ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KBEPERS' ASSOCIATION. Ill 



with the proceeds the civilian population, the starving population of 

 those countries. 



In addition to the native population in Macedonia, we had down 

 there thousands and thousands of Serbian refugees, who were driven 

 from Serbia in advance of the armies. The people ran away from the 

 war, and the battle line extended as far as Monastir, within two miles 

 of Monastir. Then it extended right across the beautiful plain that I 

 was speaking about, cutting it in two. One half was in Austrian hands 

 and the other half remained in Serbian hands. Then going across the 

 plain the battle fronted then over the mountains down towards the 

 Agean Sea. Now this Balkan front was 400 miles long, commencing 

 on the Adriatic, over to the Agean Sea, east of Salonica, and it was 

 about the craziest front that you can imagine, a regular crazy quilt, 

 because the nations on the allied front came from every quarter of 

 the earth. A piece of the allied line on the south side was held by the 

 Itahans, then another piece of the front was held by the French, another 

 piece by the English, another piece by the Serbs, another piece by the 

 Austrahans, another piece by the Arabians, another one by the Sene- 

 gambians, one by the people of Mozambique, another one by the people 

 of the South African colonies. A part of the army down there con- 

 sisted of Indian troops, from Indian. There were troops from New 

 Zealand, from the Congo — well, I think we figured that there were 

 seventeen different uniforms down there, not to mention the Greeks. 



Now on the other side, facing the allied armies, there were the 

 Austrians, the Bulgarians, the Turks and the Germans. The Germans 

 sent some crack regiments down from France and from Posen and some 

 other countries. We captured lots of them. 



Now, we had to move with our machinery into the southern half 

 of the Monastir plain, and the Serbian government kindly turned over 

 to us a Turkish city; they gave us the key to the city, and they told 

 us not only to hold it for a day or two, like Mr. Miller is holding the 

 keys of Chicago here for a day or two, but they actually turned it 

 over to us for keeps. The name of the city was Kremljani, and it had 

 the wonderful distinction that during the time before 1912 it was the 

 headquarters of all the Balkan bandits. There was the house of the 

 bandit chief and his staff, and practically the whole robber gang of 

 the Balkans, who made their raids into Greece, into Albania, into 

 Montenegro, into Bosnia, into Bulgaria, and north into Austria. 



The city had about 8,000 inhabitants before the war. It was 

 built of brick and adobe clay, and mostly one-story and two-story 

 buildings, with a prominent building for the chief. Is it time to stop? 

 I understood I had ten minutes. 



A Member. — No, go on. 



Another Member. — You have until one. 



Prop. Jager. — I haven't commenced to tell about bees yet, but 

 you could not understand this whole situation about bees unless I told 

 you about the country first. 



We took possession of this town in the name of the American 

 government, by hoisting the American flag on a 100 foot pole which 

 the commanding general of the Serbian army had cut up in the moun- 

 tains somewhere about 8,000 feet high, and about fifty soldiers with 



