licport of Apiarij Inspector. 61 



REPORT OF APIARY INSPECTOR. 



Springfield, Mo., Jan. 19, 1910. 

 To the Honorable Members of the State Board of Agriculture : 



Gentlemen — In presenting this, my annual report for the year of 

 1909, I wish first to call your attention to the fact that some additional 

 help is grea,tly needed in the line of inspection work. The past season 

 has demonstrated this need beyond question. 



As was pointed out in my last year's report, this work could best 

 be accomplished by special deputies appointed by the inspector for special 

 work in diseased districts. In every community where disease ex- 

 ists, will be found a few individuals who are either too busy with other 

 matters, or are too careless and indifferent to the rights of others, to 

 treat their diseased bees without exposing the same to neighboring yards. 



It is impossible for the inspector to stay and personally attend to 

 all such cases, for he never could get over all his territory. But in 

 nearl}^ every community can be found some person who can be trusted 

 to attend to such work, and who would be willing to donate a part of his 

 time in order to get disease promptly treated in his neighborhood. 



The important thing in this work is to get all the diseased colonies 

 of a neighborhood treated as near the same time as possible, so that there 

 will be no diseased ones left to spread the infection to healthy col- 

 onies, and those newly treated. The time required for this special work 

 would not be great, and the expense could be made very light, but the 

 results would be telling in the eradication of disease. 



The total number of colonies inspected during the season of 1909 

 was 2,922, of which 151 were diseased. AVhile the results in the inspec- 

 tion work have not been so great as those of the previous year, nor was 

 as much territory covered ; yet the work has been harder and more ex- 

 acting on the inspector and performed under greater difficulties than 

 the work of 1908. The reasons for this were : 1st, the cool and exces- 

 sively rainy weather of the spring and early summer, which greatly re- 

 tarded inspection w'ork. During this rainy season, the inspector got the 

 benefit of several spring showers, and on one occasion came near being 

 drowned in a swollen stream. 2nd, some of the best time for inspection 

 work was lost while waiting for the appropriation to be made available 

 for this work. 3rd, the extremely hot and dry weather made inspection 

 work very difficult,, for the blooming season of nectar-producing plants 



