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ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



lis 



its importance has not been thorough- 

 ly sized up. 



We, as bee-keepers, are still figuring' 

 things on a small scale, whereas we 

 live in a big country. 



We are trying to do business by 

 teaspoonfuls, whereas we have to face 

 a problem of tablespoonfuls, and un- 

 less we begin to think in larger fig- 

 ures and expand our point of view 

 we will never make any progress. 



There was a time when we were 

 thinking in pennies; a time when we 

 played marbles behind the school 

 house; when we were boys we were 

 thinking in dimes; later on, in dollars, 

 and that is about as far as some peo- 

 ple go, while others go further ana 

 think in hundreds and thousands of 

 dollars. 



Our bee-keeping industry and our 

 bee-keeping fraternity is still thinking 

 in pennies. 



The National problems of bee-keep- 

 ing are so great and of such tremen- 

 dous importance that sooner or later 

 we will have to come to time if we 

 ever want to realize anything out of 

 our honey. 



I was talking to a big buyer of food 

 stuffs for a wholesale house, and he 

 tells me there are only three (3) 

 articles on the market which have 

 never advanced in price this year — 

 coffee, rice and honey. These three 

 articles have remained stationary — 

 rice from China, sugar ' from South 

 America, and honey from the United 

 States. 



Honey is the only product in the 

 United States today that has not ad- 

 vanced in price — simply because we do 

 not know how to go to work; we do 

 not know how to advance our busi- 

 ness. 



We are experts on knowing how to 

 run our hives — how to liquefy honey — 

 how to bottle it — how to make comb 

 and extracted honey of the finest 

 quality; we are experts in that. You 

 can find such bee-keepers all over the 

 country, but when it comes to making * 

 money out of honey — how to best dis- 

 pose of your honey and make money 

 out of it, we have entered on new 

 ground where we are strangers. 



Now, I have said to the National 

 Bee-Keepers' Association, something 

 must be done to improve^ our condi- 

 tions. We want more money for our 

 honey. 



We are keeping bees by the hun- 

 dreds and bees by the thousands — 

 what is the use of all this if I don't 

 get more fees out of my bees, and 

 having big conventions and gatherings, 

 and big field days where hundreds and 

 thousands of people attend? 



We come to imagine we are a great 

 body; we make a big show but I will 

 again say we want more dough for our 

 show. 



Now there are some problems, gen- 

 tlemen, that a State organization or 

 a little bunch of bee-keepers cannot 

 solve. You cannot do it; Wisconsin 

 cannot do it; Minnesota cannot do it' 

 — because we are only a fraction of a 

 big country, and a fraction cannot 

 rule or dictate to the majority; or, 

 in other words, the tail cannot wag 

 the dog; it must be the other way. 



In bee-keeping a colony of bees with 

 a nucleus of 30,000 bees will starve 

 v.'here perhaps one of 80,000 will give 

 .vou much honey. 



We have got to unite so as to be 

 strong and powerful. How to unite? 

 That is the question. By newspaper 

 method or some other way but, any- 

 way, this uniting is absolutely neces- 

 sary. 



I would like to inform you that the 

 National Bee-Keepers' Association 

 Convention is going to be held in 

 Madison, Wisconsin, February 6th and 

 7th; you being so near could go in a 

 body and see what we have up our 

 sleeve and what we are planning to 

 do for the- future. It may take ten 

 years of educational work to start bee- 

 keepers to work on a large scale — 

 but now, what are some of the things 

 that only a large National organiza- 

 tion can solve? 



In the first place — ^just think of the 

 gathering of Nationally great men like 

 in Europe? Once a year they travel 

 (at least they did before the war) from 

 England, Germany, Spain, Russia, 

 Australia, Italy, and gather in some 

 big city and discuss bee problems, and 

 the progress of bee-keeping in Europe 

 is traceable directly to the represent- 

 atives of all those European nations 

 meeting at one place- and discussing ' 

 points of interest. 



Do you know what they have done 

 in the matter of prices? 



Only in Europe they do not cut each 

 other's throats like we do here. Honey 

 was selling in Australia before the 



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