Sept. 25, 1902. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



613 



whole building- rests on a raised cement platform. It is 

 indeed a curiosity, with its little columns and pilded dome 

 surmounted with a miniature statue that reminds one a lit- 

 tle of " I^ibcrty lCnli(.fhteiiin)Lj the World." 



Mr. Horstmanii has all liis colonies named as well as 

 numbered. Kor instance, tlicre are Doolittle, Dr. Miller, 

 Koot, Dadant, Mason, Yates, Brown, Duff, Mary, etc. Some 

 hives are double, and are set up on posts, as he used to cul- 

 tivate the g^round as a garden. Now it is all a beautiful 

 lawn, but he has let the short posts stand just the same. 



Last year he had a crop of 1700 pounds of comb honey 

 from 19 colonies. This year he has some 30 colonics, but 

 doesn't expect much of a crop of honey. 



Kroni Mr. Ilorstmann's apiary we went about two miles 

 on street-cars to see Mr. P. N. DutT's beautiful apiary, man- 

 aged by Mr. Frank Brown. But Mr. Duff was not at home. 

 He has over 150 colonies. But we will have to go and see it 

 again some time when Mr. Duff is at home, and then tell 

 our readers all about it. 



at»v>v>^>^»vjiV;^iv>vi:v>v»vi^iiV»Vi«v>^ 



Convention Proceedings. 



Some Facts in Favor of Joining the National. 



Ji'fdtl til the hi.\t Miitiifsotii Bt'e- Keeper s^ I'onventioH 

 BY MRS. H. G. ACKLIN. 



We were on the verge before of seriously disscussing 

 this very important proposition, and now that vre are fully 

 launched I trust we will remain in the turbulent waters 

 until every bee-keeper in Minnesota has his or her name 

 enrolled as a member of the National Bee-Keepers' Asso- 

 ciation. 



If bee-keepers will commence thinking about this mat- 

 ter seriously and intelligently, and without prejudice of any 

 kind, I feel sure that the result of such thinking will be to 

 bring every one into the Association. Every one will admit 

 that we need something of the kind ; and if this Associa- 

 tion does not quite come up to our standard in this, that or 

 the other thing, let us bring it up to where we want it in 

 every particular. The members have the power to do that 

 very thing. The Association is wholly democratic. Its 

 officers are elected by the members. If a change in the 

 constitution is proposed, it must be ratified by a vote of the 

 members. One person has just as much " say " as another, 

 no matter if the other fellow can talk louder and longer. 



There is no class of bee-keepers but need something 

 more majestic, more awe-inspiring, as it were, to refer in- 

 quisitive people to, than their own State association. The 

 millennium is not quite here ; consequently we have with 

 us yet some people who are envious and spiteful to a certain 

 extent. They do not like to see their neighbor " get on " 

 in the world ; and if they can cause him trouble and ex- 

 pense without much trouble to themselves, they are happy. 

 Bee-keeping seems to be such an easy business to attack. 

 Some one gets stung, maybe by a hornet or wild bee ; but 

 there is a bee-keeper in the vicinity and he is made to suffer. 

 The wrathy stingee comes to him and says : 



■' I got stung by one of your bees, and am going to take 

 steps immediately to have them removed." 



The chances are he would not use quite as mild lan- 

 guage as the above. Then is the time, if the bee-keeper did 

 not belong to the National, that his heart would go pit-a- 

 pat. But he does belong to the National, and he calmly 

 says : 



"Very well, my friend ; but before you commetice pro- 

 ceedings it might be well for you to look into this thing a 

 little. Every bee-keeper in the United States and Canada 

 stands behind me with their money and influence ready to 

 help if I am unjustly attacked." 



The stingee grumbles some more, but goes away with a 

 more serious look on his face, and the bee-keeper hears 

 nothing more about it. 



You may say that this supposititious case is overdrawn. 

 Not so ; I will cite you a circumstance of our own with the 

 same result minus the sting. 



The house next to us is rented. The tenant came in 

 after the bees were put into the cellar. He was a shiftless 

 fellow ; his wife did washing to sujiport the family. Before 

 the bees were taken out in the sjjring he went to his land- 

 lord and said he could not live there on account of the bees ; 

 but if the rent could be reduced he would try and put up 

 with the bees I Just remember, he had not yet seen the 

 bees ! 



The landlady came to our house perfectly wild. We 

 could not reason with her; in fact, she would not listen to 

 a word from us. After about an hour we managed to get 

 in a word about belonging to two bee-keepers' unions, 

 while she was taking breath. The effect was magical. In 

 a few minutes she cooled down, and we were able to talk 

 with her. When she found that her tenant had not even 

 seen the bees, she was disgusted and said he should not live 

 there if he wanted to. 



There is another instance of a disgruntled man. He was 

 working for us, but did not do his work well. We let him 

 go and he was angry. He and another envious person were 

 planning to get up a petition to have our bees removed. 

 Some of our friends told us about it, and we spoke about 

 belonging to the National, and that news became circulated 

 around, and we never heard anything more of the plot. 

 These same people are as friendly to us now as of yore. We 

 never speak of belonging to the National Association unless 

 forced to do so. 



Again, there are other good offices of as much impor- 

 tance as the above which a National Association can per- 

 form. The matter of adulteration is a very serious affair, 

 and is being coped with successfully in several places, as 

 we will see later. Dishonest commission men is another 

 evil which the National must fight. Helping the bee-keep- 

 ers to dispose of the honey crop to the best advantage is 

 another branch of work which the National organization 

 will take up more fully later on. 



There is no limit to the amount of good this Associa- 

 tion might do, if it only had the moral and financial sup- 

 port of every bee-keeper, but it can not work single-handed. 

 There must be funds to meet the expense of all this work ; 

 and there must be co-operation and sympathy in the rank 

 and file of bee-keepers to give the officers courage to go 

 ahead and do the greatest amount of good in all branches 

 of the work. 



I think we have reason to be proud of the record made 

 by the National Association in the past. And it need not 

 take a prophet, nor even the son of a prophet, as we peer 

 into the dim future, to see, nay, almost to realize, the great 

 results for good which this organization can and will 

 accomplish if not handicapped for funds. 



Now, dear friends, I believe it would be an advantage 

 to all of us to join the National Association in a body. 

 That means SO cents for our State Association and 50 cents 

 for the National Association. That is a saving of SO cents 

 each, as the membership fee in the National is SI. 00 if we 

 join singly. 



After I was put on the program for this paper, it oc- 

 curred to me that Mr. E. R. Root would be an excellent per- 

 son to get some facts from, and I wrote to him to that effect, 

 with the following result : 



ADVANTAGES IN JOINING THE NATIONAL. 



Mrs. Acklin : — You ask for some facts in favor of 

 joining the National Bee-Keepers' Association. Stating 

 them off-hand, and on the spur of the moment, they come to 

 my mind about as follows : 



It is the only national organization that is putting up 

 an effective and successful fight against adulteration. 

 Through the efforts of the organization Illinois has a pure 

 food law. and through the action of that law adulteration 

 of every form has been practically driven out. When it is 

 remembered that Chicago was the very hotbed of the honey- 

 mixing business, the work of the organization stands out 

 as something to be proud of. 



But not only in Illinois, but in several other States, the 

 organization has been doing effective work against adul- 

 teration. 



Second— The National Bee-Keepers' Association has, 

 through the operation of law. brought about many valuable 

 precedents, so many of them, in fact, that bees would not 

 be declared a nuisance, and in every city or incorporated 

 village of the United States they are allowed to be kept. 

 The organization brought about this result by appealing 

 to the Supreme Court of Arkansas in the Arkadelphia case, 

 and won in this court. It has defended the rights of bee- 

 keepers in various kinds of suits, and in every case has 

 won. - You are doubtless familiar with the full facts con- 



