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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



1 



EDITORIAL 



FREQUENT MENTION has been made in 

 Gleanings in Bee Culture of the P]xtension 

 Work in Beekeep- 

 Extension ing which is being 



Work in done by the Bureau 



Beekeeping. of Entomology, but 

 perhaps some of 

 our readers do not know that this work is 

 part of the greatest educational institution 

 in the United States. The Bureau of Ento- 

 mology has sent out a dozen men thruout 

 the country to teach better beekeeping, and 

 the teachings of these men is the most prac- 

 tical beekeeping taught today. However, to 

 send out a dozen men on so large a subject 

 would be a small affair, if the men went 

 alone and on their own efforts entirely. They 

 actually do go as part of the work in agri- 

 cultural extension, and, because of the co- 

 operation which they receive the results of 

 their efforts are multiplied many fold. 



For a number of years extension work was 

 carried on in the South from funds contrib- 

 uted by the General Educational Board and 

 a great establishment for the work was built 

 up under the management of Dr. Seaman 

 Knapp. Finally Congress saw the desirabil- 

 ity of such work as an enterprise of the 

 Federal Government, and the Smith-Lever 

 Bill was introduced and became law. Under 

 this law each State is allotted a certain sum 

 annually, the amount varying with the rural 

 population and also with the amount which 

 each state is ready to contribute to the 

 work. In this way the funds are greatly in- 

 creased and enormous sums are spent every 

 year for this purpose. 



All of our readers are familiar with the 

 s^ystem of County Agents and at the begin- 

 ning of the war there were about 1,000 such 

 agents thruout the country. As a war meas- 

 ure. Congress appropriated additional funds 

 for increasing this staff of experts rapidly 

 and there are now such County Agents in al- 

 most all the agricultural counties in the 

 country. This work in each State is admin- 

 istered by a State Director of Extension, 

 who represents both the Federal Department 

 of Agriculture and the State Agricultural 

 College. To this official the County Agents 

 are directly responsible. No institution of 

 such size has ever before existed for the 

 teaching of better methods in agriculture, 

 and, if anyof our readers have failed to take 

 advantage of the things which are offered 



by this system, we advise them to reform in 

 this regard at once. Of course the individ- 

 ual County Agents are not all as well equip- 

 ped as we may wish, and in some cases j)er- 

 haps mistakes have been made, but there can 

 be no doubt that the work of these men has 

 added greatly to the agricultural wealth of 

 the country. 



The work on beekeeping, supported by the 

 Bureau of Entomology, is part of this larger 

 work. The extension men go to a State and 

 are then under the administration of the 

 Director of Extension. He arranges with 

 the County Agents for the necessary meet- 

 ings, schedules the trips for the beemen and 

 sees that their time is well occupied. The 

 County Agents in turn arrange for all local 

 meetings, notify the beekeepers, and give the 

 meetings the necessary publicity. It is 

 therefore plain that the time of the beemen 

 is put to the best possible advantage and 

 they are able to reach a much larger number 

 of persons than would be the case if they 

 had to arrange all the details of meetings. 

 The County Agents are of course skilled in 

 arranging for such work and in practically 

 all cases are able to work up better meetings 

 than the beekeepers themselves could do. 



We have thus a dozen, and we hope that 

 the number will be rapidly increased, men 

 who are giving their entire time to the up- 

 building of. the beekeeping industry. They 

 are assisting beekeepers not only by the giv- 

 ing of advice of the most practical kind, but 

 they are assisting the County Agents in or- 

 ganizing the beekeepers into local associa- 

 tions so that they can do together what they 

 could not do individually. 



This is part of the effort that the Govern- 

 ment is making for the advancement of bee- 

 keeping, and most of it is brought about as 

 a war measure. There is need for more 

 honey. However, it does not take a propliet 

 to see that this work will bear lasting 

 results, that the benefit will not cease when 

 peace comes. Then, too, it is to be hoped 

 that the good work in beekeeping will go 

 right on after the war is over, and we think 

 it will, for the beekeepers of the country 

 will realize the benefits which they have re- 

 ceived from the work and will insist that the 

 work be supported liberally in the future. 



If the Governiuent will teach beekeepers 

 the best methods of beekeeping, will adver- 

 tise their product, will aid them in the dozens 



