c 



Z! 



Januau., 1917 



DURING 

 N ovember 

 ITVo inches 

 (if snow fell here 

 in Bonlder, and 

 much more than 

 that on the 

 F r o n t Range, 

 thirty miles to 



the west and two miles up. The early 

 snow is well packed; and as our soil is in 

 excellent condition we cannot yet complain 

 of prospects for next year. 



* * * 



Extracted honey has shown a good de- 

 mand, and the prosperity of the farmers is 

 quite a factor in this, here in the West. 

 The farmers are getting the habit of buying 

 in 60-lb. cans; and hundreds if not thou- 

 sands of cans are sold in Colorado this way 



each year. 



* « * 



The writer has had a traveling man on the 

 road, selling honey since the first of Septem- 

 ber. He is traveling in a Ford, and so far 

 has made about five thousand miles. He 

 has had some experiences selling honey in 

 five states. Selling honey only, with no 

 side line, takes pushing to make it go, 

 especially when so many are underselling. 



WHERE THE MONEY GOES. 



The beekeepers go for the retailer and 

 commission man, and see the great differ- 

 ence betAveen what the producer gets and 

 what the consumer pays, failing to see 

 where all the expense comes in. Here are 

 a few items to show where the money goes. 

 We will call it the cost from the producer to 

 retailer and will leave out the middleman 

 this time. Using 60 lbs. of honey as a 

 basis we will put it up in 5-lb. pails for 

 the trade. 



60 lbs. extracted honey at 7 cts $4.20 



Melting and heating honey 03 



12 5-lb. fri(>tion-top pails at 6 cts.. . .72 



Labels for pails 03 



Box for shipping pails 16 



Shipping honey to retailer 40 



Cost of selling to retail trade 15 



per cent 1.20 



Loss in accounts, 2 per cent 16 



Average loss in leakage 02 



Cost of charging, billing, and col- 

 lecting 15 



G I. E A N I N G S IN BEE CULTURE 



AMONG THE ROCKIES 



Wesley Foster 



1 



^^^^^^^^ 



Selling price to retailer, $8.00. 



$7.07 

 .$8.00 

 7.07 



$ .93 

 This leaves 93 cents for interest on money 

 and all work in i^i'eparing honey and ship- 

 ping. The beekeeper has, of course, the 



49 



can left, which 

 is worth some- 

 thing. Some are 

 selling to relail- 

 eis for less than 

 $8.00 per dozen 

 and some for 

 more. When 

 the retailer pays 

 $8.00 a dozen he sells the 5-lb. pails for 

 90 cents to a dollar each. Then he charges 

 the account, and may be he gets his money 

 and may be doesn't. 



Now, this i^icture is not very encouraging 

 for either the beekeeper or the retailer ; but 

 let us see how the beekeeper can get more 

 for his honey and the consumer pay less. 



We will take 60 lbs. of honey and price it 

 at $6.00 a can boxed ready for shipment by 

 express or freight. We cultivate the farm- 

 er trade, because the farmer trade comes 

 back year after year better than does the 

 grocery trade. The farmer always pays 

 cash and he pays the freight. The cost of 

 selling to farmers is from five to ten per 

 cent, or an average of 7I/2 per cent, wliich 

 is, say, 45 cents a can, leaving $5.55 net 

 for 60 lbs. of honey to the producer, and the 

 honey costs the farmer $6.75 if he buys one 

 can, and about $6.40 per can if he buys two 

 cans. The producer gets 9 cents a pound 

 net, and better for his extracted honey, and 

 the consumer gets his honey for 10% cts. 

 to llVs cts. per pound instead of 15 or 16 

 cents a pound in 5-lb. pails. Such a mail- 

 order ti-ade is slow building up, but Avhen 

 built it stays if your honey is right. 



D. C. Polhemns, of Lamar, Colorado, 

 operates about 2000 colonies of bees, and 

 already this year has bought thi-ee ears of 

 extracted and about a ear of comb honey for 

 Iiis trade. This shows what may be done in 

 building up a honey trade in a section of 

 country not three hundred miles long by 

 perhaps one hundred and fifty wide. The 

 population will not exceed half a million, 

 and he has competition too. 

 * * * 



Some of us are fixed for quickly chang- 

 ing from comb to extracted honey produc- 

 tion, but more of us are not. Can the bee- 

 keeper afford to change from one to the 

 other as the markets fluctuate? Last year 

 extracted honey sold for 31/2 to 5 cts. a 

 pound all over the West. This year the 

 extracted-honey man has his inning, while 

 the comb-honey producer is holding his 

 crop. Where is the wisest counsel? What 

 is a man to do when Christmas comes and 

 all of his crop is still on his hands and no 

 buyers? The man who criticises him for 

 selling low gets the fii-st brick. 



