ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



67 



Holterman was just telling me the 

 amount of sugar syrup 'he has had to 

 feed, it is depressing. Where a man had 

 a few colonies in the early days and got 

 25 to 30 cents a pound for his honey, 

 we thought it very nice. But after all 

 it was not half as nice as it is today in 

 the high tension. Look at the results 

 today. We see great steam engines 

 pulling trains at forty to sixty miles 

 an hour under such heavy tension that 

 every bolt is strained in the machine. 

 We cannot help but admire them al- 

 though attendant with some danger. 



Now, in reference to the Association 

 that binds us together as bee-keepers 

 I want to say a word of importance 

 about the National association. 



Now, some of us pay in our dues 

 every year, and never expect to get 

 any returns. Perhaps most of us in- 

 sure our buildings or our manufactur- 

 ing plants and never expect to get the 

 money we pay out on the policies. We 

 certainly do not at our place of busi- 

 ness. Now, there are some members ■ 

 who may think that there should be a. 

 direct benefit on this investment of one 

 dollar a year, otherwise it is no use to 

 them. Well, there are direct benefits 

 to every member if they only reach 

 out and receive them. But the main 

 thing is, and I think it was a very terse 

 remark that our Manager made to 

 me a short time ago, that "if the build- 

 ing burned we expected to get the in- 

 surance; if we insured and the build- 

 ing didn't burn we couldn't expect it" 

 There is a parallel case and in this oi- 

 ganization that has done so much good 

 in the defense of bee-keepers who ha\e 

 been injured by jealous neighbors, by 

 troublesome neighbors and by unfortu- 

 nate circumstances, it has more than 

 paid itself to my mind; and the small 

 investment of that amount should be 

 like that of any charitable institution, 

 go to the benefit of the ones that need 

 it. That iy what we want, ladies anncl 

 gentlemen. We want something out cf 

 every member that goes to benefit the 

 man that is down, to help the under- 

 dog. 



In the matter of the National Asso- 

 ciation there are some things to be 

 considered that perhaps connect it as 

 it were with the early days of bee- 

 keeping. The first Association was the 

 North American, and Mr. Quimby, who 

 I was acquainted with, was its first 

 honorary president; and I take this 

 opportunity to thank you members of 

 the Convention for my election, al- 



though I did not know of it until after 

 I was elected, and did not expect it, 

 and did not feel I was worthy of it, 

 having done bo little for it; and fur- 

 thermore I had so much of the bur- 

 den at home. I am an overworked 

 man, have been as an inventor since I 

 was nineteen, and I therefore thought 

 best to keep out of as many offices as 

 possible, although I have been bur- 

 dened by quite a good many. I thank 

 you, ladies and gentlemen, for this 

 honored position, and especially so as 

 Father Quimby annd Father Langs- 

 troth were of the first to honor this 

 country with their efforts to make a 

 convention. 



Now, there are some things that 

 have been realized. Mr. Quimby said 

 he wanted to see bee-keeping made 

 such a success that it would become a 

 business; and he saw it, before he died, 

 gradually developing, and now what 

 have we here today? 



Now, what we want is to hold to- 

 gether the interests, the bond of socia- 

 bility, where we can exchange thoughts 

 and ideas, where we can meet men we 

 have not met only by picture and 

 paper and have a real talk with them, 

 heart to heart, so that we may more 

 fully be in a position to work out the 

 problems that are before us. As Pro- 

 fessor Surface remarked, there are men 

 fitted for different places and the prac- 

 tical man needs the professional man, 

 so we need one to assist the other all 

 the way through and the Convention is 

 one of the finest institutions for that 

 in the country; and above all, the 

 work it has done in support of bee- 

 keepers, as I stated before, who have 

 been wronged, has more than paid for 

 the investments that have been made 

 by every member of this Association. 

 (Applause.) 



PROF. SURFACE: 



I know that we have with us this 

 morning one of the best known men 

 in the subject of Agriculture in Penn- 

 sylvania, the Hon. A. L. Martin, Di- 

 rector of Farmers' Institutes and 

 Deputy Secretary of Agriculture. Mr. 

 Martin himself does not profess to be 

 an expert bee-keeper, but is a sympa- 

 thizer in the work we do. Two or 

 three years ago he kindly said he 

 would aid the bee-keeping industry in 

 this state, by attempting, as far as was 

 possible, to place speakers on agricul- 

 ture on the institute force, especially 

 wherever they were asked by citizens 



