ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



189 



paper is jnore for the large bee-keep- 

 er. 



Mr. Stone — The first President of 

 the Illinois Bee-Keepers' Association 

 lived at Irish Grove, Illinois, and he 

 sold all his honey among the farmers; 

 he put it in gallon buckets and 

 charged them a dollar a bucket. He 

 raised a pretty large crop; he had 

 nearly 100 colonies of bees. 



L. C. Root — This matter of selling 

 honey in large quantities is one of 

 extreme importance. You remember 

 a few years ago we thought that all 

 the section honey we sold must be 

 glassed, and when we began to sell 

 honey there was no glass, you remem- 

 ber, but the result of it was particu- 

 larly when the California honey be- 

 gan to come in, and it was produced 

 without separators; that one comb 

 would run into the section adjoining 

 it, and it almost ruined our trade in 

 section honey. I remember going into 

 the different groceries here in Al- 

 bany and in the smaller towns in the 

 Mohawk Valley, and I would find they 

 had a pan made just large enough to 

 receive the case that the honey came 

 in from California. When they broke 

 that apart, it was set in there so that 

 it would catch the drippings, and the 

 dealers said they couldn't handle It; 

 they absolutely refused; and up to 

 this time the dealers in our city offer 

 ^ the very choicest honey, and the peo- 

 ple will come in to examine it — and 

 honey must show itself and advertise 

 itself — and people will come in and 

 invariably take hold of dt the flat way, 

 and you will find finger prints in it 

 wherever they can. get at it. Since 

 we are selling honey by the section 

 rather than by the pound it seems 

 almost impossible to sell the honey 

 that was gla?sed, hut it is one of the 

 large questions. The best dealers 

 say they must have it so that the 

 honey can be seen; and the first 

 thing ever\' good judge of honey does, 

 is to hold it up to the light to see 

 whether it is clear. I haven't had 

 as much practical experience in this 

 later day handling of it, only in the 

 small markets, and I "see the effect 

 of handling it and breaking it. Only 

 last year I lost one of the good market 

 men because, in delivering it, it had 

 tipped over in the delivery wagon. 

 We have with us Mr. Ellwood, who has 

 had experience right along this line 

 of glassing, and I was little surprised 



to have him tell us they still glass 

 their honey in selling it. 



GLASSED COMB HONEY AND 

 PRICES. 



Mr. Ellwood — About twenty years 

 ago, at the time glassed honey came 

 into the market, the dealers in New 

 Tork told us we should keep on glass- 

 ing our honey, and they utterly re- 

 fused to handle any honey that was 

 not glassed. They are handling our 

 honey yet. I firmly believe if all of us 

 had kept on glassing our honey that 

 the market for honey would be double. 

 I was very glad to hear Mr. Root. You 

 can't make a very fine display in win- 

 dows unless the honey is glassed, and 

 I am very sure this helps the trade 

 more than any other one thing. I re- 

 call an incident several years ago, I 

 was in a neighboring village, and a 

 man there was running a large retail 

 store, and he asked me if I didn't have 

 some honey for him. I told him I had, 

 but it was late buckwheat honey. It 

 was 18 miles from home, and I thought 

 the best way to get there was to hitch 

 up a team and drive over. I did so. 

 It was in the month of November, the 

 day before it froze up. I put on a light 

 wagon what I could conveniently carry 

 in five pound pails. These pails were 

 neatly labelled, and the word "Honey" 

 very prominently on them so that any- 

 one could read the word across the 

 room. W^hen I got there he says, "I 

 can't handle that honey, I don't want 

 any such quality of honey as that; I 

 can take two or three dozen, that is 

 all my trade will call for. I don't have 

 much call for honey." That is what 

 they all say. If the goods don't dis- 

 play themselves they don't have much 

 call. I told him I couldn't take that 

 honey back. We finally compromised; 

 I left the honey there. I piled it up in 

 a neat little form, and I agreed at the 

 end of two weeks to come and take the 

 honey away which was not sold. At 

 the end of two weeks I was surprised 

 to receive a letter saying he would 

 very much like to have me bring out 

 some more honey. 



The people would say, "What a pile 

 of honey that is; there must be some- 

 thing in that, or he wouldn't be hand- 

 ling it in such quantities." Every- 

 body wanted a pail. I was very glad 

 to hear Mr. Root's paper, it was one 

 on the right lines. We can all of us do 





