county of Jessamine are about 600 farms. A 

 good rule would be for every farmer to keep 

 just enough bees to supply his own family 

 with honey. 



J. W. Rose said in his neighborhood, 

 within au area of six miles, there are over 

 500 colonies, and all have proven more 

 profitable than any he has heard of. 



Are any other Safeguards necessary 

 Against Moth than simply Strength- 

 ening Colonies with the Best Strain 

 of Bees ? 



Gen. Gano said: My object is to learn, and 

 we can all learn better by meeting and tell- 

 ing our experience. It is my opinion that 

 other safeguards are necessary. I feel that 

 a majority of you are against me, but I came 

 here to be righted if wrong. The Excelsior 

 hive I claim is a moth-proof hive. I have 

 used Langstroth hives, but since using the 

 Excelsior I have had no trouble whatever, 

 and would like to know how much of my 

 success is due to the hive I use. It may be 

 we are more troubled with moth in Texas, 

 where I reside, than in Kentucky. I am 

 free to admit that Italian bees protect them- 

 selves better than blacks. He then criti- 

 cised Mr. C. H. Dean's essay as condemning 

 everything in the shape of moth-proof hives. 



J. R. Williamson said that Mr. Dean, in 

 his essay, condemned moth traps and patent 

 hives in general, but Mr. Dean is only echo- 

 ing the warning voice of all American bee 

 journals and magazines. 



Mr. Dean said that when he prepared his 

 essay he was not aware there would be any 

 moth-traps at the Convention, or he might 

 not have written as he had, as it is a great 

 •deal easier to talk behind a man's back than 

 to his face. The Langstroth hive, filled with 

 the best strains of bees, as the question em- 

 braces, is undoubtedly the best moth-proof 

 hive known. 



Pres. Hersperger then delivered the follow- 

 ing address: 



Success in Bee-Keeping. 



Another year has rolled around. Another 

 springtime has come, and we are again 

 assembled to talk and learn of one of the in- 

 dustries of our land, and one of the sources 

 of wealth to our nation. The winter has 

 been a severe one, and many of our little 

 pets have left us, but the soft winds from 

 the sunny land of the South have opened the 

 buds and carpeted the fields in clover of 

 purple and gold, and the hum of the bee as 

 it improves the shining hours, is again heard 

 around us. They are already increasing 

 their numbers by thousands and tens of 

 thousands, and the depleted hives, from the 

 cold winter, will again, under judicious 

 management, soon be replenished and ready 

 for work. Nature has so ordained that with 

 the increase of the flora comes the increase 

 of bees. The harvest and the harvesters 

 come simultaneously. But this does not 

 argue, by any means, that he who has 

 flowers and bees will of necessity reap a 

 harvest of honey. The race is not always to 

 the swift, nor the battle to the strong. 



Prudent and skillful management, coupled 

 with energy and industry, almost always 

 brings success in all departments of life. 

 But in nothing is it more absolutely neces- 



sary than in the successful management of 

 bees. So much depends upon the man; 

 upon his industry, his energy, his habit of 

 thinking and investigating, his perseverance 

 and unbending deterininrtion to succeed, 

 that I am forced to say that success in bee- 

 keeping depends upon the man; of course 

 the elements or conditions of success must 

 be present. The flora must be in the fields, 

 and the honey must be in the tiny cells of 

 the flora, but to gather it in and secure and 

 and save the greatest possible amount is 

 where the prudent and skillful management 

 comes in. He who turns over every stone 

 and leaves nothing undone that can be done; 

 who knows the wants and condition of every 

 hive; who reads and thinks, compares and 

 examines all the bearings upon the subject, 

 will succeed without fail, unless the honey 

 be absent from the fields. And this same 

 tenacity to business brings success in all 

 departments of life, I care not whether it be 

 with the professions or with the humble, 

 but none the less noble calling of farming. 

 Look around you and see who are the suc- 

 cessful men, and you will see at once energy 

 and industry and good management com- 

 bined. A determination to succeed, with 

 the proper elements at hand, will surely 

 bring success. One of the sources of failure 

 in bee-keeping is the eagerness to increase 

 in stock beyond the ability to manage them. 

 Every beginner in bee-keeping should aim 

 to make honey, and let increase in bees 

 alone. They will increase of themselves as 

 fast as he can learn to take care of them. 

 "Make haste slowly," is the advice of one 

 of our best bee-keepers. Another source of 

 trouble is that our country is being flooded 

 with poor queens and worthless bees. The 

 cry has gone out over the land for dollar 

 queens — "the daughters of imported 

 mothers." Nothing else is required, except 

 that they be the fertile daughters of im- 

 ported mothers. This gives any one the 

 right to sell queens who has an imported 

 mother. No difference how many black 

 bees are around you and in your own apiary; 

 how poor your chances are to have a solitary 

 queen purely fertilized, you have the right 

 to send them out broadcast over the land to 

 your customers, far and near, under the 

 high sounding title, "daughters of imported 

 mothers." Is this right ? Has a man the 

 right to sell queens when he knows the 

 chances for purity of fertilization are not at 

 all favorable? I have blacks all around me, 

 with plenty of hybrids in my apiary, and 

 yet I have the right, under this ruling, to get 

 a $5 imported queen and raise and sell a 

 hundred queens this season, and thereby 

 put a hundred dollars into my pocket. But 

 would this be right ? I claim it would not, 

 and that no one should offer queens for sale 

 unless the chances for purity of fertilization 

 are favorable. In order to do this his own 

 apiary should be all Italian, and his nearest 

 neighbors as well. And then, again, not 

 every queen that comes from Italy is a pure 

 Italian. This for a long time was not so 

 understood, but believed that every queen 

 that crossed the ocean was pure, but it is 

 now conceded by the best apiarists of our 

 country that the German bees have been in- 

 troduced into Italy and are mixed in with 

 the Italian of that country. Mr. C. J. Quinby, 



