1890 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



31 



THE MICHIGAN STATE BEE-KEEPERS' 

 CONVENTION, 



HELD AT LANSING, DEC. 26, 37, 1889. 



It was my good fortune to be able to at- 

 tend the above convention ; and it was ona 

 of the most pleasant and profitable I ever 

 attended anywhere. The fact that Prof. 

 Cook occupied the chair had very much to 

 do with it. Why is it, dear friends, that 

 Prof. Cook has such an unusual gift for 

 making things of this kind pleasant and 

 profitable? It is, in my opinion, because he 

 loves his fellow-men ; not because he says 

 so, but because his kindly feeling toward 

 every one manifests itself by every look and 

 act. It is not particular ones that he feels 

 kindly toward, but it is the great human 

 family at large. When he presides, if there 

 is any one who is inclined to be backward 

 and diffident, friend Cook is sure to find out 

 his name, and to assure him, by kindly 

 words, that we all wish to know him and to 

 hear him speak, and to contribute his mite 

 toward our general fund of knowledge, even 

 though that mite be but a little. There is 

 almost always a tendency in bee-keepers' 

 conventions, as there is in meetings of other 

 kinds, to let the whole interest drift into 

 the hands of a few, and then somebody is 

 always thoughtless enough (I almost feel in- 

 clined to say foolish enough) to occupy a 

 good deal more than his share of the time. 

 This last convention was a marked exception 

 in this respect ; but, once or twice there 

 seemed to be a little tendency on the part of 

 somebody to occupy valuable time on com- 

 paratively unimportant matters. Prof. Cook 

 has the rare gift of chiding these forward 

 ones, and yet doing it so kindly that they 

 will not feel hurt. As an illustration : 



At one time the topic was, '• What other 

 occupation is to be recommended in con- 

 nection with beekeeping?'' The president 

 remarked at the outset that he wanted brief 

 testimonies from actual experience, from 

 every one in the room. He wished to know 

 what we had done and were doing in that 

 line, rather than to suggest for others. 

 Quite a good many were in attendance, and 

 I at once decided that we older ones must 

 start briefly. In fact, friend Cook called on 

 me among the first, and asked me to please 

 state briefly what occupation I would rec- 

 ommend to be taken along with bee culture. 

 I suggested small fruits and gardening, but 

 at the same time mentioned that a great 

 part of this industry came right in with 

 swarming, extracting, etc. Then I men- 

 tioned our friend France, who has banished 

 every kind of small fruit from his place ex- 

 cept blackberries. He has the finest planta- 

 tion of blackberries I ever saw, and the 

 berries need attention just at the time the 

 extracting season is over. In fact, the boys 

 are taken right from the bees to the black- 

 berries. During the past season they just 

 finished extracting while I was there ; and 

 as the berries were liardly ripe, the whole 

 troop of helpers were permitted to go off on 

 a fishing excursion, to be gone several days. 

 This was their vacation. Friend Cook evi- 

 dently decided with me, that I had taken 

 just about my appointed share of the time, 

 for he replied ; 



"■ There, Bro. Root has given us one very 

 valuable and important suggestion. Black- 

 berries can be cultivated, even on a consid- 

 erable scale, without conflicting with the 

 duties of the bee-yard at all. Let us now 

 have another valuable fact from some other 

 brother, and so on." 



One of the veterans attempted to get up 

 just here ; but Prof. Cook laughingly stop- 

 ped him. 



"No, no, Bro. A., you just wait a little. 

 We want to have a sort of Methodist class- 

 meeting of this, and we are going to take 

 the whole convention right through in or- 

 der." 



And so he did, calling them by name, and 

 every one responded in some way or other. It 

 was to me a grand lesson, and the result on 

 the meeting at large was inspiring. I never 

 saw so much good feeling, interest, and en- 

 thusiasm, as this simple exercise brought 

 out. Of course, farming and bee-keeping 

 together came up more than any thing else. 

 Some said the two did not conflict, wnile 

 others complained of being called from the 

 field, toward half a mile away, because the 

 bees were swarming. 



The next brother, however, said his wife 

 managed to have her work where she was 

 in full view of the bees ; and unless some- 

 thing extraordinary happened, she managed 

 to take care of them herself, or fix them so 

 they could remain until dinner time, with- 

 out serious danger of loss. Others added 

 their testimony in a similar way. 



"There! " said friend Cook, " we are get- 

 ting at a grand point now. Every bee-keep- 

 er who expects to succeed should have a 

 wife; and they two should recognize that 

 women are now in these modern days in the 

 habit, not only of furnishing muscle but 

 brains for all the great interests that lie be- 

 fore us as a people." 



There were a few present who had neg- 

 lected the partnership business of man and 

 wife, and we laughingly bore down on them 

 pretty hard. Most of the bee-keepers pres- 

 ent were, of course, old enough to have 

 wives. Another was so fortunate as to have 

 boys who attended to things, tbus prevent- 

 ing the necessity of being in two places at 

 once during swarming time. The president 

 at once asked, " My friend, do your boys 

 work for nothing, and you take all the 

 money, or do you pay them wages, as you 

 would a hired man?" 



The speaker promptly replied that his 

 boys worked the bees on shares, and there- 

 fore bad good pay. 



" Thafs good ! " said the president. 

 " Have your boys work with you, and pay 

 them well and handsomely. Don't forget 

 that the first and most important duty you 

 have in this world is to look out for the 

 comfort, happiness, progress, and well-be- 

 ing of your own children." 



When they got around to our good friend 

 M. H. Hunt, we Avere astonished to hear 

 him say that he had nothing particular to 

 offer. When bantered a little he replied 

 that, to tell the truth, he was getting a lit- 

 tle homesick. When somebody asked him 

 why he was homesick, he said Prof, (^ook 

 had called out so many testimonials that 



