August, '16] PHILLIPS: PURPOSE OF COLLEGE BEEKEEPIXG 415 



It is too much to expect the college teachers of beekeeping to keep 

 up the supply of professional beekeepers, for the relatively few who go 

 to college are not all expecting to make beekeeping their Hfe work. 

 There must be some way of reaching the majority who do not go to 

 college and for this we must try extension work. This is not the phase 

 of beekeeping feducation that I desire to discuss at this time. But 

 of those who do go to college there are some who are better fitted for 

 beekeeping than for any other work, provided a fair living can be 

 made from the business. Unless this is true, there is no hope for the 

 future of the business. With the increased cost of the necessities of 

 life and our transfer of former luxuries into the class of necessities, 

 beekeeping must be made still more productive or the right type of 

 men will not take it up. Formerly many a beekeeper lived on the 

 products of 100 colonies; few would voluntarily do that today. With 

 a relative decrease in honey prices this becomes still more difficult. 



If beekeeping is properly practiced, it will produce an income more 

 than adequate for the average American family. There are many 

 beekeepers who are accomplishing this. If the majority of beekeepers 

 are not making enough from their bees to keep a famil}' of the better 

 class, this may be due either to ignorance of proper methods or inability 

 to do the necessary work. The chief deficiency is a failure to systema- 

 tize the work. Many beekeepers are loaded down with non-essential 

 details and miss the essentials; in fact most beekeepers fail to systema- 

 tize their work until they are compelled to do so when they run out- 

 yards. 



If this is a defect in the practice of the average beekeeper, this may 

 well serve as a clue to the teacher. Beekeeping has been taught for so 

 short a time that the courses are not standardized and it is often a 

 problem what to omit or to include and especially what to emphasize. 

 The beekeeping literature is full of "kinks" and "tricks of the trade" 

 but the work is not well analyzed and systematized in our literature. 

 Small wonder then that the man assigned to give a course in bee- 

 keeping often does not know where to begin. Obviously this defect 

 of our literature should be remedied for the sake of the practical bee- 

 keeper even more than for the teacher and student. 



Every course in a college, whether vocational or strictly cultural, 

 should have cultural value. The educational value of a course devoted 

 to details of practice is very Uttle unless the details are systematized 

 and unless the reason for every step is made clear by a discussion of 

 fundamental principles. A thoroughly practical course that is com- 

 pletely systematized has fully as much cultural value as the courses 

 which are avowedly given for cultural benefits. 



The work in a commercial apiary is simple, not complex. It is 

 only the confused beginner who manipulates excessively and does 



