ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION". 101 



The President. — Gentlemen, I thoroughly appreciate the honor 

 that you have conferred upon me by electing me President for the 

 ensuing year and I expect to devote a little more time to the bee-keeping 

 industry of the State this coming year than I have in the past. As some 

 of you know, during the last year I have been chief examiner for the 

 south draft board and it has taken most of my spare time. It was 

 an every day affair all summer, if there was anyone to be examined 

 and generally there were one or two and sometimes a great number, 

 just before the armistice was signed, during the months of October and 

 September I examined eleven hundred men. Of course, none of this 

 eleven hundred reached the front or the camps, but it was a great deal 

 of work. It is the expectation to have a number of field meets this sum- 

 mer in parts of the country where most needed. Of course, that must 

 be left to a certain extent to our State Inspector. 



Mr. Kildow. — That is one of the hardest things I have to con- 

 tend with in Illinois. I cannot get them to come to the meetings. 



The President. — Well, we will have to have a meeting some 

 place and you and I will be there. 



Mr. Pitner. — We are compiling a list of everybody that keeps 

 bees in our county and every time the inspector wants to come to 

 Pekin, we will see that he has a crowd to hear him and he will have a 

 good crowd too. 



The Secretary. — I wish to say a word along another line. I 

 think that by all means the date of our meeting ought to be set for 

 next year and if you propose to leave it with the Executive Committee 

 it will be all right; but for this meeting we had great trouble. We had 

 to correspond with the secretaries of other associations to get the date 

 of our meeting set. We corresponded with Mr. Millen and through 

 him we got on to our Canada man, Mr. Pettit and we agreed then to 

 bear half the expenses of the Canada and Iowa men. We had to post- 

 pone our meeting on account of the " Flu, " and set it at a later date, and 

 that spoiled our arrangements. The Iowa meeting went on and the 

 result was the same as we have had here, the fear of the influenza kept a 

 good many away and they had about as poor an attendance there as 

 we have had here. Now, if we have our date set, and the other con- 

 ventions do not want to agree, we are still able then to do as we have 

 done this time. We have to bear all the expenses, we will be as well 

 able then as we have been this year, and if they do not work together 

 with us, why, then we will work apart. 



The President. — Personally I favor the month of December 

 rather than the month of November. I think bee-keepers are usually 

 through with their work, getting ready for wintering, they are more 

 liable to attend a meeting originally set in December than November. 

 I think they have more time aind if it is the pleasure of the meeting, 

 leave it to the Executive Committee to set the date, which will be 

 set at no distant time, so that you will have plenty of warning of it. 

 If there is no objection, that will be considered the sense of this meeting. 



The Secretary. — ^We would like to have it set pretty soon, so 

 that we can have it on our letterheads. 



The President. — Yes, we will fix it. Now, I will appoint the 

 Committee on Exhibit at the fair ground. I appoint Mr. Heinzel 



