ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION. &1 



men who owned the bees would tell you, that the bees are over there 

 and would not even take the trouble or have the interest to go over 

 with you and look over the bees while you were looking through the 

 apiary. In many cases he would not trouble at all. If there ever was 

 a necessity for burning colonies, or destrojdng colonies that were 

 affected with disease, that is the only occasion where I think it is 

 proper to destroy colonies, in the apiary of a man of that nature. In 

 fact, a great deal more good could often times be done if some neigh- 

 boring bee-keeper who knows more about bees and takes care of his 

 bees, can buy the apiary from the careless man. In that way we make 

 no bad friends and the bees are removed and we feel sure that that man 

 will never keep bees again. On the other hand, if the bees are destroyed 

 by burning, the bee-keeper often times gets quite mad at the inspector 

 and all the other inspectors and he may, and quite often does, start 

 in bee-keeping again. But if he can sell them and get rid of them 

 in that way, then his interest or antagonism is not aroused in any 

 way and he proceeds to forget all about bee-keeping. 



Now the next class of bee-keeper is the farmer bee-keeper. We 

 find a great many farmers in the class which I have just mentioned, but 

 we also find a typical class of farmer bee-keepers who have from two 

 or three to one hundred or more colonies, and the farmer bee-keepers 

 may be divided into several classes, according to the interest they have 

 and the knowledge they have regarding bees. Usually we find the 

 farmer bee-keeper is willing and anxious to take care of his bees to 

 the very best of his knowledge, but in a great many cases he does not 

 realize that he can secure, free of all charge, from the State and from 

 the government, bulletins which contains a lot of very valuable 

 information and he does not know, in many cases he does not realize 

 that there is such a thing as foul brood. He does not know the value of 

 the use of comb foundation. In brief, his knowledge of bee-keeping is 

 very limited and we find that in the majority of cases, his supplies do 

 not average more than one super to the colony and that he will put 

 on the super often times too late, because he does not realize when the 

 honey flow begins. He does not know the habits of the bees and he does 

 not know when the honey starts coming in, so that we often times find 

 that the farmer bee-keeper is only producing probably one fifth or 

 one-sixth of the crop of honey he might possibly secure. In many 

 cases it is not a lack of good intentions, but it is from the lack of knowl- 

 edge. This the farmer needs, so that he can handle those bees in 

 better shape. The inspector is often able to help the farmer bee- 

 keeper and enable him to do a great deal of good work by giving him a 

 pointer here and a pointer there, so that those bees can be better cared 

 for in the future. 



The great trouble we find with the majority of bee-keepers, with 

 the exception of the specialist, is that they do not seem to realize that 

 the information on the care and management of bees can be secured 

 free of charge not only from their state institutions, but from the 

 federal government. We tell them about the bulletins and where their 

 interest is sufficient and they secure and study these bulletins, we can 

 see a difference directly in the care and management of the farmer's 

 apiary. 



— 6 B A ^ 



