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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



EDITORIAL 



EVERY HONEY-PRODUCER, in any 



discussion of honey markets and prices to- 

 day, should kee]> 

 IT'S UP TO 

 THE HONEY- 

 PRODUCER. 



clearly in mind 

 one central fact, 

 and that is this : 

 Honey prices 

 and markets may be made very largely by 

 the producer, and he can and should deter- 

 mine them. 



Low prices for honey in the past have 

 been the result of the producer's own part 

 played in the market. He has sold at a low 

 and unprofitable price when he could have 

 got more by tixing his price right. Espe- 

 cially is the beekeeper who sells direct to 

 the consumer or the local grocer the sole 

 maker of the price, and all too often he has 

 made that price far below the worth of his 

 product. 



As illustrating what we have in mind, we 

 recall an incident in the Wisconsin field. 

 Carload buyers made a price in a certain 

 locality there that was accepted by some 

 honey-producers and rejected by others. 

 After the big buyers had quit the field, a 

 large number of the producers that had re- 

 jected the carload offers laboriously peddled 

 out their crop as they could, at a figure 

 actually lower than the big buyers had of- 

 fered to take it at their doors. These bee- 

 keepers not only knocked down the price 

 of their own honey and established a Imv 

 local figure to be used against them in fu- 

 ture years, but they made the legitimate 

 figure for the honey as finally bottled, 

 labeled, and got on the market by the 

 wholesalers look like robbery. They blud- 

 geoned their own business all along the line. 

 It is the lack of business foresight and 

 haphazard selling on the part of honey-pro- 

 ducei-s themselves that have in the ijast 

 made a low-price honey market and an un- 

 certain and unstable market. Ignorance of 

 the honey market — knowing nothing of 

 price quotations — has been another con- 

 tributing factor to a low and undetermin- 

 able market. The producer cannot expect 



the big buyers to offer him right prices 

 when he is ignorant of the market and often 

 sells his product far below its real value. 

 In sheer self-defense against the competi- 

 tion of other big buyers, every one of these 

 big purchasers is going to get his honey at 

 as low a price as the producer will sell it. 

 He sets his price (his first offer, anyway) 

 at the possible figure of the honey-producer 

 who doesn't know the market, and who in 

 the past has sold his honey at any and every 

 price. 



The seller in his local market is especially 

 to be warned against selling at too low a 

 price. He is often tempted by any price 

 above that offered him by the big buyers. 

 But what he should consider is the fact that 

 before that big buyer has got his honey 

 bottled, labeled, packed, freight paid, etc., 

 and on the market, a minimum cost of 5 cts. 

 a pound has been added. A bottler who 

 buys at 10 cents today must sell wholesale 

 at more than 15 cents; and before the con- 

 sumer gets the honey the retail merchant 

 must have his cost of doing business out of 

 it and a small profit. Now, then, the bee- 

 keeper who sells his honey locally should 

 not set his price by what the big buyer of- 

 fered him at his door, but by the price that 

 the local grocer has to get after the honey 

 has gone thru the bottling process and the 

 usual lanes of wholesale trade. If the local 

 seller does not do this he neglects his own 

 right, and he injures the honey market 

 everywhere. 



Honey cannot take its rightful jdace 

 as a staple food product, with a stable, 

 quotable market price and a right price, un- 

 til the honey-producer himself selling in his 

 local market (at cost of much labor and 

 time), to either consumer or retail merchant, 

 fixes his standard of price — not by whole- 

 sale buyer's price for the raw product at 

 his door, but by the price of that product 

 after it has gone thru the bottler's hands 

 and returned thru wholesale channels to the 

 retail mercliant's store-shelf. 



The beekeei^er, selling locally, mn.st sell 



