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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Oct. 23 1902. 



I The Denver Convention. I 



^ Report of the Proceeding's of the Thirty-third Annual Can- ^ 



•^ vention of the National Bee-Keepers' Association, S^ 



^ held in Denver, Colo., on Wednesday, Thurs- «'• 



3 day and Friday, Sept. 3, 4 and 5, 1902. ^ 



iContinaed from pa^e 664,} 

 Pres. Hutchinson — Is there some one 



else who has some views to advance 



upon the subject before us ? 



Mr. York — Dr. Miller has made the 



suggestion, in his address, and I, for 



another, would like to hear from Prof. 



Benton. 



Prof. Benton — I am not an eloquent 



speaker by any means, and I can tell 



you only of a few facts merely in a 



plain, simple way. 



The Oovernment and Bee°Keeping. 



I was appointed, after having been 

 abroad some years in private work en- 

 tirely, to undertake to do something 

 for the apiarian industry of the coun- 

 try at the United States Department of 

 Agriculture. The first proposition, 

 perhaps, on which m5' services were 

 demanded, was to undertake to secure 

 from the East Indies and China the 

 race of bees existing there ; there were, 

 however, a number of technicalities in 

 the way of taking up that work at 

 once, and it was shelved for the time, 

 and it rests there still, I am sorry to 

 say. because I think it ought to be un- 

 dertaken. It will come forward, how- 

 ever, in the future. 



Now, meanwhile, there were various 

 things that could be done, and the 

 Department thought most of all that 

 there were in this country large num- 

 bers of people that were interested in 

 apiculture, but knew nothing of it, or 

 how to get at it, or how to get at the 

 information ; in fact, there were many 

 people who did not know that there 

 were works on apiculture that could be 

 had readily ; they did not know how to 

 begin the business, therefore they com- 

 missioned me to prepare one or two 

 little pamphlets on the subject which 

 should connect those people that were 

 really on the outside track with the in- 

 dustry itself. I did that work, and it 

 has proved acceptable. I think, in gen- 

 eral since ; those publications have 

 gone through many editions, and are 

 constantly called for, more, in fact, 

 than the law has permitted us to issue, 

 and there are daily calls for that infor- 

 mation. 



Now, a great deal of the work, since 

 I have been connected with the Depart- 

 ment, has been to answer inquiries 

 from just this class of people. We get 

 daily queries from different portions 

 of the country, from your far West and 

 from the East and South. One man 

 wants to know which is the best race 

 of bees adapted to his locality ; still 

 another man asks what honey-produc- 

 ing plant he should put out in his 

 neighborhood ; and he asks a specific 

 question, perhaps. To all of these, to 

 each and every one, I have to give 

 some reply, the best information I can 

 obtain concerning it, and as you know 



this is such a wide country, all kinds 

 of climates from Maine to Southern 

 California, from Minnesota to the 

 Gulf States, from the Atlantic to the 

 Pacific, and all manner of conditions 

 and combinations occur. Each one 

 must have, then, a special replj'. 



Now, when it comes to the matter, 

 for instance, of bee-forage, I had just 

 the other day an inquiry from a man 

 in Minnesota, who asked what plant 

 he should put out on the shore of a 

 lake where the water had receded and 

 the ground %vas but a foot above the 

 level of the water, and had grown up 

 with swamp-grass, and he didn't know 

 what would grow there that would 

 blossom to fill in a gap in his honey 

 crops. 



Now, in order to answer just such 

 questions, my proposition has been, 

 and we are doing that work, collecting 

 information concerning every known 

 honey-producing plant, its area, the 

 soils that that plant may be found on, 

 where it will thrive, then mapping 

 these areas where the plant is found 

 naturally, and setting down the 

 amount of blossoming, and determin- 

 ing what crops could be cultivated to 

 fill in the gap in any given localit}", 

 so that with the outlined maps filled in 

 with the areas of the leading honey- 

 producing plants, we are able to give 

 an opinion, and say such and such 

 plants are common ; we know just 

 what a man's honey resources are 

 when we locate him, and we know what 

 may be cultivated to advantage. 



We get a great many inquiries about 

 bee-diseases, and people ask also what 

 they can do towards securing State 

 Legislation, and we tell them what has 

 been done in other States, and what 

 measures seem to us most advisable to 

 adopt with the laws covering that. 

 There is foul brood, and then also the 

 adulteration of honey. I don't know 

 that we have sufficiently attempted to 

 influence legislation in favor of laws 

 governing the adulteration of honey, 

 so far as at least requiring that honey 

 should be labeled and sent out under 

 its own name ; and I have co-operated 

 with the National Pure Food Congress, 

 which has assembled in Washington, 

 and have given information to mem- 

 bers of congress that were on the com- 

 mittee also on Pure Food Legislation. 



The Department, on my recommen- 

 dation, has imported various races and 

 strains of bees, the bees of distant 

 Cyprus, West Austria — Carniolans, 

 known as very gentle bees. It has 

 also imported about twice the number 

 of Italians than any of the other races, 

 because I conceive many of the Italians 

 brought to this country are not of the 

 preferable strain, but we should have 

 bees from the more northern districts 

 of Italy, and those bees have been sent 



to various experimental stations that 

 were prepared to do something with 

 apiculture, and to leading bee-keepers 

 in different parts of the country who 

 were competent to test them and ren- 

 der good opinions, and who were will- 

 ing also to rear queens from this stock 

 and sell them at a reasonable price to 

 bee-keepers. In that way we reached 

 a larger number than we could by 

 attempting to breed queens and make 

 a general distribution, and for my own 

 part I have never recommended such a 

 general distribution of queens as there 

 has been of seed at the Department. 



I have been testing, and have been 

 given time by the Department to test 

 all known systems of rearing queen- 

 bees, to determine what seemed the 

 most practical, simple and easily ap- 

 plicable method, and that by which we 

 could produce the largest number and 

 best queens with the least expenditure. 

 In connection with that I think I had 

 the honor of suggesting the first re- 

 movable queen-cells that could be used 

 over and over. Others have taken that 

 up and developed it in a commercial 

 manner. I think since that the sug- 

 gestion was brought forward at that 

 progressive bee-keepers' society, known 

 as the Ontario County, N. Y,. Bee- 

 Keepers' Association, and from that it 

 has spread far and wide. In connec- 

 tion with this work I have developed 

 a nucleus hive for the care of the 

 queen-cells and the holding of the 

 queens until they are mated and ready 

 to send out. Now, that nucleus hive 

 has various features considered likely 

 to prove valuable, and I am testing it 

 this year with thus far eminent suc- 

 cess ; and a further point is, I am of 

 opinion I can winter readily very small 

 nuclei over full colonies : in other 

 words, by wintering a queen in the 

 body of the hive, and two nuclei above 

 double wire-cloth, I can winter three 

 queens to the hive ; and I think that 

 would be a practical feature for honey- 

 producers who themselves are not 

 queen-sellers, and have no opportunity, 

 perhaps, to sell queens in the spring, 

 but who would thus have a reserve for 

 every colony intended to be put into 

 harvest, of two extra queens to select 

 from, in the spring, enabling a man to 

 select that one which he believed 

 would develop his colony to the highest 

 standard for honey-production. 



The collection and dissemination of 

 information of a statistical nature con- 

 cerning the bee-industry I consider of 

 great importance, since, I think, most 

 bee-keepers are agreed the information 

 contained in the census reports is not 

 in all respects to be relied upon. I 

 think we have deficient reports regard- 

 ing the status of the industry in the 

 country, and that, were a full report 

 obtained, the importance and value of 

 the industry to the country would be 

 greater than it appears now. Follow- 

 ing that, the collection of and the issu- 

 ance of regular reports regarding our 

 honey crop I have recommended for a 

 number of years, but have been unable 

 to carry that through. There is more 

 prospect of our doing that in the near 

 future, especially if bee-keepers would 

 demand it — a regular collection of sta- 

 tistics concerning the condition of the 

 crops and the issuance of monthly or 

 bi-monthly reports in the same way as 

 the crop reports regarding the staples 

 of the country. I have not believed it 

 could be done through the preparation 



