288 ANNUAI^ REPORT OF THE OfC. Doc. 



them on comb foundation. Next take the hive containing the brood 

 to a new location, lieep almost closed till brood is all hatched. Des- 

 troy all queen cells and keep queenless at least twenty days, then 

 give them a queen cell just capped, by the time this queen emerges 

 from her cell all old honey will have been consumed and the bees 

 will have the cells all cleaned out. Third — carefulness. If these 

 simple instructions are carefully carried out, all will be well, but it 

 must be remembered that no flying bees from the diseased hive be 

 allowed to enter any other hive as they will carry the disease. To 

 do this it must be done after the bees quit flying for the day, and it 

 would be well to cover with a cloth the hives nearest the diseased 

 one. It will also be necessary to close the entrance of the hive con- 

 taining the diseased brood one day and then to watch closely that 

 no robbers get in. If the young bees get short of stores they must 

 be fed, and if the larva?, are 40 per cent, or more diseased, it will not 

 pay to bother with them, in this case the combs and brood should 

 all be burned. The unfavorable weather of April and May was 

 about as disastrous to the fruit as to the bees, most of the Japan 

 Plums and peach trees dying to the ground. There was a light run 

 of honey in June, a fairly good basswood flow. Buckwheat was not 

 worked on but a few days, but we had a good flow for two weeks on 

 the goldenrod and astors, colonies that were strong making a good 

 surplus. Reports vary. Some sections report a fairly good yield 

 while others report failure. On the whole the crop is about 80 per 

 cent, both in Pennsylvania and most of the United States. The 

 Department of Agriculture is not doing as much as it should for 

 the industry. There is too much money going out of the State for 

 honey, too little of it consumed, while too many thousand dollars 

 worth goes to waste ungathered. So that there is a large field open 

 for development. While it is all right to encourage the farmer to 

 produce more honey, it is a question whether he can make it a suc- 

 cess, or whether we are not approaching in agriculture as in mechan- 

 ics, an age of Specialized Industry. 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON DAIRY AND DAIRY PRODUCTS. 



Bt R. J. Weld, Chairman. 



The year 1907 has been a remarkable one for high prices. Dairy 

 products have not been the exception. The year entered with but- 

 ter at 32 cents and the market did not fall below 22 at any time dur- 

 ing the year, going back up to 30 cents at the close of the year. The 

 demand for dairy products has been brisk throughout the year and 

 the man who was in a position to supply found a ready market at 

 good prices. The gross returns from the dairies have been larger 

 during the past year than for several years previous but this is 

 off-set by the high prices of feeding stuffs so that the net return has 

 not been as much in excess of previous years as some might expect 



