ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPEBS ASSOCIATION. 



39 



house to buy some honey. They saw our 

 notice on a pecan tree, out in the avenue, 

 and after a very short introduction he 

 said, "It is your fault that I lost all my 

 bees with foulbrood." I said, "Well, 

 how is that? I did not know I was to 

 blame for anybody losing their bees.' 

 "Well," he said, "I came to your house to 

 find out what to do for my bees when they 

 had foul brood and you were down at the 

 Chautauqua." So it was my fault that 

 he lost his bees. They all died of foul 

 brood just because he wa^ ignorant of 

 where to find an inspector, or he did not 

 have our report to know what to do. But 

 we are unfortunate in not having ourselves 

 advertised as much as we ought. We are 

 less known than any other profession or 

 business in the world. 



Mr. Pellett — I was so extremely un- 

 fortunate as to be responsible for the 

 inspection work in Iowa for a period of 

 five years and I quite agree with these 

 gentlemen who said that it is largely a 

 matter of education. I think the in- 

 spector was the principal man who was 

 educated during that five years. I think 

 I received more education in that time 

 than any man who had not been similarly 

 engaged ever received in a similar period. 

 At the end of the five years I decided that 

 we had put the cart before the horse and 

 that we began at the wrong end of the row. 



I have had some pretty interesting ex- 

 periences and some very trying ones in 

 dealing with foul brood. The very first 

 difficulty we ran up against is that less 

 than 5 per cent of the people who are bee 

 owners know anything about even the 

 most fundamental principles of bee-keep- 

 ing. I was called on one occasion to 

 visit some bees at the home of a farmer. 

 He was an extremely successful man, a 

 good business man and a very successful 

 farmer. He had some bees, but he took 

 less interest in the bees than anything else 

 on the-farm. When I opened the brood 

 case the man was utterly astonished. 

 Why, he never had occasion to pull the 

 frames out and go into that part of the 

 hive at all. I remember on one occasion 

 going to a place where I was told that 

 the disease was bad. I enquired at the 

 house and the lady said, "We have some 

 bees, but they are all dead."''! said, 

 "Are the hives still here?" She said, 

 "They are out under the apple tree." 

 I went out and pulled out the frames and 

 they were nearly filled with honey, but 

 the combs were literally full of dead larvae 

 of American foul brood. This was early 

 in the spring and very fortunately the 

 bees in the locality had not yet found 



those hives. I went to the man and ex- 

 plained fully the situation and told him 

 what to be done. He said, "Oh, I don't 

 care anything about them." I don't care 

 if you burn the whole outfit." Our law 

 was so drawn that the inspector could only 

 do certain things at a certain time, so 

 I explained to the man that in case he 

 decided that he wanted to keep those 

 hives, that he must destroy utterly all the 

 contents of those frames and then, in 

 order to make sure, he must scorch out 

 the hives if he wanted to use them again. 

 He said, ''Well, I will buin up the whole 

 business," but he did not want me to do 

 it. He did not want to do it at that time, 

 he was busy planting corn, I think. I did 

 not have opportunity to go back again 

 myself, but I sent a neighbor who very 

 kindly agreed to do it, to make sure the 

 recommendations were carried out and he 

 w^ent back the next day and he found that 

 the man had done as he agreed in part. 

 Ke had very carefulh' scorched out that 

 hive, cleaned it top and bottom, and the 

 whole, business, the foul brood and honey, 

 was piled in a pile in the middle of the 

 alley, where it was ten times more liable 

 to be found than in the hive. 



I do not care how many bulletins you 

 give a man, you can talk until you are 

 black in the face and go off and leave him 

 to do it, and he will make a mess of it. 

 Education io what you have to have. 



In Canada, after fifteen years of trying 

 to get along with the old plans, they have 

 gone about holding apiary demonstrations. 

 They started this two years ago. When- 

 ever a man write.s, "We have foul brood, 

 come down," we go down and if we find 

 he has foulbrood, we say, "All right, Mr. 

 Jones, we will come back next Saturday 

 bright and early, and we will spend the 

 day in the apiary and it is your business 

 to get every man within 25 miles to come 

 and we will have an apiarj"^ demonstration. 

 You go home to your office and tell every 

 bee-keeper in the neighborhood and send 

 notices to those that you cannot reach 

 otherwise, that the demonstrator will come 

 in at such and such a time. They have 

 had on an average about 35 bee-keepers 

 come in. Then the inspector goes through 

 the hives and shows every man present 

 the condition of the colony, shows every 

 man the incipient stage and the advanced 

 stage and then some man present treats 

 each colony as they come to it and when 

 that demonstration is over, there are 35 

 men who can go out with an intelligent 

 knowledge of how to treat that disease. 

 I am satisfied that if during the five years 

 I was inspector in Iowa we had done that. 



