ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



105 



in their order, and while we have with 

 us those who cannot stay through the 

 entire Convention — -Doctor Phillips is 

 here with a paper which is alone, if 

 you lose all the rest, worth more than 

 it has cost you to come to this Con- 

 vention — and while we are waiting- for 

 Mr. Bull we will change our program 

 sufficient to give Doctor Phillips the 

 floor at this time. 



Doctor Phillips — Mr. Chairman — 

 members of the Chicago-Northwes- 

 tern Convention: Tour President has 

 said that I do not intend to stay 

 through the meeting. I do expect to 

 be away a little while this evening, 

 but he cannot get rid of me before 

 this meeting is over. 



I might say I have had the pleasure 

 of attending ten conventions of bee- 

 keepers, one right after the other — 

 six the past month, and I have been 

 the only one who has had the pleas- 

 ure of going to all these meetings. 



Other bee-keepers have joined me 

 at the different meetings. 



It has been a great pleasure, and 

 more than that it has been of great 

 profit to attend the various meetings 

 of the bee-keepers in the various 

 states. , 



I cannot look forward to any great 

 amount of pleasure in traveling for 

 months from Convention to Conven- 

 tion. It may seem like a vacation, but 

 I am ready to quit. However. I would 

 not want to deprive myself of the 

 pleasure of meeting the bee-keepers I 

 have had a chance to meet during the 

 past month. 



The subject I want to talk about 

 this afternoon — "Out-Door Wintering" 

 I feel, is one of very great importance 

 to the bee-keepers of this country. 



According to the best figures that 

 we can get, bee-keepers in the United 

 States from north to south, from the 

 Atlantic to the Pacific, are losing 

 about ten per cent of their colonies 

 every year. That is a minimum loss, 

 and occasionally it is greatly in- 

 creased. 



Let us put it another way: 



Suppose that we live in a country 

 where the tax we had to pay was ten 

 per cent of our income. Every time 

 a man made $1,000, the state took 

 away from him $100; we know that 

 would be a tremendously heavy tax- 

 ation, j'et that is the fax the bee- 

 keepers are paying year after year 



and they are doing this without com- 

 plaint. 



We are being put to an expense 

 that can readily be avoided. 



If the principles of wintering are 

 practically worked out, there need not 

 be more than one per cent loss. The 

 reason why we should have any loss at 

 all, perhaps, needs explanation. 



Accidents may happen in the best 

 regulated apiaries, which the bee- 

 keeper is not there to adjust, conse- 

 quently we will have loss in the dead 

 of winter. 



We often hear bee-keepers say, "I 

 never have any winter loss; my loss is 

 practically nothing." 



I have heard that time and time 

 again and have seen some of the 

 apiaries in which this loss did not sup- 

 pose to occur. 



It is not the w^inter loss in the total 

 number of colonies that die, but the 

 total number of individual bees that 

 die, and until we can get every bee 

 through the winter in good shape, that 

 is, until we can have 100 per cent of 

 them alive and vigorous and in strong 

 shape for spring — that should be the 

 object of the bee-keeper. 



Out-Door Wintering. 



See copy of paper reported under 

 report of Illinois State Bee -Keepers' 

 Association, Springfield, 111., page 51. 



President France — Now from a pa- 

 per that has taken so much study and 

 thought, if you want to discuss it be- 

 fore we take up another paper — 



Mr. Smith — I would like to ask if 

 that paper will be printed. Will it be 

 possible to get it into print? 



President France — Yes, I may say I 

 was selfish enough last week in our 

 State Convention to ask if it were 

 possible that the members of our Con- 

 vention might have printed copies of 

 it; and Doctor Phillips said: "You 

 now have them" — and he left us a 

 bunch of them. 



I wonder if it is possible to get some 

 of them here. 



Doctor Phillips — I think there is a 

 bunch in the State that has been mis- 

 directed; I will try and get them. 



President France — There is enough 

 in that paper that it will take time 

 for us to study and digest, and I leel 

 that it is worth enough to pay us for 

 coming here if we heard nothing else. 



When we are losing ten per cent or 



