ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPEKS' ASSOCIATIOlSr. 86 



is present, you show him the disease. If the disease is not pres- 

 ent, you probably take out one or two frames from the brood 

 chamber and show him the developing bees, telling something of the 

 life history and behaviour and in many cases he will tell you he never 

 saw a larval bee before and in many cases he never saw a bee egg and 

 in many cases he never saw the queen. He never attempted to manipu- 

 late the brood chamber. If we once get him started, get his interest 

 aroused, then the disease is really secondary, because as that bee-keeper 

 progresses, the disease will be automatically cared for. So that the 

 inspector can do a great deal of good in that way by being tactful and 

 the master of his business. The inspector does not know it all by any 

 means but at the same time he must know sufficient to be able to 

 help the great majority of bee-keepers with whom he comes in contact. 



Now, a word about the old and new foul brood laws. The older 

 laws, as I stated before, were designed primarily with the view of the 

 eradication of foul brood by burning. Now, we realize that if we come 

 around just one season and we start to burn up frames and hives where 

 they have foul brood, the treatment is not lasting and that we do more 

 harm than good, not only to the bee-keeper but to the bee-keeping 

 industry. The aim of our legislation as I see it, should be the building 

 up of an industry rather than destruction, and the only cases where the 

 burning of a colony of bees may be advisable is in the case of the care- 

 less bee-men whom I have mentioned, where they have absolutely no 

 interest and in many cases they will tell you they would rather have 

 them burned than kept and even in cases of that kind, if there is a 

 progressive apiarist in the vicinity, I would rather have him buy those 

 bees cheaply, if they are worth saving, and care for them than destroy 

 them. Then we have not made an enemy of the bee-keeper. 



The legislation which has been passed the last few years has been 

 changed considerably and the idea of the apiary inspection work 

 being police work, entirely loaded down with penalties has passed 

 away and the newer laws have as their aim and object education and 

 there is the secret of successful apiary inspection work to-day. It 

 enables the inspector to handle the bee-keepers much more success- 

 fully than under the old measures. To-day, instead of spending so 

 much time in individual apiary inspection work, and I might say that 

 even in the smaller of our states it would take an immense amount 

 of money a year for sufl&cient apiary inspectors to be appointed to go 

 around and visit every apiary in the state. That is almost impossible 

 and the newer foul brood legislation has realized that point and to-day 

 the work is being done by other means and quite largely by the aid of 

 the apiary or field demonstrations, which I think were started by Mr. 

 Morley Pettit in Canada some years ago. That is one way in which 

 the apiary inspector can meet ten, fifteen, twenty, sometimes as many 

 as one hundred bee-keepers in a single day and we go out into the 

 apiary and we can show the bee-keepers ways to manipulate the colon- 

 ies, and the habits and behaviour of the bees and in that way we can 

 arouse the interest of those bee-keepers considerably. I always try 

 to make it a point now when I can choose an apiary in any vicinity 

 where I want to hold a field meeting or demonstration, I always choose 

 one apiary, if we are holding two meetings, always see that one of the 



