FEBRUARY 1, 1916 



101 



these hives, two of my own design and eon- 

 struotion, and one of the eight-frame Root 

 observation hives, one being placed in each 

 of the thi-ee compartments, and containing 

 respectively colonies of each of the three 

 standard races — Carniolan, Caucasian, and 

 Italian, in order to illustrate the character- 

 istics and markings of each of these races 

 of bees. These colonies were placed in the 

 hives in April, and supported themselves 

 thruout the exposition period of eight 

 months, with no feeding except a very 

 little at the beginning. The manner of 

 connecting the hives with the wall and out- 

 side is vei-y interesting as showing what 

 bees will do when necessary. In order to 

 have their entrance raised above the heads 

 of the people entering one of the main 

 doors of the building which was just ad- 

 joining the exhibit, it was necessary to 

 place the entrance holes in the wall ten feet 

 above the gi'ound, leaving a distance of 

 some seven feet between the hives and the 

 wall entrance on the inside. This distance 

 was bridged, and connection with the hive 

 and wall entrance made by the use of wood- 

 en tubes, one by three inches in diameter by 

 eight feet or more in length, and placed at 

 an elevation of 75 to 85 degrees, with glass 

 slides for observation placed at a distance 

 of about three feet from the hive entrance. 

 I have found no trouble in this arrange- 

 .nent, the bees going and coming thru this 

 long tube as a matter of course, and remov- 

 ing dead bees and other debris from the 

 bottom of the hive, carrying it all out thru 

 the long tube to the outside. These hives 

 were left open for observation for six to 

 eight hours daily, after gradually getting 

 them used to the light, which troubled them 

 slightly at first, by leaving them open a 

 short time every day at the beginning until 

 they became so accustomed to the light that 

 it did not seem to interfere with their work 

 in the least. 



This, I believe, is largely a departure 

 from th? methods of conducting exhibits at 

 former expositions and many fairs, where 

 they have consisted mainly of spectacular 

 demonstrations of handling the bees with 

 the naked hands, having them cluster on 

 the naked skin, etc. — a method which has 

 justly been condemned because it has caused 

 trouble on several occasions, and at best 

 gives people a wrong impression of the 

 real habits of the bees and of the proper 

 precautions to be taken in handling them. 

 It has resulted, also, in a distinct antago- 

 nism on the part of exposition officials 

 agaii;st such exhibits. For this reason the 

 officials of the Panama-Pacific exposition at 

 first refused permission to allow live bees 



to be placed in the exhibit — even the di- 

 rector of exhibits, Mr. F. J. V. Skiff, ex- 

 pressing his disapproval of the plan, mak- 

 ing it necessary to do a little missionary 

 work and instruct the said officials, and, 

 indeed, the entire board of directors, in the 

 ways of the humble honeybee before the 

 proper permission could be obtained. I 

 count it, therefore, as one of the greatest 

 victories won by this exhibit, that, thru the 

 entire exposition period, there has not been 

 one complaint from visitors or officials as 

 lo anj^ annoyance from the bees, and they 

 have had the entire freedom of the grounds, 

 flying within a few feet of hundreds of 

 people daily, including the throwing of 

 four swarms which were duly hived in the 

 most approved manner in the presence of 

 the admiring multitudes. It also demon- 

 strates the fact that the bees can be placed 

 in the schoolroom, as also the exact manner 

 of doing it, and kept there constantly un- 

 der observation without any danger of an- 

 noyance to teachers or pupils, allowing the 

 children to study their habits daily under 

 normal conditions of non-excitement, a 

 condition in which they are much more 

 likely to retain the facts they learn than 

 when they are under the nervous strain of 

 something very startling. This fact has 

 been abundantly demonstrated by the daily 

 visits of hundreds of schoolchildren at the 

 exhibit, and by their manifesting the most 

 intense interest while there. 



In connection with the exhibit, I have, 

 since the first of April, given weekly lec- 

 tures illustrated with a large number of 

 stereopticon slides, of an hour's duration, 

 on Saturday afternoons, in the Palace of 

 Education Theater No. 1, consisting of a 

 series of four lectures as follows : The Nat- 

 ural History and Anatomy of the Honey- 

 bee; The Handling of Bees; The Manage- 

 ment of an Apiary; The Composition and 

 Uses of Honey and Beeswax. 



The attendance and interest manifested 

 in these lectures was very gi'atifying. Start- 

 ing with a handful of people, the attend- 

 ance rapidly increased until I had the the- 

 ater, which seats 150 people, packed, some 

 standing in all the aisles and on the plat- 

 form at every lecture. In this way I reach- 

 ed many thousand people. 



The attendance at the exhibit was steady 

 from the beginning, and counts made at 

 different times showed an average of about 

 fifty people per hour thru the busy hours 

 of the day, which would mean several hun- 

 dred every day, and many thousands for the 

 entire exposition period. On the days when 

 the schoolchildren visited the gi'ounds we 

 were simply overrun. 



