322 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 14 



with the details of the work,- and it is impossible to overestimate the 

 value of this effort. It may seem somewhat strange that so great good 

 has come from this work when it must be admitted that the inspectors 

 have not done the things that are provided by the law. 



At the time that the first of these laws were passed it would have been 

 folly to go to a state legislature and ask for money for the education of 

 the beekeepers of the state. The legislators were, however, willing to 

 provide funds for the eradication of the diseases which were and still are 

 causing trouble to the beekeepers, and in almost all cases the work once 

 begun has been continued. The inspectors found the beekeepers ignor- 

 ant of the diseases, not willfully negligent, and they soon saw that the 

 right way to get these diseases under control was to teach the beekeepers 

 how to care for their bees so that the diseases would do little harm. 

 They further saw that many beekeepers were not practicing the right 

 methods in other phases of their beekeeping work, and it was natural 

 that a man good enough to be chosen as an inspector should be willing 

 and glad to help his fellow beekeepers in every way possible. There soon 

 grew up a system for the education of the beekeepers of the states. 

 The defects that appeared, and which it was tried to overcome, in the 

 way of appointment and supervision, were incident to education rather 

 than to police inspection. 



The work now so well known under the name "Extension" was begun 

 but a few years ago and this educational work has proven so useful 

 that it is now nation-wide. With the passage of the Smith-Lever Law 

 this work was made a matter for cooperative action between the Federal 

 Department of Agriculture and the Extension Divisions of the agri- 

 cultural colleges of the several states established for the purpose. With 

 the spread of this work, the value of an attack against poor agriculture 

 by means of education became evident and it is no longer necessary to 

 argue for it. Educational work of a similar character had long been 

 done in many lines of agriculture, but very little has been done for 

 beekeeping by the agricultural colleges. Beekeeping had its "extension 

 men" however in many of the states, these men working under the apiary 

 inspection laws. Extension work in beekeeping thus anticipated the 

 general work in agricultural extension by several years. 



In 1916 the Bureau of Entomology began extension work in bee- 

 keeping in cooperation with the extension divisions of several states and 

 this work was advanced rather rapidly because of the war. The work is 



^Phillips, E. F., 1916. The results of apiary inspection. Read at Apiculture 

 Section Meeting, Assn. Econ. Ent. New York: Jr. Econ. Ent. 1917. 



