Sept. 27, 1900. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



613 



trance at the bottom at the extreme east side ; and for the 

 two-frame colony give an entrance Hxjs of an inch ; for 

 the "three-frame colony make the entrance ;'/s high by jii 

 long; for the four-frame colony make the entrance 's high 

 by one inch long, and yoti will never have any trouble from 

 robbing at any /ii)ie of the year, providing said colonies 

 have a queen, some little brood, and bees enough to protect 

 in any way or cover those combs. If a robber-bee should 

 enter the entrance after so fi.\t, it must travel over all the 

 vacant space to the dummy, ready to be met by a guard at 

 any time, then go under the dummy where the guards are 

 doing duty the same as at the entrance, and if it succeeds 

 in passing there and reaching a comb, it is a comb having 

 brood in it, not honey, the honey only being reacht after 

 passing thru all of the hive and all of the bees, clear to the 

 further side, and no robber-bee will make such a venture. 



Convention Proceedings. 



Report of the Proceeding's of the 31st Annual 



Convention of the National Bee-Keepers' 



Association, held at Chicag-o, 111., 



Aug-, 28, 29 and 30, 1900. 



BY DR. A. K. MASON, SBC. 



(Contiuued from pat^e 598.) 

 Dr. Mason — I suggest that we take a recess, and that 

 those who wish to become members of this Association give 

 me their dollars. They are enquiring for badges and we 

 can not give them out until I get your dollar. 



Mr.France— May I rise for information as to the status of 

 the Wisconsin State Bee-Keepers' Association. Last winter 

 its members joined the National Association in a body, as 

 provided by the constitution of this Association. Is our 

 dollar due for the next year now, or a year from the time 

 we paid that dollar in ? 



Pres. Root — I will turn that question over to Dr. Mason 

 to answer. 



Dr. Mason — The dollar isn't due until the dollar you 

 paid is used up, and every member of the Wisconsin Bee- 

 Keepers' Association that is present is entitled to a badge, 

 but you can't get it until I get your name and address so 

 that I may know from Manager Secor, by-and-by, that you 

 are members. 



Mr. Abbott — I think, as chairman of the Board of Di- 

 rectors who have the expending of the monej', it would be 

 a good idea for me to make an old-fashioned explanation 

 just now. I want to say to the bee-keepers that the Board 

 of Directors are doing all they possibly can to advance the 

 interests of bee-keeping in the United States with the funds 

 that they have on hand ; they are limited in their work a 

 great deal because they lack funds, and the only means 

 they have of getting funds is from the membership fees. 

 And now let me give you an incident that occurred a short 

 time ago, which will show you it is vastly important that 

 you become a member of this Association : A lady who 

 lives some 17 miles from St. Joseph, Mo., came into my of- 

 fice about fruit-blooming time, and appealed to me to know 

 what could be done because 22 colonies of her bees had been 

 poisoned by spraying the apple-orchards when in bloom. 

 The first question I askt her was, " Are you a member of 

 the National Bee-Keepers' Association ?" and she imme- 

 diately said, "No." " Well," I said, " So far as helping 

 you financially is concerned, I can't do anything, but I will 

 help you all I can individually ;" but the individual help 

 didn't amount to a great deal, and the lady is yet mourning 

 the loss of 22 colonies of bees. If she had been a member of 

 this Association, we would have immediately taken the 

 matter up, and she would not only have been benefited, but 

 the bee-keeping fraternity also. It was too late by joining 

 the Association after the bees were dead. She said she had 

 thought she probably would never get any good of the 

 dollar, and she would not spend it — she would simply save 

 the dollar. Sometimes when you think you won't have 

 your life insured is when you die. You want to get ready 

 for those things as they come along ; they come to all people 

 when they least expect them. I remember that I kept my 

 property insured for a long while, until the New Era Expo- 



sition came to St. Joseph, and I neglected to insure it for 

 two days, and it had no better sense than to burn during 

 those two days. Since that I have been paying my insur- 

 ance money. I have everything insured but my life. I pay 

 the money that I pay for insurance as cheerfully as any 

 money that I pay, and I look upon this dollar that you give 

 this Association as an insurance, and you ought to give it 

 if you never expect to get any benefit out of it. If each bee- 

 keeper would send in liis dollar, instead of having 400 or 500 

 members, we would have 5,00ii members, and we would be 

 so strong that we could say to anybody in the United States 

 — " If you interfere with the rights of a single bee-keeper, 

 you will run afoul of 5,000 men and women who are in ear- 

 nest, and mean that their rights shall be defended." What 

 have we in China? Why have the troops of the United 

 States gone to China? Simply because the lives of a few 

 men and women were in peril. Uncle Sam called out his 

 navy and his soldiers, and is spending hundreds of thou- 

 sands of dollars. Why? To protect the lives of a few in- 

 dividuals. That is all. As soon as their lives are protected 

 and our citizens are fully protected, thej' will all come back 

 and we will go about our business as usual. If Uncle Sam 

 had not had the army and prestige, and demonstrated by 

 actual experience it would not do to fool with him, the little 

 troop we sent over to China would not have amounted to a 

 drop in the Ocean ; but the world knows and understands if 

 she stirs up the American people that every man, woman 

 and child, if it need be, will take arms in defense of the cit- 

 izens of this country. If people had the right kind of feel- 

 ing in regard to bee-keepers, there would be no petty judges 

 to call us to account because perchance a few people got 

 stung ; they will get their rheumatism cured. They won't 

 say to us, "You can't keep bees in the city." Our council 

 past a resolution, and the marshal came to me and said, 

 " Abbott, move your bees out of town." I said, "I don't 

 move them out to-morrow, or the next day ; wait until I get 

 ready ; we will settle this matter ; we will go into the court ; 

 I will just law you a while before I will move my bees out 

 of town." He consulted the city attorney, and he said to 

 him, "You would better let Abbott's bees alone ; you will get 

 your fingers burned if you go to monkeying with "nim." 

 That was the last of it. The lawyer had read the decision 

 in Arkansas where the judge said bee-keeping was not 

 perse a nuisance. That is what it means to give your 

 dollar. You ought at least to have added $100 while I have 

 been talking. 



Dr. Mason — I wish you could get $100 apiece for every 

 one of such talks. 



" Bee-Keeping in the City" — (Continued). 



Pres. Root — When we began our recess, we were dis- 

 cussing the subject of bee-keeping- in the city. Opportunity 

 will now be given to discuss the matter further. 



A Member — I think we have something different at 

 home than most cities. We have sulphuric acid works : of 

 about 325 colonies in our neighborhood not more than about 

 15 swarmed this season. I have an out-yard where they 

 have swarmed very much. About 18 or 20 days after I 

 moved them they commenced swarming ; so we thought 

 probably the acid works was what affected the bees, there 

 being so much arsenic in the works. I don't know whether 

 that would do it or not. 



Pres. Root — Mr. Aikin perhaps can tell us something 

 about the effect of the smelting works on the bees in Denver. 



Mr. Aikin — It is true we have the smelters in Denver, 

 and a large producing territory immediately surrounding. 

 About 4 years ago there was a large loss of bees — they died 

 — nobody knew why nor how, nor much about it ; some said 

 they "evaporated;" they applied that term because they 

 disappeared so quickly. At our Colorado State convention 

 one said it was the smelter smoke ; another said it was the 

 high winds ; another said it was insects that preyed upon 

 them ; they all told their different views in regard to it ; 

 once in a while several had the same idea, yet no one could 

 say positively what killed the bees. I said it was not the 

 smelter smoke, because I knew a similar circumstance to 

 that — the parties who were in that particular territorj' said 

 it was the wind, others said it was the high winds ; I said 

 it was not the high winds because we had lots of high wind 

 at my place, and no smelter smoke ; the same trouble has 

 appeared since then in less intensity, and in a territory 

 where the smelter smoke did not go. After thinking the 

 matter over for several years, and discussing it over and 

 over again in our State conventions, I have come to the 

 conclusion that we don't know yet what is the trouble. The 

 only experience I have had is this : In 1889, in an out-yard 

 7 miles from headquarters, the colonies were very strong. 



