ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



45 



said supervision body may beforehand 

 announce as unsatisfactory: for in- 

 stance, the cutting of cells for mating 

 purposes wherever found, whether in 

 the poorest or best colony. 



Every breeder of queen bees in 

 America who would agree to avoid 

 such unsatisfactory methods as the 

 supervising board might designate, 

 and who would, under a sworn state- 

 ment, submit a satisfactory outline of 

 the methods used in raising his queens 

 should be declared by this body a re- 

 liable breeder. 



Every such breeder who will so 

 comply with the regulations should be 

 issued a small mark of some kind 

 which can be used in his advertising 

 and which will indicate his standing. 

 Such a mark as I mean is usjpd in 

 Burpee's seed catalogue to designate 

 the kind of tomato or cabbage or any 

 one seed which they recommend as 

 being the earliest of all seeds of one 

 sort. This suggestion is merely 

 exemplary, and any method could be 

 adopted which would make the indica- 

 tion plain enough to the buyer who 

 might see the breeder's advertisement, 

 that the breeder was declared reliable. 

 Now, the cost would be only 25 

 cents for a Notary's work and maybe 

 a small additional cost to cover the 

 expense incurred by the National. This 

 expense would be so small that it 

 would prohibit no one from receiving 

 Its benefits. The application for such 

 supervision could remain optional with 

 the breeder, and the fact that any 

 breeder did not elect to apply for and 

 advertise that he was so inspected by 

 the National would not necessarily 

 work against him. But such queen 

 breeders as did elect to apply for such 

 National supervision, and who so ad- 

 vertised, would have the moral bene- 

 fit of it and it would be an insurance 

 of methods to the buyer. The fact 

 that the plans submitted are under 

 oath would make violation of the oath 

 perjury, which is punishable. Any one 

 breeder about whom may complaints 

 were received, and who had sent in 

 such a sworn statement, could easily 

 be inspected by State Inspectors con- 

 necting with the National, and if found 

 to be violating his oath could be 

 punished in a 'manner to insure ad- 

 herence to the oath by breeders in the 

 future. 



If this plan, which has received the 

 commendation of at least one bee 



editor and which is now before the 

 National Officers, seems wise to you, 

 some one may second my motion to 

 submit the plan to the National with 

 our recommendations. 



Mr. Dadant — Mr. President, I can see 

 the purpose of the paper but my ex- 

 perience in queen breeding, which was 

 in the long ago, does not induce me to 

 support that. Now I suppose you all 

 know I made comb foundations for 

 years — we used to raise queens for sale, 

 and, when I came to Bee-Keepers' Con- 

 ventions and met a man who had had 

 some of our queens, I was- afraid he 

 would say: "The queen was too small; 

 too dark; not prolific," or a thousand 

 other things. Of course we had a 

 great many people who were satisfied 

 but we had a great many who were 

 dissatisfied. I never tried any harder 

 to make good comb foundation than we 

 tried to raise good queens. 



When I meet a man who has used 

 our foundation, I expect him to say: 

 "It is the best in the world," and he al- 

 . ways says it. 



There is the difference, gentlemen, 

 between making foundation and rais- 

 ing queens. No matter how hard you 

 try to raise good queens you are going 

 to give dissatisfaction to some one; 

 and, if we have a few bad queens, we 

 will make enemies, that is all. 



There is only one way in which we 

 can make sure of a good breeder; 

 simply to try to find what you want 

 and, when you find a good man, stay 

 with him, but to have a breeder go be- 

 fore an Association and make oath; 

 why the worst men are the ones to 

 make an oath and swear to a falsity, 

 and in the meantime we are giving rec- 

 ommendation to bad men. 



Mr. Coppin — I think a number buy 

 queens and introduce them without 

 getting the old queen killed or without 

 introducing them right; the result is, 

 the queen they introduce is killed and 

 they simply have the same stock left 

 on their hands and accuse the queen 

 breeder of having sold a queen that is 

 no good. It is a pretty hard matter 

 to remedy the dissatisfaction all round. 



On the other hand: Take the mat- 

 ter of foul brood. A German who lives 

 six miles from me came to me telling 

 me he had gotten bees from some one 

 in Cincinnati and found they were full 

 of foul brood. He said he had written 



