198 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



June 



made the consumer dissatisfied, or 

 brought it back a second-hand pail 

 • r lost custom through charg- 

 ing a higher price for their honey 

 than those who sold gross weight. 



All this confusion of selling prac- 

 tice resulted in heart-burning and in- 

 crimination, until the decision of the 

 i lion established a standard 

 which most beekeepers now observe. 

 In selling gross weight the bee- 

 keeper does not conceal from the 

 buyer the fact thai he is sharing 

 with him the cost of the package, 

 the custom is general and there is no 

 objection. Where the net weight 

 custom is enforced by law, as in the 

 United States, prices become adjust- 

 ed accordingly. Ultimately the con- 

 sumer pays— he must if production is 

 to be continued; and it amounts to 

 about the same thing whether we 

 sell net weight or gross weight, so 

 long as all sell the same way. 



Sixty-pound tins are always filled 

 net weight. These are sometimes 

 made too large and the novice puts 

 in amounts varying from 62 pounds 

 to 65 pounds, keeping account of 

 them and itemizing the weights in 

 his invoice when selling. He is un- 

 fortunately, though not unjustly, dis- 

 appointed to find that the buyer will 

 only pay for a standard amount in a 

 standard package. 



Glass Containers for Honey 

 Well liquefied honey is sold in a 

 great variety of glass containers, 

 from two-quart jars down to small 

 bottles for individual service. First 

 cost, breakage, boxing and increased 

 freight rates make glass an expen- 

 sive package; but it puts up an at- 

 tractive appearance and pleases 

 Madam Fastidious Buyer. The indi- 

 vidual service bottle is absolutely 

 necessary if patrons of public eating 

 places are to have honey at all. 

 Honey is too "sticky" to serve in 

 public in the usual way. 



Paper Containers for Honey 

 From time to time different forms 

 of paper Tioney containers have been 

 advocated. Parafincd manilla paper 

 bags, advocated by R. C. Aikin. of 

 Colorado, were among the first. He 

 ill,,! them with alfalfa honey and 

 let them stand open until it granu- 

 lated, then folded the top', down and 

 sealed them. They were nicely print- 

 ed in • , ili irs w ith the beekeeper's 

 ,,n(! brand, and made an at- 

 tractive package. 1 filled all sizes of 

 from the 10-pound size down, 

 with clover honey, which granulated 

 hard and firm. Some high-class gro- 

 cers tried them, hut they did not sell 

 well. Their customers preferred 

 liquid honey when they could get it. 

 Furthermore, the bags could not be 

 kept long in a warm temperature 

 withoul soft and sticky. In 



ol whose 

 ng qualities I. 1st SO 



much. . ii rishable and 



■ dealer 

 who did not happen to 

 promptly. Next came cone-shaped 

 paper milk bottles, recommended by 

 W. A. Pouder, of Indianapolis. Their 

 fate was the same as that of the 

 bags. 

 About that time opening large tins 



or barrels of granulated honey in the 

 grocery store and retailing the 

 honey wrapped in paper like bulk 

 butter was tested extensively. In 

 one case a barrel of clover homy, 

 without the barrel, was made the 

 center-piece of a grocer's Christmas 

 window, and created quite a sensa- 

 tion. In another case the manager 

 of a chain of provision stores in On- 

 tario arranged with a beekeeper to 

 purchase clover honey in 60-pound 

 blocks in tin or wood, intending to 

 strip and use them for window dis- 

 plays before cutting them up to retail 

 by the pound. 



These practices were soon discon- 

 tinued; but we thought the failure 

 was due to prejudice in favor of 

 package goods for retail and cast 

 about for a convenient and inexpen- 

 sive package for granulated honey. 

 We still believed that Mrs. Fastidious 

 Buyer would like granulated honey 

 if we got it to her in the right way. 

 So "honey bricks" were introduced. 

 That is. the block of honey was cut 

 up with wires into bricks of uniform 

 size, a butter-cutter being used for 

 the purpose. Each brick was 

 wrapped in thin waxed paper and 

 placed in a carton, which was then 

 covered with a lithographed label, 

 fastened at both ends with tasty 

 seals. 



In the Pettit apiaries honey bricks 

 were tested most thoroughly. They 

 sold well at first, but repeat orders 

 came slowly, the preparation of them 

 was slow, disagreeable and expen- 

 sive, and the second season we did 

 not think the matter worth following 

 up. Even the firm who advertised 

 them most widely does not seem to 

 have any more to say about them, 

 and I do not know of any style of 

 paper package being marketed ex- 

 tensively at the present time. 



So the pendulum of the paper 

 package has swung with the years 

 and the reasons for its failure to 

 stay may be summed up as follows: 



When the two are marketed side 

 by side, honey which has been care- 

 fully liquefied sells more freely than 

 granulated honey. Even the best 

 honey we are able to secure does not 

 always granulate with a smooth, dry 

 grain, suitable for a paper package. 

 If left exposed to the air honey gen- 

 et. illv loses aroma, flavor and spe- 

 cific gravity, yet such exposure is 

 practically necessary when paper 

 bags are filled for granulation. All 

 ■ .iiiel.it, ,1 honey becomes soft in 

 time, so that the paper package 

 would not be safe for honey stored 

 beyond the winter months. Yet this is 

 likely to occur at any time, :1ml 

 thus one of the chief arguments for 

 honey 1- lo I 



The chief arguments in fa 



ii, paper package are its cheapness 



and lightness; but for shipping, it 

 w ould re, [Hire 1 r, mger and 111, 11 i < 



pensive crates For those who like 



granulated honey they open up \<r\ 



nicely for serving, provided the 



has granulated well and has 



not gone soft. If the time should 



that we cannot get tin at any 



inblc price, paper seems the 



best substitute in sight. Until then 



I cannot see that tin is any more ex- 

 pensive in proportion to the price of 

 honey, or of paper than it has ever 

 been. Prices of all three have ad- 

 vanced. Dollars are cheaper than 

 they were. It takes more of them to 

 buy the necessaries of business and 

 of life, so we stand about wdiere we 

 did ill that respect. 

 - Georgetown, Out. 



Being Sweet Without Sugar 



By Mary G. Phillips 



N( >W that the canning season is 

 upon us, every woman's 

 thoughts turn toward sugar. 

 Will there be enough for all of us to 

 do the canning and preserving that 

 is necessary in order to save the 

 fruit in our gardens? We are as- 

 sured by the Food Administration 

 that what sugar there is will be 

 fairly and equally distributed, but of 

 course that means with the co-opera- 

 tion of every housewife. In a de- 

 mocracy like ours, the success of 

 any plan of dividing food stores de- 

 pends upon the willingness, sincerity, 

 earnestness and common sense of the 

 consumers, and that is what Mr. 

 Hoover is banking on in his plan for 

 the fair division of sugar. 



We all know that there is not 

 enough sugar now in the world to al- 

 low us the annual 81.6 pounds per 

 person that we are accustomed to. 

 But we also know that that is too 

 much sugar for our own good. Eng- 

 land is the only other nation to use 

 such large quantities of sweetening, 

 for her usual sugar ration used to be 

 even larger than ours — 86.3 pounds. 

 People who live very active lives 

 where muscular exertion is con- 

 stantly necessary, need a great 

 amount of sugar, becaii3> it is rapidly 

 assimilated and its energy becomes 

 immediately available to the body, 

 but the ordinary person needs very 

 little. The only defense that most 

 us have for the amount of sweets 

 that we eat is that sugar improves 

 the taste of many foods, and we like 

 it. Before the war, Germany and 

 France were using just about half as 

 much sugar per person as we were, 

 and Greece and Italy were eating 

 only about 7 pounds a year per per- 

 son. Can you imagine the average 

 American cutting down his ration to 

 that? It would undoubtedly mean 

 going without soda water and ice 

 cream between meals, tabooing cake 

 and candy, eating unsweetened cereal 

 and all sorts of "sugar sacrifices," 

 but it can be done, and if we can 

 taste the sweet fruits of victory by 

 now eating unsweetened foods, I 

 move that we do it. It is carried 

 unanimously, and so there will be 

 quantities of sugar relea ed 

 ,,, 1 1,, P i eservation of this si 

 fruit nop. Dr. Alonzo Taylor says; 



"Everything thai we do, plan, eat. 

 wear, must be analyzed and meas- 

 ured from one single point of view- 

 will it contribute to the carrying on 

 of the war, or will it contribute to its 

 prolongation? There is no other 

 thing in the world for us but to de- 



