April, '09] JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 115 



MEANS WHEREBY THE ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGIST 



CAN ADVANCE APICULTURE^ 



By E. F. Phillips, Washington, D. C. 



Bee keeping in the United States is progressing and considerable ad- 

 vances are being made in various phases of the work, but there still 

 remains much to do before apiculture as an industry takes its rightful 

 place as a phase of scientific agriculture. The honey resources of the 

 United States are very great. At present vast quantities of nectar 

 are wasted every year because of the lack of bees to gather it, and, 

 even where bees are kept, the wastefulness due to crude and improper 

 manipulation is entirely too great. Persons interested in the advance- 

 ment of this industry fully realize this condition of affairs, but the dif- 

 ficulty is to set in order machinery whereby these conditions may be 

 overcome. 



Apiculture is a branch of economic entomology and should be recog- 

 nized as such. It is true that the nature of the work is quite unlike 

 that of most of the work in economic entomology in that the object 

 is to propagate rather than to destroy. The difference is not so great, 

 however, when it is recognized that apiculture is primarily a study in 

 life history but of a very detailed nature. 



At present apiculture is advancing somewhat slowly and for two 

 reasons. The main obstacle is bee disease, which causes a great an- 

 nual loss to the bee keepers of the country and prevents the enlarge- 

 ment of operations. The second obstacle and the one of which I wish 

 to speak particularly, is the need of competent and comprehensive re- 

 search and educational work among those interested in bees. 



In speaking of the work which the economic entomologist maj- do in 

 helping this industry, there are several points which may be mentioned 

 at once to forestall any presentation of them as objections. The 

 economic entomologist is a very busy man and work on bee keeping 

 would be adding to his already heavy work. The amount of money 

 available for a new line of work is usually small or possibly entirely 

 lacking and, in most cases, work on bee keeping would be a new line 

 of work. The training for work on bee keeping is not usually in- 

 eluded in that furnished a prospective economic entomologist and it 

 is a safe assumption that the practical manipulation of bees would be 

 new work to most men engaged in state work. It therefore follows 

 that any work which may be undertaken, in most cases at least, must 



'This paper was read by title at the meeting, but as it is closely related to 

 the one which follows, it is inserted at this point in the report. — Secbetaby. 



