THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



365 



na i a single one more than we think we 

 will need, as they soil so easily; and car- 

 ried over from one season to another are 

 fit only for No. 2 honey. 



When opening- a crate of shipping-cases. 

 the first thing to do is to sort out the dif- 

 ferent pieces, and put in piles by them- 

 selves. The covers and the bottoms are 

 the same. These are sorted over, and 

 the smoothest and whitest, or best half, 

 put in piles by themselves, and used for 

 covers. 



Then there are usually a few that are 

 not suitable to case up our best honey in; 

 these stained-shipping cases can be used 

 for our shipping-culls, or they may be 

 good enough to use in shipping our No. 2 

 honey. 



We always buy the best No. 1 white 

 sections; then we like to case them up in 

 the best possible shape, and to do this we 

 have to assort our shipping-cases, as the 

 majority of shipping-cases on the market 

 correspond more nearly with the No. 2 

 section, rather than the No. 1 section, as 

 to quality. 



After going to all this pains to have 

 our shipping-cases clean and nice, it would 

 be folly to crate them up without wrap- 

 ping them in paper, then turn them over 

 to the railroad, to be loaded into a coal 

 car, just as likely as not ! 



At any rate, our honey gets to market 

 in nearly as good shape, as to cleanliness, 

 as when it left the honey house. 



SELLING COMB HONEY BY THE CASE INSTEAD 

 OF BY THE POUND. 



This brings me to an other point. A 

 few years ago the retailer used to buy his 

 comb honey by the pound, and sell his 

 sections by the piece. Now the jobber 

 wants to buy by the pound, and sell to the 

 retailer by the case. 



Mow there is just one more step, and 

 that is for the producer to grade his honey 

 so he. also, can sell by the case. 



The only draw-back to this way of 

 casing, is the necessity of so casing that 

 all the cases in a certain grade weigh 

 somewhere near the same. 



Our 4x5 X 1 ^s sections are cased in 



20-section shipping-cases; the cases 

 weighing from 1 7 to 19 pounds net, dur- 

 ing the main part of our honey flow; 

 then, towards the close of the honey sea- 

 son, when the honey is not coming so fast, 

 they are finished more lean, and weigh 

 from 1 5 to 16 pounds net, per case. 



The No. 1 and fancy honey, was all 

 cased together in one grade. This might 

 not be good policy, unless one knows what 

 he is going to do with it; in our case it 

 was sold, and graded according to in- 

 structions. 



If there had been a No. 1, and a fancy 

 grade, there would have been more varia- 

 tion in weight; the fancy would have 

 weighed 18 to 19 pounds net, and the No. 

 1 would have weighed, say, 15 to 18 

 pounds net. 



Fancy comb honey that would weigh, 

 say, 18 pounds, on the average, to the 

 20-section case, with a minimum of 17 

 pounds, would work all right to sell by 

 the case, as far as I can see; then the No. 

 1 could weigh, say, \1 pounds, average, 

 and a minimum of 16 pounds. 



This would put some of the light 

 weights, otherwise No. 1 stock, into the 

 No. 2 stock. 



Now, right here, comes in about all the 

 advantage that I can see, in selling by the 

 case, over selling by the pound, and that 

 is, any one, no matter what the idea 

 might be about grading, would be com- 

 pelled to keep the short weights out of the 

 No. 1 grade. 



While 1 have always sold our comb 

 honey by the pound, I am quite in favor 

 of selling by the case; and this year 

 (1907) we will make three grades, with 

 the idea of selling by the case; then, if I 

 should make a failure of selling by the 

 case, I could fall back on the old way of 

 selling by the pound. 



Last year, (1906) out of a crop of 

 2300 pounds of comb honey, we had only 

 three cases of No, 2 honey. Were we to 

 have graded on the above basis last year, 

 there would have been several light 

 weights. No. I's to go in with the No. 2's. 

 1 do not know how many cases we had 



