124 



EIGHTH ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE 



it. Our law provides that in case hees 

 that have foul brood are not properly 

 dealt with and the disease driven out, 

 they may <he destroyed, but a reas- 

 onable time is given. No particular 

 time is fixed in the law, and it de- 

 ^!j>ends somewhat upon the character 

 i/ot the inspector. Now, any law may 

 . / be aibused if the person executing it 

 / is unreasonable, and if he is domi- 

 ' neering; and that is one thing that 

 ought to be looked to, that such an in- 

 spector be selected as will be reasona- 

 ble, a man who is capable of sjTnpa- 

 thizing with those he deals with and of 

 getting their good will. There is no 

 great difficulty for any one who is rea- 

 sonable, in going among bee-keepers, 

 to find every bee-keeper who has foul 

 brood, or who was suspected of having 

 it, willing that their bees should be 

 inspected, and that they should be 

 aided in getting rid of the disease. The 

 laTV is very useful in a good many cases. 

 Of course, the. law, as the Scripture 

 says, is made for evil doers, not those 

 who do well. People who are well- 

 informed who have bees, and who un- 

 derstand what foul brood is, can man- 

 age their bees so as to prevent any 

 danger from its spread. For instance, 

 I was called a year ago to Saginaw 

 county. There were bee-keepers there 

 who had discovered that they had foul 

 brood. A prominent bee-keeper there 

 had a large apiary, and he discovered 

 he had foul brood, and he hastily 

 broke up stakes, and scattered the 

 hives, and sold his bees throughout the 

 country, and the country was full of 

 foul brood. People were anxious to have 

 me come and help them to get rid of 

 it. The first apiary I went to, the man 

 had some twenty-eight colonies of 

 ■ bees. There were twenty- one or 

 twenty-three of those colonies dis- 

 eased, and he hurried around and cured 

 those bees as soon as he could. It was 

 getting along toward fall, but he sub- 

 stituted foundation for the combs, and 

 when I came around again, two or 

 three weeks afterwards, his bees were 

 all in nice shape, the foundation was 

 worked out, and the combs were full 

 of brood. From him I went to a 

 lirother of his who had about the same 

 number of bees. I found him anxious 

 to have his bees examined. He had 

 them under a shed where it was al- 

 most impossible to get to them. Two 

 or three persons who were interested 

 accompanied me to his place, and he 

 was there, bare-footed, and he pitched 

 in, and when the bees got onto his 



legs, he would run and rub them, and 

 get on the other side of the hotise. 

 I Vvcnt through his hives and found 

 only two diseased colonies. He said he 

 would attend to them. I went to the 

 next place, two or three attending me 

 in the carriage. This man trotted on 

 behind and held onto the back of the 

 carriage. He said, "Ain't I lucky? 

 Only two foul brood colonies." He 

 went home that night, and dug a hole, 

 and put the diseased ones in it, and 

 covered them up. That was the way I 

 was received. One other place they 

 were all diseased, and they destroyed 

 them at once. Such communities, 

 where they are ignorant of what foul 

 brood is, and yet take an interest in 

 bees, and where it is a good locality 

 for honey, and they find that the busi- 

 ness is profitable, they are more than 

 anxious that you should come and ex- 

 amine their bees and help them to get 

 rid of the disease. And of course it is 

 a great benefit. It not only helps 

 them, but it helps all bee-keepers 

 everywhere in the neighborhood. 



Mr. Kannenberg: I don't see why 

 any brother bee-keepers are against this 

 foul brood law anywhere. I will tell 

 you a little story. In my neighborhood 

 we had a man who went into the bee 

 business, and he did not know any- 

 thing about it. He bought" one hun- 

 dred and twenty-five colonies wherever 

 he could buy them, and he said, "I 

 have got books and know how to 

 handle the bees." He went to work 

 and hired a man who knew a little 

 about bees, and paid him $75.00 a 

 month to handle his bees. He was 

 teller in a national bank here in Chi- 

 cago, and earned $150.00 a month. He 

 said, "I will handle those bees and 

 make -money on it, and give up my 

 job after this year." So he did. Even- 

 ings he used to come home; he went 

 to work and tore them up, and worked 

 until twelve o'clock on his bees. What 

 did he know about his bees when he 

 tried to work them in the night? To- 

 day, what has he got? Two colonies. 

 That man was ignorant. If a foul 

 brood law had existed, and the inspec- 

 tor had come and examined his bees 

 and knew that he had foul brood, that 

 man could have been persuaded to say, 

 "I will fix my bees over, but I don't 

 know how." But if an inspector had 

 got around there and fixed those bees 

 up, my neighbor and I would not have 

 had the foul brood. I am glad to say, 

 I have got my foul brood cleaned up 

 now, and I will start in new. But 



