592 
MARKETING HONEY 
learn what the retail prices are and sell it 
at retail. It is always a mistake to cut prices 
under the grocer, because if the beekeeper 
ever antagonizes that individual he may 
shut oft an important outlet for his honey 
some seasons when he can not sell his en¬ 
tire product from his home. In any event 
it is always wise to work with, and co¬ 
operate with, the local dealer as far as 
possible. 
Whether selling from the roadside or 
from the shelves of the grocer the bee¬ 
keeper should have his goods put up in 
neat, attractive form. Cheap labels or 
poor glassware have a tendency to give 
the honey a cheap look. The more at¬ 
tractive the package, the more readily will 
it sell. It is usually customary to put up 
the honey in tumblers, one-pound and two- 
pound glass jars, 2^2*. 5, and 10 pound 
self-sealing tin cans or pails. It is ad¬ 
visable to use a package that the housewife 
can use over again. Tumblers, Mason 
jars, and tin pails are always useful around 
the home. Glass packages should be of 
clear glass and not a pale green. 
Labels should not only be attractive but 
show \in pounds and ounces the exact 
amount of honey in the packages. They 
should be printed by some concern who 
makes a specialty of printing labels, and 
not by some local printer who puts neither 
art nor style on the label. 
In roadside selling the sign should be 
neatly lettered. Signs poorly lettered, es¬ 
pecially with the words misspelled, often 
do more harm than good in disposing of 
the honey. It is advisable to have about 
a dozen signs a foot or eighteen inches 
long containing the simple word “honey.” 
One of these signs should be placed about 
every hundred feet down the road each 
way toward the place where the honey is 
to be sold. There should then be one large 
sign calling particular attention to the 
goods and prices. Honey should be on dis¬ 
play in a neat little booth, showing both 
tin and glass packages. If a customer 
wishes to sample, give him a liberal taste. 
If one is a natural salesman he may be 
able to dispose of his entire crop by ped¬ 
dling; for particulars on how to do this 
see Peddling Honey. 
It should be emphasized that the honey 
sold should be of uniform quality and 
good flavor. The poorer or dark honeys 
should be disposed of to some jobber for 
manufacturing purposes. In large quan¬ 
tities such honey is used in the baking 
trade. This trade demands honey of pro¬ 
nounced flavor rather than the mild honey, 
the flavor of which would be obscured by 
the cake itself with its other ingredients. 
HOW TO BOOST LOCAL SALES OP HONEY. 
There will be times when honey, at the 
local groceries and perhaps along the road¬ 
side, will be moving slowly. When this 
occurs the beekeeper can do much to stimu¬ 
late the demand for his product. By turn¬ 
ing to Orservatory Hives, he will find an 
illustration of a single comb hive with glass 
sides, the upper part shoiving a series of 
four sections of honey. The purpose of 
this is to illustrate the exact relationship 
of the combs below to the sections above. 
When one of these glass hives is filled 
with bees and the comb shows brood in all 
stages, the queen, and the bees, it makes 
an exhibit that commands attention from 
the public. Obtain permission from the 
groceryman to put one of these glass hives 
containing live bees in his show window, 
place around this glass hive both comb and 
extracted honey in attractive packages; and 
a display card should explain something 
about the bees, how they work, calling par¬ 
ticular attention to the queen. On impor¬ 
tant days and Saturday afternoons the bee¬ 
keeper himself should get into the show 
window and explain how honey is pro¬ 
duced, at the same time telling something 
about the queen, bees, and drones. 
At such a time it is advisable to have 
an open can of honey. If the demon¬ 
strator is provided with short strips of 
wood, he can dip one of these into the 
honey and ask the prospective purchaser to 
taste it. If children are present, give them 
all a taste, and everyone else who would 
like to know how delicious good honey 
really is. As fast as these sticks have been 
used for tasting, they should be thrown 
into a box and afterwards burned. It is 
important to give every person who tastes 
a fresh clean stick. 
If the local beekeeper is not a good 
talker, let him emplo.y someone who is, 
and he will be surprised how his honey 
will sell. 
