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SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL KEPORT OF THE 



the colonies headed by those queens reared 

 from that one extra good queen gave almost 

 double the surplus that the others in the 

 yard did, raised from ordinary stock. • We 

 find pure bred cattle producing large 

 quantities of beef and others nothing, and 

 I think it is the same way with the bees. 

 If you raise queens from good stock you 

 will get something that will last more than 

 one year. 



Meeting adjourned to meet at 9:30 a. m. 

 Saturday. 



SATURDAY MORNING SESSION. 



December 1, 1917, 9:45 a. m. 



Meeting cailled to order by President 

 Miller. 



Mr. J. A. Warren— (The A. I. Root 

 Company, Medina, Ohio.) — Mr. President, 

 Gentlemen, I assure you that I come here 

 this morning with a great deal of hesitancy, 

 especially when I see Mr. Dadant and 

 Professor Hine of Ohio. To explain why 

 I am here, Mr. Ernest Root was to have 

 been here and the fact that I am to attempt 

 to take his place is another reason why 

 I sould hesitate to come before you, be- 

 cause Mr. Root is one of the men the bee- 

 keepers are always glad to hear. I don't 

 know whether I shall take the same topic 

 he was to have discussed or not. I didn't 

 know that I was to come until rather late 

 yesterday. In order to get away, I had 

 to stay at my desk for more than an hour 

 overtime and left just in time to get the 

 train so I haven't had a chance to give 

 very very much thought to the subject. 

 I would much rather have prepared a 

 paper, or at least have gone over my 

 subject because sometimes one is apt to 

 take a good deal of time to say the few 

 things one wants to say unless he has notes 

 before him. 



Mr. Root said he had expected to talk 

 to you on the present and future of bee- 

 keeping. Of course, present conditions are 

 reflected in the market conditions. I' be- 

 lieve, as I have told many bee-keepers, the 

 bee-keeping industry is just in its infancy. 

 It is just beginning to grow, and those 

 who have investigated the development of 

 the bee industry in the last few years 

 couldn't help but be impressed with the 

 strides in development that have taken 

 place, especially in the last ten years, but 

 I look for greater development in the 

 coming years than possibly we could dream 

 of. 



The present conditions are that honey 

 is the highest price that perhaps we have 

 ever known it to be, at least in my ex- 

 perience. We are under abnormal con- 



ditions, unusual conditions. You perhaps 

 know better than myself what we can 

 expect in the future, as to how the present 

 conditions will affect us. As I think of 

 it now, many years ago the situation was 

 simply this: That those who did produce 

 honey in excess of their own market had 

 a good deal of difficulty in disposing of it 

 and the extent to which a man could engage 

 in the bee business profitably depended 

 very largely on the outlet he could get in 

 his own local market. 



You might be interested to know my 

 first experience in the honey business. It 

 was many years ago. Mr. A. I. Root 

 would come to me and say that this man 

 or that man wanted some bee hives and 

 that he was short of cash but had honey. 

 Do you suppose we could get rid of that 

 honey? The result was that the bee hives 

 were shipped to him and we did our best 

 in getting rid of his honey, giving, him all 

 the returns received for it. Those in- 

 stances became more frequent. Very soon 

 it became a burden, that is, there were 

 more people applied to have us help them 

 to dispose of their surplus honey than we 

 could take care of. We did our best, but 

 couldn't anywhere near begin to take care 

 of the honey that people wanted us to sell. 



It seems strange, now, to think that at 

 that time we couldn't begin to handle the 

 very choice white clover honey that would 

 be offered to us at five and six cents a 

 pound. We couldn't begin to handle it. 

 That may seem strange to you and the man 

 that says the price of honey hasn't ad- 

 vanced, I think perhaps is a man who may 

 have forgotten those conditions, or was 

 in a different situation so that he had a 

 local market that would take care of his 

 production. 



If the bee-keeper is to be as successful 

 as he should, there must be a demand for 

 his product, and that is what we are all 

 interested in. That is what you bee- 

 keepers have been doing, creating the 

 demand, and I think the demand that the 

 bee-keeper has created in his own home 

 market has gone a long ways in making 

 the conditions more stable, but the bee- 

 keeper as a rule is able to reach only a 

 small part of the market. The great 

 centers of population are larg^ cities. The 

 bee-keeper wasn't able to reach this market 

 only in a very small way and it was this 

 condition that brought into the market the 

 commission man and other who handled, 

 honey more as an accomodation. 



We hear a good deal of complaint against 

 the middleman. In fact, to-day I think 

 if someone wants to attract attention to 

 himself and perhaps become popular with 



