valuable strains of bees in America tban 

 can be found anywhere else. " Necessity is 

 the mother of invention," and bees have 

 got to be " business," to make the comb to 

 hold the nectar that very frequently lies 

 about loose, in the summer time, in this 

 country. Their disposition is to have it all, 

 and nature often hands it out so bounteously 

 that it makes the little fellows cultivate 

 habits of industry, together with solid mus- 

 cles, to take it all in out of the wet and 

 sunshine. 



I think Mr. Pometta did well to take home 

 an American-Italian queen. "Actions speak 

 louder than words." James Heddon. 



Dowagiac, Mich. 



Mr. Hunter, of Iowa, said a black 

 bee could sting him 9 times out of 10 

 before he could kill it ; but with 

 Italians he could kill 9 out of 10 before 

 they could sting him. 



Mrs. Spencer propounded the ques- 

 tions : "Are bees taxable property i If 

 so, how, by whom, and how much ?" 



Mr. Wilcox. Yes. 



Mr. Heddon. I have been assessed 

 every year on my bees. 



Mr. Winslow, Wis., has been taxed. 



Dr. Slade, 111., has been taxed for 

 his bees ; but in other parts of his 

 county, assessors do not list them. 



Mr. Grimm, Wis., has always been 

 assessed one dollar per colony. 



Mr. Collins, Texas, has never known 

 bees to be assessed in his State. 



Mr. Bingham, Mich., has always been 

 assessed on his bees ; but a party keep- 

 ing but few colonies, is passed over. 



Mr. Godfrey, Iowa, has made in- 

 quiries in many States, and finds about 

 one in ten only pays taxes on bees. 



Mr. King said, in New York bees are 

 taxed 20 per cent. 



The Secretary read an essay on 



Kee Enemies the Bee-Keepers' friends. 



In selecting this subject we have endeavored 

 to present something new and yet true. 



Many things in life we take as evil which 

 in reality is for our good. The All-Wise 

 Creator, for a good purpose, no doubt, has 

 limited man's knowledge. Some things we 

 know ; but there are more things of which 

 we know nothing; and some things we 

 think we know and do not ! To pretend to 

 be very wise seems to be a natural failing or 

 weakness of the genus homo ! But few ever 

 reach that eminence where they can see the 

 utter insignificance of the whole sum of human 

 knowledge ; consequently the world is full of 

 quacks, called by some scientists. 



They will give you a long-winded theory, 

 interspersed with foreign words, to make a 

 show of wisdom, while what they tell you 

 neither they nor anybody else know anything 

 about. These quacks pervade every profes- 

 sion in life. They impose themselves on a 

 credulous public with the expectation of adu- 



lation and reward. And our noble profession 

 is no exception to the general rule. In every 

 department they are found. They can tell 

 you how to perform every operation from a 

 possible fertilization of a queen, to the chang- 

 ing of the sex of the egg, and especially how 

 to make a fortune out of nothing. This is one 

 of the enemies of the bee. Thousands of 

 hives are destroyed by novices in attempting 

 to follow these quacks. 



Dysentery and foul-brood, both from the 

 same cause, are enemies that make their peri- 

 odic slaughter without respect to persons. 

 This is the great enemy of all; defying a stay 

 in its progress. 



Another foul-brood is that hoard of patent 

 vendors, with their oily tongues and glib 

 mouth. Samson-like, they slay thousands. 

 Next is a less pretentious but just as important 

 animal — the toad. He will walk up to a hive 

 of bees with less timidity than either the quack 

 or humbug-vendor, and take a position where 

 he is prepared to take the " little busy bee " 

 ill out of the wet. However, this is not much 

 of an enemy, and we rather admire his temer- 

 ity, and do not know but he is entitled to all 

 the poison and honey he can get ; one proba- 

 bly the antidote of the other. 



The bee-killer is an insect that belongs to a 

 species of the genus, specie-resumption gold- 

 bug. The way they can be told is by their 

 long legs and proboscis, by which they are 

 able to hold an enemy fast, suck out his life- 

 blood, and yet be clear cut of reach of harm. 

 The difference between this species and an- 

 other is not much : One takes the honey be- 

 fore we get it, and the other, after. With his 

 long legs, (National banks) and his long pro- 

 poscis (bonds), he is able to suck labor dry of 

 any fruits with the greatest ease imaginable. 



The great bugbear, bee moth, can hardly be 

 classed as a bee enemy. It is more of an 

 enemy to the bee-keeper, in that it prevents 

 many sales of bees to the inexperienced. 



Other enemies might be mentioned, but to 

 be brief we will turn to the other side of the 

 question. How are those enemies the bee- 

 keepers friends ? We answer : because they 

 keep the stock of bees in the country so re- 

 duced that there is a market for both bees and 

 honey. Without these enemies bees would 

 become so numerous that there would be sale 

 for neither, and our occupation would be gone. 



Suppose that there was but one colony of 

 bees in the United States to-day. In thirty 

 years, with the moderate increase of one 

 swarm from each colony, annually, there 

 would be bees enough to establish an apiary 

 of loo colonies on each farm in the country. 



With the present number of bees and the 

 same rate of increase, in a much less time 

 than thirty years, there would be bees enough 

 to establish a colony on every acre of land in 

 the United States. Methinks Jasper Hazen 

 would then have lots of disciples, if not sooner. 



