ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEBPEES' ASSOCIATION. 177 



We have certain men with proper training to do these things. They 

 take honey to the department of chemistry and have it analyzed; 

 they study the chemical combination of things and give us the results. 



By and by we are going to find out that certain honeys from cer- 

 tain sources are absolutely dangerous for bees in winter, whereas others 

 are perfectly good and conducive to good wintering. 



It takes a man with knowledge, abihty, money and time to do 

 these things, so we have our scientific part of bee-keeping which we 

 might well intrust to our universities and higher schools of education. 



This is the system which has prevailed in Switzerland, Germany 

 and Austria and other places for many, many years past; scientists 

 have been busy in solving those questions, and in this country, if we 

 are to obtain a climax of perfection and keep our bees well and produce 

 large amounts of honey, we must have these problems solved for us in 

 a scientific way. There are yet many problems which have not been 

 solved which must be attended to and which somebody must tackle 

 before the bee-keepers will know exactly what is what. 



Now in this new era of the future of bee-keeping I hope I will see 

 the day when every university in the United States will have men 

 equipped with knowledge, ability, instruments, means and tools and 

 money to carry on those experiments for the benefit of the bee-keeping 

 industry at large. Why I am sorry that in the years past we could 

 notice here and there some slight misunderstanding 'on this subject, 

 on this so very important question. There are still bee-keepers whom 

 I meet who say, ''well, well, those fellows get good mone3^ enjoy life, 

 travel around — -what good have we got from them? What is the use 

 of our departments of apiculture in the State University?" A fellow 

 told me the other day: "I went down to the university and they 

 were taking a hive apart and ruining a colony; they are just like men 

 who dissect a dog; make an experiment on a dog, perform the operation 

 on the dog and if successful, perform it on the man. If the bee-keeper 

 has got to find out the secrets of bee life, we don't care to sacrifice our 

 colony." Dr. Phillips has sacrificed many, making experiments; a 

 colony that dies in an experimentation to find out the scientific prin- 

 ciple might add thousands of dollars to the wealth of the bee-keepers 

 of the countr^^ Therefore in the new era we would have to take up 

 those projects in the way we are taking them up now. When I want 

 to establish a division of apiculture, I have got to bow and beg and be 

 very nice and smile in order to kindly and graciously be allowed to 

 make this experiment. 



The old era of ignorance and bias has got to give way to the era 

 of scientific profitable bee-keeping. In the new era everj" bee-keeper 

 will have to avail himself of the results of investigations made by the 

 Bureau of Entomology in Washington, in the universities of the United 

 States, as well as in Europe; the new bee-keeper will have to be scien- 

 tific man, be familiar with and posted on every single scientific result 

 that has been attained; study the bulletins that come out, and be 

 able to diagnose and ascertain the condition of his apiary, and under- 

 take to do the right thing at the right time. 



There is one thing else that the war has done; I believe it has 

 banished ignorance; I believe the new era is going to be an era of 

 —12 B A 



