ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



147 



learn" — those people are self-satisfied 

 and the result is, they never make 

 good; that is the long and the short 

 of it. 



Mr. Stewart — I think one reason Is, 

 because you do not make it interesting 

 to the rank and file of bee-keepers. It 

 is more interesting to somebody else; 

 the rank and file do not come. 



Mr. Miller — How would you do it? 



Mr. Stewart — I don't know. 



Mr. Bruner — I do not know anything 

 about Association work or about As- 

 sociation work in particular, but I did 

 find that I was made Secretary of this 

 Association when I was not here; I 

 did not know about it until the meet- 

 ing was over. I found that we had 

 about twenty men that were paying 

 dues into the Chicago -Northwestern 

 Association, and a list of 150 men that, 

 at one time or another, paid dues, 

 about half of whom had been deceased 

 or had moved to Colorado or Michigan 

 or somewhere else. 



That is the basis that I found when 

 I got time to do a little work here; 

 about twenty men, who always came 

 and could always be depended upon, 

 and the rest, about half of them de- 

 ceased or gone to other parts of the 

 country. 



I did not get started at this; I have 

 two businesses to take care of. I got 

 a list of men I presume is fairly ac- 

 curate, or was ten or fifteen years ago, 

 of bee-keepers of northern Illinois, 

 northern Indiana and southern Wis- 

 consin, who ought to be interested in 

 this movement. 



I sent part of those men notices of 

 this meeting too late; I could not 'get 

 to them earlier. I had a girl work- 

 ing with me; we worked pretty faith- 

 fully getting out notices and putting 

 up copy for the printer about three 

 weeks. 



What is the result? Mr. Stewart is 

 right; it is not made interesting 

 enough for these men; how can we 

 make it interesting, until we know the 

 men? 



I mailed to 1,000 bee-keepers, in- 

 quiries asking them to give me the 

 names of bee-keepers in their district; 

 I got one card out of that lot up until 

 yesterday; yesterday I got a list of 

 about forty men; some of them may 

 be new names. 



We have to have co-operation, gen- 

 tlemen, and we cannot do anything 



as a Convention and as an Association, 

 unless we get together and do some- 

 thing. No one man can handle this 

 thing. 



See if we cannot make this Chicago- 

 Northwestern Association worth while. 

 Chicago is a marketing center for all 

 honey that cannot be sold at home. 

 There is a field for work here for the 

 Chicago-Northwestern such as no other 

 Association has. Do we want to do 

 that work? 



It is not a question of how we can 

 make the Association a benefit to our- 

 selves. The biggest field for any As- 

 sociation in the country is ours, out- 

 side of the National. 



Do we want to do anything; that is 

 the question. 



We can help each other and help 

 ourselves, if we will only get at it and 

 do it. 



If we want to help locally the bee- 

 keepers in this vicinity, let us have 

 their names. 



It is proposed that the Field Meets 

 are going to help the members and 

 those who ought to be members of this 

 Association. 



There are other things that ought to 

 be done, the educational proposition is 

 a good one. 



The Chicago dailies are read all over 

 this territory for 500 miles around Chi- 

 cago. There is no nationality any- 

 where but what has a daily paper 

 printed in Chicago besides the Eng- 

 lish papers. 



Is anybody doing anything to keep 

 honey before the public here, such as 

 can be done without any cost? The 

 newspapers and reporters are looking 

 for news. Each paper has a page de- 

 voted to how to cook things — how to 

 keep well; every little while an article 

 could be slipped into any or all of these 

 papers; there are brains enough in this 

 room to write up those articles and 

 get them to these papers every month, 

 or to the press association They are 

 looking for these things — and are put- 

 ting the opportunity up to us. 



An Aurora Association is just being 

 formed; a local association of bee- 

 keepers. I cannot imagine what they 

 are forming an Association there for, 

 unless it is because the Northwestern 

 is not doing anything. 



Mr. Williams — ^In the last two years 

 I have had occasion to have extensive 

 correspondence with bee-keepers over 

 the United States. This condition has 



