THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



rist," which contained some very good 

 points such as the value of a good 

 queen, the necessity of a good location 

 and the need of thoroughness. It was 

 rather a review of what Mr. DooHtile 

 has written about for years. There 

 were no new points but on the whole 

 the address was interesting and well de- 

 livered. 



Mr. D.'s address was followed by one 

 of those tiresome discussions on "Should 

 Beekeeping be made a Specialty?" 

 which amounted simply to a "back and 

 fill" with no decided conclusions. Mr. 

 Elwood, however, ended the discussion 

 with the words of one of our well-in- 

 formed N. Y. beekeepers to the effect 

 that it was better to work into bees 

 gradually and then decide whether or 

 no the apiarist wished to make a spec- 

 ialty of apiculture. 



After dinner Mr. W. Z. Hutchinson 

 read a paper by Mr. W. F. Clark (who 

 was unable to be present), on "Preven- 

 tion of Swarming" in so broken and dis- 

 connected a manner that it was hard to 

 understand the points, therefore it would 

 have been better to have left such papers 

 to a full reproduction in the journals, 

 when the writers are unable to be pres- 

 ent. Such a paper can not be read with 

 the force of the author by many. It is 

 very liable to ruin a good writer's repu- 

 tation by trusting the delivery to any- 

 body without a careful study of the 

 points it contains. 



The discussion of the question of 

 "Prevention and Control of Swarming" 

 was another very dull affair, taking val- 

 uable time which could have amounted 

 to something in the hands of one or 

 two good apiarists with ca'-eful, well 

 written papers. As it was, the question 

 of "Control of Swarming" was touched 

 upon but once, while the meeting went 

 off into a wild explanation of individual 

 methods for preventing swarming. It 

 was a Vermont beekeeper who straight- 

 ened the matter out by showing that it 

 was better to prevent swarming as far 

 as possible and to allow them to swarm 

 as their nature called for and then make 

 the best of it by putting on the boxes 



on at once and hiving the bees on start- 

 ers only. There were several in the 

 hall who were surprised that the 

 matter of "control" was so suddenly 

 dropped and one man made the remark 

 after the meeting that he believed that the 

 whole matter would be solved through 

 the invention of a perfect swarming 

 device, trap, or something of that na- 

 ture, and by so manipulating hives that 

 the swarming is brought to a few colo- 

 nies somewhat after the jumping plan. 



The new Canadian method of jump- 

 ing hives was brought up. but the speak- 

 er said he knew very little about it but 

 intended to learn of its workings as 

 soon as he could spare the $5.00 it re- 

 quired to purchase it. It is doubtless 

 a valuable management and the Api 

 will surely give it as soon as it is known 

 to the world. 



Mr. G. H. Knickerbocker read a 

 well written paper with a plea for set- 

 ting a standard on Italian bees to be 

 adopted by the Association. It was 

 discussed quite extensively but was at 

 last left to a committee to pass in reso- 

 lutions to be voted upon by the con- 

 vention. Any convention might set 

 a standard of markings but what would 

 it amount to? There would not be one 

 breeder in ten to heed the standard. 

 American breeders are after a solid 

 yellow bee. The three-band test is 

 out of sight. All other qualities are in 

 the hands of the breeder. Careful 

 breeders will get their share of orders 

 whether or no. 



It is hoped that the North American 

 will not adopt a standard below what 

 has already been achieved at all events. 



Dr. A. B. Mason was unable to be 

 present and his paper, " The Outlook 

 for Apiculture at the Columbian Expo- 

 sition," was read by Mr. W. Z. Hutch- 

 inson. 



It was found that only 100 square 

 feet had been assigned to each state 

 for bee exhibits and when one state 

 had applied for 1,000 feet of the 1,300 

 the 300 feet left would be rather small 

 for California, New York or Texas. A 

 committee, to act with Dr. Mason, on 



