No. «. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 287 



PAPERS RE)AD AND ADDRESSES DEI.IVERED AT 

 THE THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING OP 

 THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE BOARD OP^ AGRI- 

 CULTURE, HELD AT HARRISBURG, PA., JAN- 

 UARY 22 AND 23, 1908. 



REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON APIARY. 



Bt J. W. N>ls«N, Chairman. 



The season of 1907 has been an unusual one, and probably no 

 branch of industry is more vitally affected by climatic conditions 

 than that of Bee Husbandry. Owing to a mild winter, there was 

 very little actual winter loss, but a very warm week in March was 

 followed by cold and wet weather, lasting almost continuously till 

 the first week in June, causing very heavy losses almost all over 

 the country. Thousands of colonies died and thousands more were 

 so reduced as to be of no use the present season. Practically all of 

 this loss could have been avoided by careful feeding, but too much 

 other work and the hope that the weather might change sooner than 

 it did, led many to wait until it was too late. In my own case fully 

 one-half of my colonies did not produce a swarm or produce a 

 pound of honey and have scarcely enough stores to winter them, 

 while some that had honey to carry them through the unfavorable 

 spring turned off two swarms and from twenty-five to fifty lbs. of 

 surplus. The one that I reported as having Foul Brood last year 

 turned off a swarm and forty-five lbs. surplus with no sign of disease. 

 This with like reports coming from all over the country has led me 

 to doubt the wisdom of Special Legislation on this line. A weak 

 effort has been made at the last two sessions of the Legislature to 

 get a Foul Brood law passed. In both cases the result was a fail- 

 ure. The last bill offered, while containing some good features, 

 was open to the objection that it took the subject entirely out of the 

 hands of the Department of Agriculture. 



There are some very good reasons why this should not be the case. 

 Apiculture is a part of agriculture and should be a part of its work, 

 besides I am of the opinion that without a large expenditure of 

 money the work would be a failure. I am of the opinion though 

 that the same amount of money expended in educating the farmer in 

 the cause and control of bee disease would bring better results. I 

 think that we have the disease under control and that it is not only 

 necessary to kill either the bees or queen or even to destroy hives 

 or comb, but there ought to be some one in each corps of lecturers 

 fully competent to give this instruction. 



There are three essentials to success. First, to remove the old 

 bees and queen to a new hive entirely without comb, when they have 

 consumed all the honey they contained, or say the second day put 



