adulterated. The "strain- 

 ed" honey is sugar syrup flavored with 

 honey "extract," and comb honey is artifi- 

 cial, made from i)arafTin and glucose. 



5. Honey sells so slowly with me that it 

 sugars or spoils, gets dusty, or the Ihes 

 make a sticky mess of it on the shelves, 

 and I finally have to throw it away. 



(>. Tiny red ants swarm after it; and as 

 the candy-case is the only one which will 

 keep out the ants, there is no place to keep 

 the honey from them. 



7. Comb honey dries up, evaporates, and 

 the cells become empty. 



8. It "combs," or all goes to wax in the 

 glass jars (this is the explanation of "can- 

 dying"). 



9. Honey is used only as a medicine for 

 colds, sore throat, etc. 



10. The honey raised here is not as good 

 as that in the East. Buckwheat is the fin- 

 est-flavored honey grown, and the color va- 

 ries from clear white to a rich dark brown. 



As I have gone over these objections giv- 

 en by grocers, and have analyzed them, I 

 have found that they arise from three causes. 



First, ignorance of the consumer concern- 

 ing honey; second, ignorance on the part 

 of the retailer; and, third, ignorance (or at 

 least failure to prepare honey for the mar- 

 ket i)roperly) on the part of the bee-keeper. 



Objections one, two, four, nine, and ten 

 exi)lain why customers do not order honey 

 with other groceries, and all these objec- 

 tions can be overcome by education "hon- 

 ey ward." If we bee-keeepers had been as 

 zealous as other "sweet-goods peoi^le," we 

 should have a hard time supplying the 



