190 EIGHTEEXTII AXXUAL BEPORT OF THE 



what we hear about on the northern peninsula yesterday. Sometimes 

 a poor location can be fixed up very easily. About twenty years ago 

 our location was very poor, and we bought SlOO worth of alsike clover 

 and sold it at cost to the farmers around. That clover seeds itself, 

 and came up continually, year after year, and it has not been necessary 

 for us to repeat that since, and there is plenty of clover now. 



Perhaps one is crowded out by bee-keepers, so that it would not be 

 practical to trj^ to improve his location. In such a case as that he had 

 better move to a new place. So many of us happen to be in a certain 

 place and there we stick, no special reason, perhaps we have friends 

 there. But then we will have friends wherever we go, there are nice 

 people everywhere, as far as that is concerned. Why not move to one of 

 those ideal bee locations? I don't know how the rest of you felt about 

 it, but I was really enthused by what I heard about the northern 

 peninsula yesterday. That is a place that it would be worth while 

 moving to and trying it out. I have heard a good many speak of this 

 northern peninsula, so I know that is not just a pipe dream. It really 

 is a wonderful place. And there are a great many good places besides 

 northern jMichigan. There is northern Wisconsin, and northern 

 Ontario, and British Columbia, and California and Arizona and Texas. 

 There are good places in New York, and I was in Pennsylvania just 

 recently, I was east, and found what good locations there were there, 

 that were not taken at all. And the farmers in a good many places 

 would cordially welcome the coming of bee-keepers, simply because 

 their clover has so little seed, practically none, just because they need 

 the bees. 



This old fear of competition would perhaps discourage some from 

 larger production, but I heard some one say recently that he thought 

 that that fear should be relegated to the dark ages of witches and 

 hobgoblins, and I think he is right. I think a bee-keeper ought to 

 be efficient enough so that he can crowd out the little bee-keeper. 

 Of course any bee-keeper can expect to have a few satellites. That 

 should not trouble him. That is really a compliment to him. 



A short time ago I was riding out in the country, and I noticed 

 all along the road, at farm after farm, long narrow pits, and on inquiry 

 I found out that ferrets were being raised in those, and as we continued 

 we saw more of them. I said finally: "Well, is this a specially good 

 locality for raising ferrets?" The answer was: "No, it just happens 

 that this man over herein the corner has made a success of ferrets." 



According to our Government reports, we are producing something 

 like 250,000 pounds annually of honey, and this is only about 3 per 

 cent of the amount of sweets consumed. And yet the reports claim 

 that there is enough nectar available now, if we could only have enough 

 bees to gather it all, so that we could produce as much as all the sweets 

 combined. Well, if the bees use up twice as much as they store for 

 surplus, perhaps Dr. Phillips would put that a little higher, but with 

 those figures ji^vould mean that we would be getting eleven times as 

 much as we are now getting, and I think eleven probably is a small 

 number; I think probably we could get much more than that. 



Some people perhaps would say they would like to go into bigger 

 bee-keeping if they only had a chance. But if any one has been waiting 



