1919 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



47 



CAWSTON 

 "STRICH FARM) 



Jay Smith on a "Seeing California" excursion. 



in dealing with foulbrood. When the 

 disease was confined to a small ter- 

 ritory it was reasonable to expect 

 that its spread might be checked by 

 establishing quarantine against in- 

 fected areas. Now that it is present 

 in probably every State in the Union, 

 little is to be accomplished for one 

 infected State to establish a quaran- 

 tine against another infected State. 

 There should be laws to govern the 

 movement of diseased apiaries, as a 

 matter of course, but they should be 

 administered in the same way as 

 other laws. Hog cholera is a serious 

 animal disease which the farmers of 

 America have good reason to fear. 

 Yet there is no general provision 

 which makes it the business of a 

 State to examine all the hogs at 

 stated periods and destroy every 

 herd where disease is found, nor yet 

 to give the owner a certain period in 

 which to treat them. Now that chol- 

 era is widely spread and generally to 

 be reckoned with, it is thought that 

 the owner's financial interest in the 

 hogs should be sufficient incentive to 

 give the matter his attention. 



The writer has had five years' ex- 

 perience as a bee inspector and 

 knows something of the impossibility 

 of getting results under existing 

 laws. In the first place, it is a prac- 

 tical impossibility to examine all the 

 bees in a locality in the thorough 

 manner necessary to establish the 

 presence of disease in every case. If 

 bees are examined in such a manner, 

 there is no time left to give their 

 owner assistance or instruction in 

 dealing with the disease, and the 

 chances are good that, without pre- 

 vious experience, if he tries to treat 

 them, he will only make a bad mat- 

 ter worse and spread the disease 

 still further. 



If, instead of coming as a police- 

 man sworn to compel the owner of 

 every diseased colony to cure or 



kill, the inspector came as a demon- 

 strator to assist the owner in treat- 

 ing his bees, he could be of far 

 greater service. A policeman is only 

 called when you have committed a 

 crime or are suspected of malicious 

 intent. As a consequence, nobody 

 likes to see a policeman about. The 

 poorly-informed beekeeper is imme- 

 diately resentful when the inspector 

 comes into the apiary and marks the 

 colonies to be treated. If the inspec- 

 tor had no police authority, but came 

 as an educational officer, he would 

 be welcomed and his work would be 

 far more effective. 



The question of results has been 

 discussed with many of the most suc- 

 cessful inspectors and all have been 

 disappointed in what they have been 

 able to accomplish under these laws. 

 Almost without exception they state 

 that the principal value of their work 

 is in the assistance they have been 

 able to render by instructing the in- 

 experienced in the treatment of dis- 

 ease. This being the case, why not 

 make the office a purely educational 

 one and leave the enforcement of 

 such law as is necessary in the hands 

 of others. 



The legislatures are now in session 

 in several States and in some the 

 beekeepers are considering the mat- 

 ter of protection. Let us warn the 

 beemen in these States that they 

 are better without any law at all 

 than they would be with the string- 

 ent provisions now on the books of 

 several States. Some States have 

 abandoned the stringent quarantine 

 laws after a trial and other States 

 are considering how to get rid of 

 them. Where new laws are to be 

 passed it is far safer to make a move 

 toward an educational officer rather 

 than toward another policeman. 



Probably Morley Pettit, in Ontario, 

 was the first to utilize the apiary 

 demonstration as a means of check- 

 ing bee diseases. By holding a dem- 

 onstration in an accessible location, 



it is possible to reach a large num- 

 ber of persons and to give each one 

 practical instruction in diagnosis and 

 treatment of disease so that he can 

 go home and apply it to his own 

 apiary intelligently. 



A quarantine is never effective un- 

 less it is thoroughly done, and the 

 money available in any State is sel- 

 dom sufficient to cover 20 per cent 

 of the territory. What does it profit 

 to burn up one man's bees and leave 

 a similar condition across the fence 

 untouched? While the inspector is 

 examining all the bees in one large 

 apiary and marking those to be 

 treated, he might have given a group 

 of two dozen persons careful instruc- 

 tion in how to inspect their own api- 

 aries and treat their disease. 



We can only judge a system by its 

 results, and by this standard the 

 quarantine method has certainly 

 been a failure. There is more foul- 

 brood now present in many States 

 than there was at the time the most 

 stringent laws were passed. If the 

 system has proved a failure why not 

 admit the fact and try some plan 

 that gives better promise of success? 



In nearly every State there is an 

 agricultural college with an exten- 

 sion department whose business it is 

 to assist the farmers with every 

 problem. If the beekeepers will 

 strive to get a beekeeper with ex- 

 pert knowledge of disease, into that 

 department, he will be of far greater 

 service to the industry than half a 

 dozen inspectors with police powers. 

 As education increases the necessity 

 for law enforcement decreases. With 

 a proper knowledge of bee diseases 

 there is little occasion for law en- 

 forcement. 



Please note that it is not proposed 

 to do away with all law or force, 

 when necessary, but it is proposed to 

 enforce bee laws exactly like other 

 laws and make the inspector an edu- 

 cational officer. 



