Oct. 19, 1899. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



659 



Hon. E. Whitcomb, of Nebraska, then delivered the 



following- 

 President's Annual Address. 



Once again we have assembled from the West, North 

 and the South in this beautiful City of Brotherly Love, in 

 which American freedom beg-an its flight. In the years 

 that have rolled along, the busy bee has kept pace with the 

 iron horse in her course toward the Western sunset, and to- 

 day she gathers sweet nectar from the flowers that bloom 

 from every hillside, valley, glen, and far out on the prairies, 

 and the breezes are wafted to the home of the hone^'-bee 

 from the shores of the Atlantic, the broad Pacific, and from 

 the Gulf. 



NOT A PROSPEROUS YEAR. 



The year now rapidly drawing to a close has not been a 

 prosperous one for our chosen avocation, and while a fevr 

 of us have a goodly supply of the products of the apiary, the 

 great majority are compelled to report rather light results. 

 Following an unusually rigorous winter, a spring wet and 

 cold, with a warm, dry summer, there is little else to expect 

 save the complaint of light stores. 



FOUL BROOD. 



It is said that opportunities of some kind present them- 

 selves once in a lifetime to every man — to this, woman 

 might be added — and to us the subject of foul brood has 

 been the all-absorbing- topic during the past season. While 

 this disease has been thoroly discust pro and con, yet when 

 one comes to tackle it, or to have it attack him, it is quite 

 another phase of the argument. In my experience with 

 foul brood this season I have learned that it readily j-ields 

 to the treatment in which the colony is, compelled to use 

 what stores they have in their sacs for comb-building, and 

 that it is not necessary to destroy either hive, frames, or 

 wax, as these may be so easily and thoroly renovated of all 

 traces of this disease that in no case has it appeared in the 

 apiary a second time after treatment. 



RELATION OF BEES TO FLOWERING PLANTS. 



The relation of the honey-bee to flowering plants is a 

 subject of importance. Experiments made by the Govern- 

 ment show the benefits of a thoro cross-fertilization of 

 plants, especially of their own species. In-breeding was for 

 a divine purpose forbidden, and in no case is this sooner to 

 be observed than in plants and fruits. An All-Wise de- 

 signer placed the nectar beneath the blossom for the sole 

 purpose of attracting the honey and pollen gatherer thither 

 for the purpose of cross-fertilization. Nearly all of our 

 fruit blossoms are hermaphrodite — they carry both sexes 

 within themselves — yet a great many are utterly incapable 

 of self-fertilization, as in the apple, cherry, strawberry, 

 and hundreds of others which I might name. In the straw- 

 berry, in order to produce a perfect fruit will require the 

 separate fertilization of from one to three hundred, and the 

 dark-green masses to be found in almost any dish of straw- 

 berries are only evidences of imperfect fertilization. In the 

 raspberry and blackberry every little rounded mass has re- 

 quired the visitation of an insect in order for fertilization. 



The need of bee-keepers is to g-et into closer touch with 

 the horticulturistj to convince him that we are his friends, 

 and that when our bees visit his orchard and vines, not only 

 we but he receives a benefit directly therefrom. The ex- 

 perience of Senator G. W. Swink, of Otero Co., Colo., as 

 stated at an informal reception given in the Apiary Build- 

 ing at Omaha, is in itself a whole chapter in favor of the 

 honey-bee as a fertilizer of both fruit and flower. 



In stating his case at that meeting, the Senator said 

 that as he engaged in the business of melon-growing on the 

 Arkansas, the crop was unsatisfactory. No blossoms that 

 came prior to the little prairie sweet-bee produced fruit, the 

 crop was late, the melons deformed. A friend suggested 

 that the trouble was in fertilization, and advised the honey- 

 bee as a remedy. Advertisements were inserted in Kansas 

 papers offering a free location, and free board, to the party 

 who would locate an apiarj' in Swink's melon-fields, and 

 when I inquired the result, he said, " Why, more than four 

 times the melons "," and now are located in those vast 

 melon-fields more than 600 colonies of bees, and the famous 

 Rocky Ford melons are to be found in every Western mar- 

 ket. They fed the vast throng of people that visited the 

 Trans-Mis.sissippi for nearly a week last fall, including the 

 bee-keepers of the United States Bee-Keepers' Association, 

 who were present on that occasion, while the Indians lugged 

 melons and danced until this Association was really in dan- 

 ger of being contaminated with the effects of the festive 

 dance. 



ADULTERATION. 



Nothing that we have to deal with meets us so squarely 

 in the face at this time as adulteration. Years ago Sena- 

 tor Paddock, of my State (Nebraska), took up the mat- 

 ter of enacting pure-food laws, but the adulterators rallied 

 to its defeat in such numbers that it failed to pass. Con- 

 gress has again taken up that question, and placed Senator 

 Mason at the head of a committee whose duties are to make 

 such investigations as are possible, and to report such laws 

 as will best meet the cases in question. In a correspondence 

 with Senator Mason I have pledged him the undivided sup- 

 port of 5,000,000 bee-keepers, and he assures me that of all 

 the abuses honey appears to have suffered the most, and 

 that it shall have a prominent position in the Bill which his 

 committee is to report to the next Congress. 



When I pledged him these 5,000,000 bee-keepers of the 

 United States in support of a pure-food law, I realized fully 

 what benefits such a law would bring to these producers, 

 and would extend to perhaps SO, 0(X), 000 consumers. In order 

 to make this support felt, we must ask our senators and 

 representatives in Congress to support this measure; we 

 must unite ourselves to the organization that will enforce 

 such a law when enacted, and stand by it to the end. 



The opportunity now presents itself for this Association 

 to make its influence felt in this direction, but in order to 

 do so there must be a unity of action, a banding together 

 with this one idea of success. Differences must be dropt, 

 especially so far as thej' relate to small things, and to gain 

 this much-desired end it matters not whether honey is best 

 South, East or West. The bee-keepers of the United States 

 are confronted with an army of adulterators who are grad- 

 ually bringing the product of the apiary into disrepute, and 

 lessening the demand even for a pure article, for the reason 

 that suspicion is being cast on every grade, and in many 

 localities it is even asserted that comb honey is subject 

 to adulteration. These mistaken ideas come mainly from 

 the adulterators themselves, who desire to induce the public 

 to believe that they are as good as the very best. 



ADULTERATORS OK HONEY. 



The suits instituted against the adulterators of honey 

 at Chicago, under the pure-food laws of Illinois, have proven 

 a failure from the fact that the law allowed the venders to 

 plead that thej' were not aware of the adulteration. The 

 gun that isn't loaded is the most dangerous of all, and the 

 bee-keepers of the United States will be compelled to rely 

 upon national legislation rather than State laws in order 

 to clean up this great arm)' of adulterators who prey on the 

 unsuspecting, and, when confronted in their nefarious 

 work, hide behind some clause in the law to escape punish- 

 ment by pleading- ignorance. Prof. Eaton, who has ana- 

 lyzed several samples of adulterated honey at Chicago, 

 states that out of the number analyzed but three were found 

 to be pure, and the one upon which an action was based 

 contained glucose almost entirely; not sufficient honey be- 

 ing used for flavoring-. The law, remarkt Mr. Eaton, is 

 about as good as no law at all, and when " ignorance is 

 bliss " while engaged in vending beeless honey made from 

 a cheap sample of glucose, dangerous to health, one of the 

 most honorable and healthgiving industries of the United 

 States must suffer. The experience with these adulterators 

 should nerve the bee-keepers of the United States with a 

 renewed determination to stand together until these abuses 

 are stampt out, once for all. 



THE BENEFIT OF DEFEAT. 



There will doubtless grow out of failure some real bene- 

 fits to the honey producer, inasmuch as all adulterators will 

 fully understand that there are lurking in the woods and on 

 the watch-towers those who are looking after their nefar- 

 ious practices in deceiving the public, and who seized on 

 the first opportunity to prosecute them. This will make 

 them a little more cautious, and more samples will be 

 branded with what they really contain, and more honey will 

 be used in compounding adulteration. This is possibly 

 worth to the Association all that it has cost, if not more. 



THE UNITED STATES BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION. 



This Association is not strong enough to have its in- 

 fluence felt as it should be felt. Memberships mean dol- 

 lars, and dollars mean that which with your outside in- 

 fluence can and will be felt all along the line from Maine to 

 Oregon, and from the Gulf away up into the British pos- 

 sessions. Every member of this Association ought to con- 

 stitute himself a committee to secure the membership of his 

 neighbors and fellow bee-keepers, until every live, wide- 



