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46 



TENTH ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE 



(Dr. Bohrer — I am certainly pleased 

 to hear these suggestions from Dr. 

 Phillips, and I think it would be an 

 excellent thing to inaugurate a sys- 

 tem such as he has suggested, but it 

 is no easy task. We have been to 

 work at that for more than 35 years 

 in Kansas. 



This talk of Dr. Phillips to us is 

 along a line that we have thought, 

 and an action that we have got to 

 adopt as bee-keepers. 



We want the educational institutions 

 of the State, and of all the States — ^the 

 Agricultural Colleges in particular — to 

 teach the habits of the bee and its 

 management. The students, in turn, 

 as they leave the institutions and go 

 out in the world, even though they may 

 never be practical bee-keepers, they 

 carry with them a fund of knowledge 

 that they will disseminate readily to 

 persons who want information con- 

 cerning the habits and management of 

 the honey-bee. 



In tlie winter of 1S77, Prof. John An- 

 derson invited me to deliver a lecture 

 before the students of the Agricultural 

 'College at Manhattan, on the subject 

 of bee-keeping, and there were 200 stu- 

 dents in the hall, and a more attentive 

 audience I never addressed. He stated 

 to me that it was the intention to take 

 up bee-keeping there, but he said, 

 'INone of us know anything about it 

 whatever, and we want you to cite us 

 to authorities and give us an outline 

 talk of the habits of the insect, and it 

 will be a starting point for us." 



I delivered the lecture, and I want 

 to say that a more interested audience 

 I never addressed in the hundreds of 

 lectures I have 'given; the attention 

 was so great that you could have heard 

 a pin drop at any time during the 

 lecture. 



After that there were some bees 

 purchased and placed on the farm, but 

 no instructions have been given those 

 students there whatever. 



Prof. Anderson got a political bee 

 in his head. He was made a candidate 

 for Congress and was elected, andi he 

 never came back in charges of the 

 school any more, and the industry has 

 been languishing, for the reason that 

 the regents of the college know nothing 

 about bee-keeping; they don't know 

 that it is worth anything, and scarcely 

 will they believe us when we tell them 

 the truth about it. They are appointed 



by politicia,ns — appointed by the Gov- 

 ernor, who is simply a politician, and 

 when we write them up through the 

 papers they won't publish it, they take 

 it as an insult to the college and a 

 public official. 



The teachers of the colleges know 

 nothing about bee-keeping, and these 

 officials not urging the colleges to 

 teach it, it remains untaught and is 

 neglected. And the result is, when- 

 ever we ask for legislation, because the 

 members of the (Legislature know noth- 

 ing about the science of bee-keeping, 

 they do not give us what we stand in 

 need of. i 



(Millions of pounds of honey, as a re- 

 sult of this lack of education, are an- 

 nually going to waste in many and 

 most of our States, that might be saved 

 if people -would become interested in 

 the care of bees. 



As I have before stated, the reason 

 we do not get such legislation as we 

 stand in need of at the present day 

 is because the members of our legisla- 

 tive assemblies know comparatively 

 nothing of the management and habits 

 of the honey-bea But after it is taught 

 for a series of years in our colleges, 

 in our industrial schools, that state of 

 affairs will cease to exist, because the 

 young men and women who are attend- 

 ing these schools, and being educated 

 in this direction, will become the 

 mothers and fathers of the young men 

 who. are to be our successors in the 

 legislative assemblies of the State, and 

 any industry requiring their aid, and 

 an appropriation needed from the 

 State, can be had when their wants 

 are put before them in an intelligent 

 form. 



In our industrial schools the young 

 men and women acquire the most prac- 

 tical education that is obtainable, and 

 it fits them for usefulness in life in 

 any and all departments. . We have 

 less young men leaving our industrial 

 schools who part their hair in the mid- 

 dle, and less young men and women 

 who do not know which end of a cow 

 to go to for her milk, than from any 

 other source and when once the people 

 get to understand the mysteries of 

 bee-keeping and the sources of in- 

 come, and the benefit that that insect 

 is to the horticulturalist, as well as its 

 value for table use, it being the most 

 wholesome sweet in the world — every- 

 body will be ready to endorse the in- 



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