Vol. LVI.— No. 4 



HAMILTON, ILL, APRIL, 1916 



MONTHLY, $1.00 A YEAR 



Beekeeping in Massachusetts 



What One State is Doing for the Advancement of the Honey Producing 



Industry— By Frank C. Pellett 



I 



N many respects Massachusetts is 

 doing more for the beekeepers 

 than any other state. There have 

 been courses offered for a longer or 

 shorter period in the agricultural col- 

 leges of several states, but it remain- 

 ed for Massachusetts to set the pace 

 by being the first to take up beekeep- 

 ing seriously and place it on the same 

 footing as other agricultural activi- 

 ties. As much of the pioneer work in 

 the development of practical apicul- 

 ture was done in New England, so the 

 pioneering in educational work along 

 the same line has also been done 

 there. 



As was said in the article about 

 official beekeeping at Washington, 

 beekeeping as a serious business is 

 very new; so new, in fact, that the 

 general public has not yet come to 

 take it seriously. Too many beekeep- 



ers regard it as a business of such 

 limited possibilities that they fear 

 the development that will come from 

 the entry of new men into the field. 

 The authorities of the Massachusetts 

 agricultural college were among the 

 first to realize something of the pos- 

 sibilities of honey production. They 

 were able to see that as a specialty 

 it was bound to prosper, as vegetable 

 growing, dairying, floriculture and 

 other agricultural specialties are do- 

 ing. Provision was made accordingly, 

 to lend the same encouragement to 

 beekeeping that was offered the other 

 lines. 



The work was started on a modest 

 scale by the employment of Dr. Bur- 

 ton N. Gates, at that time of the U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture, to give a 

 sliort course of lectures. The inter- 

 est justified further work along this 



line, and Dr. Gates was eventually in- 

 duced to take up the work permanent- 

 ly at Amherst. 



Since Massachusetts was the first 

 state to organize the beekeeping work 

 extensively, there was no precedent to 

 serve as a guide. Dr. Gates and his 

 associates are therefore entitled to a 

 great deal of credit for the admirable 

 manner in which the work has devel- 

 oped. There is a tendency in some 

 agricultural colleges to make the 

 work in various departments so tech- 

 nical as to be of little real value to 

 the man who seeks training for prac- 

 tical work. The writer has heard 

 the complaint that boys trained in 

 some agricultural colleges were no 



THE APICULTURAL BUILDING 



Dr. Burton N. Gates. 



