ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPEKS' ASSOCIATION. 109 



But whilst over there, I had my eyes open for the bee industry 

 and for bees, and I found some very interesting things. You know 

 I was exceedingly fortunate in my travels through Europe, I was able 

 to see the bee countries that are most interesting. I saw France, and 

 I saw Italy, and I saw the Balkans, and not only the people, but I saw 

 the three kinds of bees. I saw the black bee of France, down in the 

 French Riviera, which has nothing but black bees, and I was surprised 

 that the French will tolerate the German bee, and I suggest to them 

 that when they clean out all the terrorism and f rightfulness, they 

 include the frightfulness of the German bee with it. 



And passing over into Italy yoii begin to meet the yellow bee, and 

 I had the good luck to see the bee-keepers in that land, and further 

 down in Rome I found a famous bee-keeper down there who keeps a 

 hundred colonies on top of the roof of the tallest building in Rome, and 

 makes a great deal of money out of it. It is surprising how the bees 

 will work in the middle of a big city like that. To provide for a place 

 where they can swarm, they have orange trees in tubs on top of the roof, 

 and they say they have to do that because it is absolutely impossible 

 to chase the swarms out, because you will fall off a seven-story building 

 going after them. 



And even in the Balkans, we never have heard about the Balkans 

 yet because the country has been closed to all civilized travel up to 

 1912. You will remember that before that time we read in our American 

 newspapers how the English and American travelers have been held 

 up by the bandits of the Balkans, and held for ransom, and so serious j 



was this brigandage in the Balkans up to 1912 that the country has 

 been practically closed. It had been closed before for several hundred 

 years, because the Turks were in posession of the land, and the Turkish 

 government — of course you know what one might expect from what we 

 have heard in the last four years. It was the land of bloodshed, murder 

 and cruelty, all the way through; a country without law, without 

 organization, without discipHne. 



This country includes the so-called provinces of Albania, Mace- 

 donia, southern Serbia and northern Greece as far as the Olympus 

 Mountains. Now, in 1912 the Serbs, who were anxious for the liber a- 

 •tion of their OAvn race, drove out the Turks after a most speedy war, 

 which terminated in 1912, and as a reward for this victory they were 

 awarded the southern part of the present Serbia, generally known as 

 Macedonia. They also were to take Albania, which is all Serbian 

 practically: the northern part of M-acedonia is all Serbian. That 

 means the population are Serbs. They were under the Turks for 

 pretty near five hundred years. Now this country has been liberated 

 in 1912 and opened to civil travel, and we were probably the first 

 Americans who ever crossed that country, and really it is a wonderful 

 experience to get inside of a Balkan country. 



But you are not so much interested about the people down there 

 probably as you will be about bees, and I found down there that bee- 

 keeping had been practiced for years and years before by the Slavs 

 and the Serbs. The Slavic people really are great bee-keepers. It 

 seems to me that in America we put all the other farm industries first, 

 whereas bee-keeping is really one of the chief industries. Now in 



