180 EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL KEPORT OF THE 



, the same. Of course we have bee inspectors. If you ask them how 

 foul brood is, they say it is vanishing, vanishing, but I know at the 

 same time foul brood is not disappearing — but the area over which 

 it has spread today is much larger than it was last year and has in- 

 creased and is increasing more and more every year. 



The system under which we have been fighting this foul brood 

 in the past has been entirely out of date and insufficient, for the simple 

 reason that foul brood has increased. There is no prospect in sight 

 that foul brood will disappear or vanish, and therefore in this new 

 era of bee-keeping- — in the beginning of this first year of peace, we will 

 have to get our heads together, ladies and gentlemen, and begin to 

 devise new and radical, different and more efficient ways and means of 

 fighting this terrible -scourge. 



In the past we have men in the State appointed by Legislature, 

 getting a certain salary; the State says, you go and kill foul brood and 

 destro}^ it. Those men each work at random in his own State without 

 regard to each other; they have no relations whatsoever with each 

 other. !, 



If we ever wknt to get rid of foul brood we have got to take or- 

 ganized action. 



Some people, speaking to me, defend the system of national control 

 of foul brood. The national control of foul brood certainly has its 

 good points; it would subordinate all the foul brood activities of the 

 United States into one system. The national control of foul brood 

 would be most efficient because if anybody has money to spend in the 

 education of foul brood the Government has it, and if the bee-keepers 

 of the United States would unite on a problem of this kind, probably 

 it might be the most efficient one to eradicate this contagious disease. 

 If we are to keep our State inspection and eradicate foul brood by our 

 State laws, we will have to adopt a more efficient S5^stem; one man 

 cannot do it. The future of bee-keeping will require county inspection. 

 It will require that under one head there will be a sufficient number of 

 inspectors to control the situation — to control foul brood in all parts 

 of the world wherever it appears. The matter of foul brood, both in 

 Europe and America has to be understood. There are a number of 

 bee-keepers in the states who have never seen it although they have 

 it. There are bee-keepers who do not know it after j^ou show it to 

 them, and this because of lack of education. 



Now to control foul brood there will be two things necessary, 

 one a system of education, educating the bee-keepers to know it and 

 how to cure it and how to take care of it. This must be done through 

 our universities, short courses, through our bulletins and instructors. 

 I believe farmers clubs in different counties ought to be perfectly 

 familiar with foul brood and be able to show it to their people. No 

 man should be appointed county agent in the United States unless 

 he can qualify on this one point of foul brood. 



Under this system of education we might as well include the system 

 of the prevention of foul brood. How many people know the old 

 system of placing one hive by the side of others, two or three inches 

 apart is the most efficient way of spreading the disease of foul brood. 

 When the bees of one hive mix with the bees of neighboring hives, 



