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164 FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT 



Central Wisconsin'' I reached an apiary of 15 or 20 colonies, 

 all infected, quite late in the afternoon or evening of the first 

 day of basswood bloom. The man was a very thorough man ; 

 his surroundings all showed it. I repeated to him what I 

 would do with the apiary, were it mine. I said, "Do you un- 

 derstand it?" He said, "Yes." Now as a teacher I learned 

 that the best way to know that the student understood v/hat 

 I itold hitn/ was to let him tell it back to me again. I said, 

 "You tell me, if you please, what you are going to do with 

 those bees." He did, and I had to correct him only in two 

 places, so Ivwas satisfied he understood how to do it, and do 

 it thoroughly. Thirty days later I returned to the apiary to 

 see wh'at the effect was. The same hives were there and I 

 could find no indications of the disease. That was two years 

 ago, and there is none there yet. So I am satisfied it is 

 treated and cured. And on those hives was from 16 to 18, 

 and on one hive 24 pounds of section comb honey within 30 

 days after they had been treated. That colony had not suf- 

 fered very much. 



From another apiary that had gone down from a large 

 to a small number, the apiary having been treated, those 

 bees had been taking first and second premiums at our Wis- 

 consin State fair. It doesn't hurt a boy to have a new suit 

 of clothes. The cost is a very minor affair. The worst diffi- 

 culty with me, for the first few years at least, was to adjust 

 myself to the peculiar condition of each individual bee-keeper. 

 There is the worst feature I find as an inspector. One man 

 is glad you have come, and will do anything, even leave the 

 harvest, if you please, to have that work attended to ; the 

 other man is the very opposite — he would sooner you would 

 get away from there; he would promise an3rthing to get rid 

 of you; and the surroundings correspond. That is the man 

 who needs an inspector, not the other man. In order to help 

 out I have taken with me for the last two years a German 

 wax-press, having a case made so that I could check it as 

 baggage. Where I found a badly -infected yard, with the 

 class of bee-keeper whose surroundings are not favorable, I 

 take off my coat and I stay there and clean up the premises 

 myself, and take my wax-press and go on. If 1 leave it to 

 him a neighbor who is making his living out of the business 

 will suffer from the indifference of this friend. 



Mr. Wilcox — Have you traced the source of foul brood 

 to bee-trees or wild bees in the woods? 



Mr. France — That was brought out very strongly the 

 second year I was out. One man said, "There is no use 

 treating my bees because the woods are full of bee-trees, and 

 you will never get rid of it." I used to hunt bee-trees. 

 So after I had treated all the bees in the vicinity, and be- 

 fore I got through, I found two bee-trees. One of them 

 was where a swarm had gone from an infected hive ; it was 

 away over yonder on a bluff. This man said that that tree 

 must be diseased. I said, "On what basis can you argue 

 that that is diseased?" He said, "Why, the bees went from 

 here over there; they carried the honey with them, and I 



