86 EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



apiaries selected is an apiary that has been well looked after and well 

 managed. If we are holding two meetings it is an excellent plan to 

 hold one meeting in an apiary where the bees have received sufl&cient 

 care so that it is noticeable to all the bee-keepers who come and then 

 if you have another meeting, arrange another meeting in an apiary 

 that has received no care at all. It is really surprising if you get a 

 bunch of bee-men together in a county or in a vicinity and one bee- 

 keeper questions the other, wants to know what he is doing and how 

 he works things. The first thing you know a great many of them 

 realize that they are not keeping bees as they should keep them and 

 when they see the colonies manipulated and opened up and things 

 are explained to them, and quite often a little later in the season there 

 is a fair to a good crop of honey on the hives of the man who cares for 

 a good crop of honey on the hives of the man who cares for the bees, 

 those bee-keepers from then on get a different idea of bee-keeping and 

 they see the possibilities as they have never seen them before. I 

 have had a great many bee-keepers, who have attended assemblies of 

 that kind, go home and make up their minds that there is something 

 to the keeping of bees, because they have seen, that day, something 

 sufficient to arouse their interest, and the aim of all apiary inspection 

 work should be to arouse the interest of the bee-men. If you cannot 

 arouse the interest of the ^e-keeper then you cannot make that man 

 care for his bees or foul brood. Interest is a prime essential in doing 

 thorough inspection work. 



Then, besides the apiary demonstrations which are being made a 

 feature in a great many of the states to-day, the inspector can do a 

 great deal of good by sending out to the bee-keepers at critical times 

 in the season a short letter, call it "Seasonable Hints," or something 

 of that nature, that will recall to that bee-keeper at that time that 

 there is someting which he should do that is very necessary to the 

 success of the season. For instance, in the spring of the year it is 

 impossible for us to visit the whole of any one state, or a great many 

 of the counties, but if we can send a personal letter to the bee-keepers 

 telling them that now is the time to do certain things and tell them 

 why. In a great many of the cases, ifirst of all those letters may- be 

 opened and thrown away, but as they continue to come, the bee- 

 keeper gets interested and he reads things, and in many cases, even if 

 he does not do all that you have asked him to do, he will do a great 

 deal of it and in that way secure a very much larger crop of honey and 

 become more interested in bees than has been the case in the past. 

 The county demonstrations and the letters which are sent out to the 

 bee-keepers from time to time, help to keep the inspector in close 

 touch with them and also do a great deal of good to the bee-keepers 

 themselves. 



Then, of course, there is a short course. The short courses for 

 bee-keepers are of great benefit to them and we will get a great many 

 men who will go to those short courses who will go home and make 

 better bee-keepers. The problems which we find in bee-keeping in the 

 apiary inspection work are not many and we can probably put them 

 down to one or two. The first problem is the lack of knowledge which 

 the bee-men have regarding the life history and behaviour and manage- 



