-j^?rt- 



ILLJNOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



77 



confidence was lost, and in a very short 

 space of time they had to close their 

 doors. 



Yet there is a great advantage in 

 co-operation where the members of 

 such an association do not expect too 

 much from their union and where the 

 management is in the hands of com- 

 petent, careful and conservative men. 



The attempt made to organize our 

 National Association on co-operative 

 lines failed for a number of reasons. 

 But to my mind the principal cause of 

 failure was the difficulty of establish- 

 ing such a business, in as large a 

 country as ours, without capital, from 

 the center or the head, without prev- 

 ious local organizations. 



When this attempt was made. I vis- 

 ited the manager of the Colorado 

 Honey Producers and asked him to 

 join us. His reply was, "Your assoc- 

 iation can do us no good because it is 

 too insufficiently organized for so large 

 a scale as it proposes to extend. We 

 would have nothing to gain and prob- 

 ably quite a little expense in joining 

 hands with you. Whenever you suc- 

 ceed in getting up a number of co- 

 operative associations like ours, then 

 and only will it be advisable for us to 

 join hands with you. Until then we 

 would do you no good and would in- 

 jure our prospect in trying to co- 

 operate with unestablished organiza- 

 tions. 



I do not know that I have given the 

 exact words of the conversation, but 

 the meaning is well described in the 

 above quotation. 



Since that time, and in view of pres- 

 ent conditions, I have come to the con- 

 clusion that, in order to succeed with 

 national co-operation, we must first 

 organize local societies. This will be 

 slow, because there are many chances 

 of failure and because the average man 

 has not yet grasped the full possibili- 

 ties of a union of forces, even though 

 our country itself is organized politi- 

 cally on such a principle. But we must 

 bear in mind that success is possible 

 by union and interchange of ideas. 



The worst feature of individualism, 

 in bee-keeping, lies in the difficulty of 

 controlling prices. The little producer, 

 he who only occasionally has honey for 

 sale, is the man who forces prices 

 down. He does not even think of con- 

 sulting other producers as to the prices 

 he should expect. He takes his honey 



to market and sells it for whatever the 

 retailer sees fit to offer. Some of these 

 little producers even go so far as to 

 inquire into the price at which the 

 large producer holds his crop and pur- 

 posely undersell him in order to get 

 rid of his honey. 



Mr. Dadant — I would like to suggest 

 also that a very good subject for an 

 essay, and a very live man to make it — 

 is the subject under discussion last 

 evening — and the man is Dr. Baxter. 



Dr. Baxter gave us some explana- 

 tions last evening, that to me were 

 very clear. 



He criticized some of our fool ideas 

 about honey, but he gave us the truth. 



I suggest we get Dr. Baxter to write 

 us an essay on that which he told us 

 last evening, about dextrose and 

 laevulos. 



Mr. Root — The statement made by 

 Dr. Baxter was the best and clearest 

 for a layman I have ever heard. I 

 think if we could have that .in the form 

 of an essay it would do a lot of good. 

 And I propose it be put in the American 

 Bee Journal, and we will then have two 

 essays. 



Mr. Stone — Mr. Dadant, It will make 

 your essay come second. 



Mr. Dadant — I have a paper, but with 

 your permission I will not read it, I 

 will say what I have to say from 

 memory. 



Dr Baxter was voted 1st prize on hi.s 

 essay, and C. P. Dadant was voted 2d. 



The Prevention of Swarming. 

 By C. P. Dadant. 



There are many methods for the pre- 

 vention of swarming, but they are 

 nearly all by manipulations which re- 

 quire a great deal of time at the 

 busiest season. The method w^hich we 

 sustain as the best and which I pro- 

 pose to describe requires no active 

 manipulations during the honey- 

 gathering period, outside of supplying 

 the colony with ample supers and is 

 what might properly be called a "let- 

 alone" method. 



As early as 1870, we found ourselves 

 with a sufficient number of colonies to 

 make swarming uad&sirable. Besides 

 the objectionable increase in numbers, 

 natural swarming caused an increase 

 of labor, when we were busiest. The 

 method which we adopted then has 

 been In constant use ever since, with 



