82 EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



Another point where the inspector can often times be of a great 

 deal of assistance to the farmer bee-keeper is in the preparation of 

 materials. We often times find the farmer bee-keeper trying to put 

 up one or two dozen sections or more, without the use of a proper 

 foundation fastener. I have seen many of them putting the comb 

 foundation in the section, and just pressing it down a little around the 

 edges by running a little wax along, without any form. The sections 

 themselves are folded by hand, are not square and if the foundation is 

 not put in just right, it crumples up when the section is placed in the 

 supers, and those bee-keepers produce a very poor quahty of honey. The 

 way in which we can help the farmer bee-keepers is by telling them of 

 shorter cuts, better methods, so that they not only save time and 

 work in managing the apiary, but they also secure more profit, and 

 once the apiary inspector has shown a bee-keeper where he can increase 

 his profits, then that bee-keeper is a friend of the inspector's for all 

 time and he is always willing to take further advice, so that one of the 

 main offices of the apiary inspector is not only to remove and eradicate 

 disease, but also to educate. We all know that the disease of foul 

 brood is caused by germs, but a great many of us do not realize that 

 while the actual cause is a germ, there is an indirect acuse which often- 

 times does a great deal more damage than the direct cause, and that 

 indirect cause is ignorance and until we can remove from the minds 

 of the bee-keepers that ignorance regarding diseases and management 

 and behaviour of the honey bee, then the apiary inspection work 

 can never be as successful and such a lasting benefit as it will if we 

 can remove the ignorance, so that the bee-keepers can increase their 

 profits. 



The older laws just touched on that point. The older inspection 

 laws were based purely on police and penalties. Police laws and 

 jjpnalties were the main features of the old foul brood laws and the 

 inspector has gone into the apiary and found foul brood and the bee- 

 keeper has been given a short time to clean up and in many cases it 

 has been neglected and the inspector on his second trip has come in and 

 destroyed several colonies affected with foul brood. That is one way 

 in which to eradicate foul brood for the time being, but what happvsns 

 in the mind of the man who owned the bees? In a few cases the bee- 

 keepers themselves are willing for you to destroy the bees simply because 

 they have absolutely no interes in them and they do not regard it as 

 a losS; but in many cases when you go into a man's place and you destroy 

 a certain number of colonies of bees, even though the bee-keeper had 

 not been securing very much, if any, money from those bees, you hurt 

 that man's feelings very much indeed and in many cases you have made 

 an enemy towards inspection laws and apiary inspectors. If you 

 can arouse that man's interest sufl&ciently to get him to treat the 

 colonies and get him started once on the right road and show him that 

 there is a profit in bees well managed, and then you will not only remove 

 the direct cause, the germs, but you are also removing the indirect 

 cause, the ignorance, and that bee-keeper will always be with you. 

 If you go and burn a man's apiary, that is a cure for that time, but you 

 cannot tell when that bee-keeper will commence again in the future 

 and he is almost every case a hard man to handle, harder to handle 



