38 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



afford it, must go to such a needless 

 waste of time, labor and money, as 

 Mr. D's modern honey-producing calls 

 for. If Mr. D's surplus arrangement 

 is so faulty that his sections are soiled 

 the first year so as to be unfit for use 

 the second, I would advise him to 

 look about and get something better. 



I perfectly agree with all that Mr. 

 D. says about getting " honey in the 

 best possible shape," and putting it 

 upon the market in " faultless pack- 

 ages," having all graded and in work- 

 manlike shape, as it should be, but I 

 do not see why all this cannot be 

 done without all the labor, expense 

 and waste he advises in his last 

 paragraph. 



Borodino,© N. Y. 



E'er tbe American Bee Journal. 



me Honey Market Reports. 



DB. C. C. MILLER. 



In continuation of what I formerly 

 said on page 6, there is this objec- 

 tion to the wholesale commission 

 man : He stands as an additional 

 middle-man, and must have his pay 

 for his labor in the form of the com- 

 mission, and from this results the 

 fact that the producer gets just so 

 much less, or the consumer pays just 

 so much more than he otherwise 

 would. But this same objection holds 

 equally against wholesale dry-goods 

 merchants, or, indeed, wholesale 

 merchants of any kind, and we could 

 hardly dispense with all wholesale 

 merchandising. It is all right to 

 cultivate the home markets, and 

 probably none too much has been 

 said urging this, but certainly we 

 must not go to the opposite direction 

 so far as to say that no honey what- 

 ever must be sent to the city markets. 

 Much can, no doubt, be done to in- 

 crease the consumption in the home 

 market, but there are cases in which 

 the home market is in such condition 

 that it is but right that the denizens 

 of the city should have a taste of our 

 delicious sweets. 



Whatever may be in the future, in 

 the past the only thing to be done was 

 to sell to the city wholesale buyer or 

 send to tbe wholesale commission 

 man. I have done both ways, and 

 where I could sell outright for cash 

 I liked that plan much the best, but 

 if, by shipping to a commission man, 

 my honey would net me 10 to 20 per 

 cent, more than outright sale would 

 bring me (as has been the case), then 

 the commission -man was a blessing 

 to me. 



As to publishing the reports of 

 commission men, there is some 

 weight in the objection that Mr. 

 Baldridge makes, that they get a 

 good deal of free advertising; but I 

 am not sure that they are to blame for 

 it. If we cannot get the information 

 any other way, we must be glad to 

 get it through them, even at tbe ex- 

 pense of giving them a free advertise- 

 ment. The thing we want is, to have 

 all the light and knowledge we can 

 get, and what objection is there to 

 getting it from the commission men ? 



If honey is sold in a certain city at a 

 certain price, is it not right that this 

 fact should be published 'i Mr. Bald- 

 ridge says : " They are to a great ex- 

 tent responsible for the present low 

 prices that prevail everywhere for 

 honey." There is, I believe, much 

 truth in this. It results from the 

 fact that some of them report the 

 price of honey at a figure lower than 

 that for which they are actually 

 selling. 



A producer. Smith, sends some 

 honey to a commission man, Jones, 

 and Jones sells it at 13 cents per 

 pound when his market report reads 

 11 cents. Thirteen cents is really the 

 market price, and there is no difliculty 

 in selling at that price, and Jones is 

 selling all honey of like quality at 

 that price, but by quoting it in the 

 papers at 11 cents, he makes Smith 

 believe he is getting an extra price. 

 So far, no great harm is done, for 

 Smith gets just the same for his 

 honey as if the market quotation had 

 been correct. But here is where the 

 trouble comes. A producer in the 

 country taking the report as literal 

 truth, and basing his price upon the 

 printed report, sells his honey for 2 

 cents less than he ought, thus de- 

 moralizing the market. What is the 

 remedy ? Exclude the commission 

 men's reports 'i* Before their reports 

 were given, we had quotations of 

 wholesale buyers, and their prices 

 were still lower, and the producer in 

 basing his price upon the printed 

 quotation, did not always discriminate 

 between the two, but if 11 cents was 

 quoted it meant all the same to him 

 whether it was buyers' or commission 

 men's quotations. What shall we 

 do then V It will hardly do to omit 

 reports altogether. 



Friend Newman, on page 771 of the 

 Bee Journal for 1886, says : '• Of 

 course market quotations on honey 

 must be published," (and he is surely 

 right) " and if not supplied by the 

 commission men, they must be made 

 by the producers, or a selected com- 

 mittee by the producers' association." 

 As yet the producers' association can- 

 not make them, and I can hardly see 

 how producers can make them, so at 

 present it seems to be left to the edi- 

 tors and wholesale buyers and com- 

 mission men. 



But the difliculty comes back, can 

 we get reliable reports V As already 

 intimated, there have been cases 

 where it looked to me as if the quota- 

 tions were too high. At any rate, 

 after shipping to a point where a high 

 figure was quoted, I have received 

 much less than the quotations. In 

 this case did the dealer quote a higher 

 figure than he had any idea of obtain- 

 ing for the sake of custom, or did he 

 quote what he really could sell for and 

 was selling for ; and did this attract 

 such large shipments as to suddenly 

 depress the market ? 



The whole matter of obtaining re- 

 liable quotations is in some places 

 beset with difliculties, but at present 

 I see no better way than to continue 

 the present plan, and if there are any 

 who make dishonest reports, let such 

 reporters be reported. It is not a 

 very diflScult thing to find out by 



making inquiries something about 

 prices in the large cities, and if there 

 are those who give wrong quotations, 

 if they know the matter is being 

 looked after they may be induced to 

 be more careful. I see no reason why 

 we may not have as reliable quota- 

 tion for honey as for other products. 

 Marengo, 5 Ills. 



For tbe Amencaa Bee JoumaL 



Marketing an Over-Proiction. 



C. W. DATTON. 



Many are wedded to the idea that 

 because honey is a glut on the market 

 in Chicago, it ought to bring a cor- 

 responding price away out here in 

 the country. This is turning rela- 

 tions bottom upwards, and for the 

 sake of apiculture it should be de- 

 serted. 



In a recent issue of Gleanings, three 

 causes for the low price of honey are 

 given as over-production, general 

 depression of trade, and adulteration. 

 Of the first we have lack of consump- 

 tion ; the second has no effect, except 

 in paying debts already contracted; 

 and as to adulteration affecting the 

 price of pure honey, it is hardly ad- 

 missible. It is certain that the more 

 glucose there is in the honey the 

 lower will the price of the mixture 

 be, but when we come back to a pure 

 article we will find the old and cor- 

 responding price that is regulated en- 

 tirelv by consumption at present, and 

 has fair prospects of being so regu- 

 lated for years. Adulteration does 

 not affect standard gold. 



When we have prod uced more than 

 will be consumed as a luxury, then it 

 must supersede other sweets. I find 

 white clover at 7 to 8 cents per pound 

 with the corresponding lower grades 

 to be an able competitor. It is re- 

 ported that the price of cane-sugar is 

 now at or below the cost of produc- 

 tion. The general consumer has not 

 yet learned to supersede sugar with 

 honey ; they cannot at present, be- 

 cause there is not enough honey pro- 

 duced for the purpose. There are 

 some "weak hearted" bee-keepers 

 who have not the push and vim to 

 place their product before the con- 

 sumer, who are trying to sell their 

 product at home, and are thereby ad- 

 vancing the making of honey a cheap 

 article of food, even while it might 

 remain a high-priced luxury. I know 

 of grocerymen who buy nice comb 

 honey at 10 to 11 cents per pound in 

 trade, and sell it at 15 to 20 cents per 

 pound for cash. I know of others 

 who buy comb honey built crosswise 

 of the rows of sections, for 10 cents 

 per pound, and will not pay any more 

 for my choicest one-pound sections 

 that can be removed from the crates 

 like so many bricks. 



I have become so disgusted with 

 grocerymen that I often forget them 

 when selling honey. There are bee- 

 keepers in my neighborhood who ad- 

 vertised honey at about 6)^ cents per 

 pound, while 9,000 pounds was easily 

 sold at 8 to 10 cents per pound, and 

 there was hundreds of calls for more. 



