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ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



123 



tion; it would be much nearer the 

 truth to state that not more than one- 

 twentieth is collected. Even where 

 colonies of bees are abundant, it is 

 usually easy to find places for new 

 out- apiaries, and one who attempts to 

 find a half dozen localities of any size 

 in the United States that are now- 

 overstocked with bees will find his 

 task virtually impossible. 



Overproduction is an argument 

 more difflcult to answer, but it is be- 

 coming easier every day. Years ago 

 Moses Quimby, the father of practical 

 bee-keeping, could flood the New York 

 honey market by shipping in less than 

 30,000 pounds of honey. 



Today this causes amusement, for 

 hundreds of towns and small cities are 

 consuming this amount of honey every 

 year. 



It must be remembered that com- 

 mercial bee-keeping is a young indus- 

 try and the marketing of the crop is 

 only in a formative stage. 



But the real answer to the objection 

 of overproduction lies in the fact that 

 it is rare for any honey to be held 

 over until the next season and never 

 in considerable amounts, while usually 

 mid-winter finds the markets short of 

 honey. 



This argument therefore need not 

 deter anyone who is interested in ad- 

 vancing bee-keeping. 



The real reason back of the objec- 

 tion to the making of more and better 

 bee-keepers is of course selfishness. If 

 a bee-keeper finds that he can make 

 a good living by bees, he may think 

 that he can establish a monopoly on 

 that in his community by keeping 

 others ignorant of the business. This 

 may be possible in a limited commun- 

 ity but it is not commendable in gen- 

 eral and it is certainly short-sighted 

 and narrow. 



It is entirely possible and, in fact, 

 easy to show the fallacies of such ob- 

 jectors, but there is one overwhelming 

 argument against such views which 

 ought forever to silence these critics. 

 Bee-keeping has scarcely yet estab- 

 lished itself definitely as an important 

 branch of American agriculture. The 

 present crops are inadequate to make 

 honey a staple market article the year- 

 round and the number of commercial 

 t( e-keepers is inadequate to supply 

 honey for. the easily created demand. 



Therefore pride in the industry and 

 a desire to make honey a staple and 



the demand for it more constant will 

 induce every far-sighted bee-keeper to 

 welcome every legitimate effort to 

 build up the bee-keeping industry. 



K it be granted that there must be 

 more professional bee-keepers, from 

 what source shall these be drawn? 



There must be recruits every year 

 to the ranks of bee-keepers, but it 

 seems clear that the best material 

 from which to make professional bee- 

 keepers is found among those already 

 keeping bees. The effort is therefore 

 not so much for more but rather for 

 better bee-keepers. The fact is that 

 bee-keeping could become an import- 

 ant branch of agriculture with half the 

 present number of bee-keepers, pro- 

 vided there were more specialist^. 



Among the agencies for this work, 

 there is one which is the subject of 

 this paper. 



Extension work in bee-keeping is not 

 new, for in several states work of this 

 character has been going on for several 

 years. 



The special branch of this work 

 which will be discussed is that of the 

 Bureau of Entomology. 



The last session of Congress made 

 an increase of $5,000 in the appropria- 

 tion for the ofHce of bee- culture and, 

 more important, changed the wording 

 of the appropriation to permit demon- 

 strations. 



Just as soon as this was made law, 

 a Civil Service examination was called 

 for Agricultural Assistants, which was 

 given on September- 20th. Appoint- 

 ments were made as soon as possible 

 and three men are now in the field. 

 No more field men can be appointed 

 under present funds. 



In North Carolina, Mr. George H. 

 Rea, former Inspector of Apiaries in 

 Pennsylvania, is working on a co-oper- 

 ative project between the Department 

 of Agriculture, the North Carolina 

 College of Agriculture and Mechanic 

 Arts, and the State Department of 

 Agriculture. His headquarters are in 

 the office of the State Entomologist, 

 Mr. Franklin Sherman, Jr., but most 

 of his work is in the field. 



North Carolina offers great oppor- 

 tunity in bee-keeping and the state 

 already ranks high in the number of 

 colonies of laees, but many of the North 

 Carolina bee-keepers have not yet 

 learned the advantages of modern 

 manipulations and equipment. 



