516 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



August 18, 



mouths, and gives more tone to your business than you can 

 imagine. 



It is surprising how interested people are in the story of 

 how yon manage your bees, and a personal knowledge of bees 

 and constant practice in handling them you will find essential 

 to the greatest success in selling honey. Tell them about the 

 three kinds of bees and the three kinds of cells. Take a 

 brood-comb out of a hive, shake off the bees, and take It with 

 you on your next trip. Choose a comb having worker-cells, 

 drone-cells, and, if possible, a queen-cell or two along the 

 edge. People are perfectly fascinated with the explanation of 

 the six-sided construction, the grouping of six cells around 

 each central one, and looking down the corn rows in the rows 

 of cells. A sheet of comb foundation half drawn out is the 

 best for this exhibition. 



Have everybody taste your liquid honey, by all means. 

 Many a person will say, " No, I don't care for honey;" and 

 after tasting a few drops of your delicious clover or basswood 

 will buy, " if what you bring is like that." 



Toothpicks are sometimes used to give a taste of honey. 

 You can't carry a teaspoon along, for people will not like to 

 eat after another. If you are calling at private houses, you 

 can ask each lady to bring a teaspoon, but even then it is best 

 to have a small stick along in case she don't want to bother. 



The nicest thing I know of is sold under the name of 

 " cigar lighters." They are pieces of soft wood 4J^ inches 

 long, '4 inch wide, and 1/16 inch thick. They are sold very 

 cheap. Stick one of them one to two inches into the liquid 

 honey, and by rolling It up like a string you can give any one 

 almost a teaspoonful of honey, if you and the other person are 

 dextrous. The lady who won't go after a spoon, will be 

 pleased with your ingenuity, and will taste your honey just 

 for fun, and you have made a sale. 



It may be useful to provide some jelly-glasses full of your 

 finest honey, to leave for a free sample with families whose 

 trade you are real anxious to secure, and who are hard to 

 reach. The first order is oftentimes the sticker. The writer 

 has chatted with certain people as long as three years before 

 getting their first order, and after that permanent customers. 



In advertising your business, remember you are in this 

 for the remainder of your !''». and nothing but a straight- 

 forward course will avail. 



Always provide yourself with a certain amount of printed 

 matter, so that you can leave your address with every person 

 you ask for trade. Cards and circulars are both rather neces- 

 sary in this day of advertising. In writing your circular, 

 give your location, average number of colonies kept ; largest 

 crop produced in one year, and names of flowers your bees 

 pasture upon. Write a clause about candied honey, and the 

 method of making it liquid again. Give a short history of 

 yourself or family as bee-keepers, and a few things that would 

 be of interest to the general public about bee-keeping. A cut 

 of a honey-extractor is always a curiosity to the non-bee-keep- 

 ing public. Cuts of queen-bee, drone, worker, bee-hive, etc., 

 can often be used to advantage. A pictorial circular will be 

 more likely read than any other kind. Somewhere in your 

 circular say, " We sell only pure honey to every one." Come 

 out as Qatfooted and decided as possible. You will find that 

 people will believe you, for adulterators do not usually use 

 such terms. 



Every package of honey sold must have a label, giving 

 your name and address. A rubber stamp to put the same on 

 every comb of honey sold is also a good plan. You will even 

 find that a copy of Gray's Botany is a valuable ally in selling 

 honey. In the front of my order book I have written a list 

 of the 30 or so different kinds of clover. Look up and name 

 the different kinds of clover in your county and adjoining 

 counties, and be able to talk Intelligently upon them. Nowa- 

 days botany is taught and studied in nearly all our good 

 schools, and this may be a valuable means of interesting young 

 and old. 



Write for your local paper bee and honey notes, under 

 your own proper name and address. This may be a most 

 valuable means of acquainting the people with your name and 

 business. No great amount of originality will be required. 

 If you take the three or four best bee-papers you can almost 

 clip enough matter to fill your column once a week. 



But, after all is said and done, nothing In the way of ad- 

 vertising Is so good as personal conversation with prospective 

 customers; and if both you and your goods are "all wool and 

 a yard wide," they will soon satisfy themselves of that fact, 

 and your golden reward will follow. 



1^" See " Bee-Keeper's Guide" offer on page 527. 



Plain Sections and Fence Separator. 



BY S. A. DEACON. 



I see It stated (page 726, 1897) that Mr. Root, Sr., 

 "claims no new feature " for the plain box-like section and 

 cleated separator combination, but we are told that his firm 

 has "just awaked to the proper appreciation of the combina- 

 tion." This is a rather humiliating confession, and certainly 

 very slow-moving on the part of the leaders of our industry ! 

 for, as stated in my last contribution to your columns, the said 

 combination is nothing new in this out-of-the-way semi-civilized 

 corner of the world. Mr. Root's admission hardly justifies Mr. 

 C. P. Dadant's assertion, or, at least, implication, that you 

 United Staters are about the smartest and most practical men 

 on the face of the earth ! It strikes me there are imitators of 

 Old Rip at Medina, as well as in Decatur Co., Iowa. 



In my opinion a perfect 7-to-the-foot section, to be used 

 with the cleated and slotted separator, is made by reducing 

 two-inch sections, having four scallops, to 1 11/16; i. e., 7- 

 to-the-foot width. This does not do away entirely with the 

 scallops, but leaves just so much of them as to afford a full 

 bee-way on all four sides when two sections are placed to- 

 gether, giving the bees ample access from all sides; this is 

 how I and others here have used them, with a separator 'twixt 

 every two rows. Of course this does not give us a section 

 having, as Mr. Root says, "four plain sides of equal width 

 throughout," but very nearly so; and the slight scallop left 

 gives the section a far more pleasing appearance, I think, 

 than the severe, inartistic " dry-goods-box arrangement," as 

 one of your contributors terms the pattern so greatly admired 

 by Mr. Root, and which, it must be borne in mind, necessitates 

 a separator m inch thick, including the cleats) for each row 

 of sections, instead of between every two rows (as used by Its 

 originator, the late Mr. B. Taylor). 



This will necessarily reduce the capacity of the dovetailed 

 8-frame hive super from 24 to 20 sections. Of course the 

 sides of the Root super can be made of J-j-inch stuff, a change 

 greatly to be desired : for, as I mentioned in a former com- 

 muuication, the present dovetailed supers are quite unneces- 

 sarily lumbersome and heavy. Even then the cleated separa- 

 tors will have to be made, not of ?8-inch stuff, but, as I make 

 them, of sawn wood separators, the slots being cut with a K- 

 Inch chisel. Then, with the sides made of i.<-inch stuft, 24 

 sections 7-to-the-foot, and 7 cleated separators may be got 

 comfortably in ; tho, by rights, the two outside separators, 

 should have '^i-inch cleats on their outer sides, and be puncht 

 chock-full of holes, a lu Pettit. 



I make my super sides of 7/'16-inch stuff, and I reckon 

 that's good enough for anything ; and if the senior Root's 

 awakening to the advantage of using narrow sections and 

 cleated separators will prove the death-knell of the clumsy, 

 unnecessarily heavy dovetailed super, he will not have opened 

 his blinkers by any means in vain. South Africa. 



[We think Mr. Deacon does not know that 24 of the 

 plain 4^4x4JixlJ^ sections (the same as with IK sections and 

 plain separators) are used in the regular S-frame %-inch 

 super with the fences or cleated separators, and not 20, as he 

 says. — Editor. J 



Selling Comb Honey to the Grocery Trade. 



BV G. K. HUBBARD. 

 [Continued Irom page oOli.l 



At your next call you find a man who hardly ever keeps 

 any honey unless he gets a little occasionally from a customer. 



" The times are too hard. It won't sell." 



"But sometimes people buy honey because times arc hard." 



" How so ?" 



" I see you have some high-priced preserves and jams on 

 your shelves here. The trade that has been getting such 

 goods is apt to buy 15 cents' worth of honey just because it 

 does not feel flush enough to buy something more expensive. 

 Or, instead of going home without candy or something that 

 the children want and expect, a man will take home a few 

 sections of honey and tell the children that these hard times 

 they will have to get their sweetmeats at the table with their 

 meals. In such cases you would sell the honey. If you had it, 

 when you would not sell either the expensive preserves or 

 confectionery. You are not paying store rent, and putting in 

 your time for amusement, but you are here to sell goods; and 

 If the people do not find what they want here they will buy 

 elsewhere." 



" I don't think my trade would pay the price for the 

 fancy honey, and I do not like the cheaper grade." 



Removing the contrast by turning the fancy case so that 



