Marketing the Honey Crop 323 



making up a blend, it is furthermore not desirable to use 

 all water-white honeys, for at some time the supply of such 

 honeys may be limited, and the consumer will not under- 

 stand why honey of a certain brand has suddenly become 

 darker. It must be remembered that the average consumer 

 is ignorant of the facts that honey varies and that honeys 

 from different sources are unlike in color and flavor and 

 it is useless for one bottler to attempt to educate the entire 

 community on these points in which the consumers have 

 no interest. If he sells pure honey that has a good flavor 

 and if he can duplicate it when desired no further informa- 

 tion is asked by the average consumer. In making a blend 

 it is a good plan to include some sage or tupelo honey as 

 these granulate slowly and granulation injures the salability 

 of bottled honey. An important consideration is the choice 

 of honeys which can be obtained in quantity year after 

 year. To bottle honey for the better niarkets, it is, there- 

 fore, usually necessary to buy some from various sources 

 and the beekeeper who retails honey on a considerable scale 

 should not depend solely on his own apiaries to supply him. 

 In fact, even an extensive series of out-apiaries will not 

 go far toward supplying an energetic salesman. 



Argument for blending. 



In the preparation of this chapter the author consulted a 

 beekeeper of experience and the preceding paragraph was 

 criticized on the ground that the blending of honeys hides 

 the characteristic flavor of honey from each source and, 

 therefore, the flavor of a blend is usually inferior to that 

 of some of the honeys that go to make it. To a connoisseur 

 this is true, but a comparison with another commodity may 

 serve to show that to the average palate this is not the case. 

 The average purchaser of tea buys a certain brand of pack- 

 age tea because he knows it is dependable and uniform. He 

 does not know nor does he care what teas are mixed in this 

 blend, but he may know enough about tea to know that an 

 individual kind of tea varies and he does not like the varia- 



