ILLIXOIS STATE BEE-KEEPEP>s' ASSOOIATIOX. ITo 



PAPERS READ AT THE FORTY-NINTH ANNUAL CON- 

 VENTION OF THE NATIONAL BEE-KEEPERS' 



ASSOCIATION. 



Held at the Hotel LaSalle, Chicago, Illinois, February 



18, 19, 20, 1919. 



{Reported by the Illinois State Bee-Keepers Association.) 



BEE-KEEPING AND THE NEW ERA. 



{By Prof. Francis J ager.) * 



Ladies and Gentlemen: I am on the program tonight, to speak 

 of bee-keeping and the new era. This means a certain period of time, 

 which through some great event in history changes the natural course 

 of things ; for instance, if you go at a certain angle, something happens 

 and we begin to go down another angle, or if we are going down we 

 all of a sudden turn up. We have in the world's Mstory many eras, 

 for instance — the Birth of Christ meant the beginning of the new 

 era, the Christian Era; the Reformation, 500 years ago, started the 

 modern era — the Middle Ages, different ways of living — of thinking. 

 We infer from the title of my address tonight it was a new era, which 

 suggests that something has passed out of existence, and that something 

 happened to put the old things out and to give the course of events 

 another turn — as if we were at the beginning — at the threshold of new 

 things, and I really believe that such a thing would be very desirable 

 especially in bee-keeping just at present because we have been shifting 

 along certain lines conservatively and it is time that a stone hits us in 

 the head or that a tree falls on us or a mountain tumbles over us and 

 hits us to make us change our course and to begin to go towards a 

 more prosperous and successful method of bee-keeping. 



Now the new era was brought on by the world's war; of course 

 anything that happens is being charged to the war — and when the 

 war makes everything new in political life, family life, in economics 

 and in all other branches of human affairs, why should not the bee- 

 keepers start a new era ourselves? 



To understand what the new era is to be we have to understand 

 the old era. We are very well acquainted .with it and know its per- 

 fections and short comings; we have made certain progress in the past; 

 we have developed along certain lines; have reached certain climaxes 

 of perfection^ but we are infinitely far from the ideal towards which the 

 bee-keepers of this country must work before they will pull bee-keeping 

 out of the rut it has gotten into and put it where it belongs. 



This struck me in Europe last summer when I noticed that in all 

 the countries through which I traveled bee-keeping is considered to 



