ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



43 



ing water would be as effective as to 

 use lye? 



Mr. Moore — Concentrated lye would 

 clean the frames thoroughly, while 

 boiling water would not do it. 



Dr. Bohrer — I would ask if our State 

 Horticultural Society gives bee-keepers 

 any encouragement in any way? Do 

 they affiliate with us in any way? Do 

 they allow us to go before them and 

 discuss matters? It would be a good 

 thing if they would allow us tt> do this. 



We used Mr. Dadant in this way. I 

 had our Sta;te Horticultural (Society 

 agree to let him read a paper, and it 

 was published in our Horticultural Re- 

 port. Anything of that kind hasi a tend- 

 ency to educate somebody — if.it meets 

 only a few people it is worth while. 

 Bee-keepers have been pretty modest 

 in all the States; you have an appro- 

 priation of $1,000 a year, and they have 

 appropriations in Nebraska and Min- 

 nesota. 



If you can ever .get interest of that 

 kind going, the time will come when the 

 rudiments of bee-keeping will be 

 taught in common schools, as it is in 

 Grermany. I believe that the iime will 

 come here if we can reach out, and we 

 ought to try to urge it, through sources 

 of that kind; it is worth a trial any- 

 way. 



Bee-keepers have been very modest 

 out with us. I was sat down on when 

 I first wanted to have the paper dis- 

 cussed, that iMr. Dadant read, but af- 

 terwards they came pleading to us 

 for help ; said that the State Legisla- 

 ture was going to kill the Horticultural 

 Society, and wanted our help. 



In the matter of educating kee-keep- 

 ers — educating the people on bee-keep- 

 ing — come thirty-two years ago Pro- 

 fessor Anderson came to me, in Tope- 

 ka, when I was in the Legislature, and 

 asked me to go up and deliver a lec- 

 ture before the students. He said, 

 "We want to teach that industry in 

 the colleges, and there is no man or 

 child here that knows anything about 

 it." I went up; they gave me an hour, 

 and I don't think that I ever addressed 

 a more attentive audience before or 

 since; you could have heard a pin 

 drop all over that house. I simply took 

 up the queen, the worker and the 

 drone, and their habits — how they were 

 to be controlled. And there is another 

 thing I would impress on bee-keepers, 

 and that is, about going into cages and 

 manipulating bees, and in explaining 

 to people how it is done. 



I was judge of an exhibit at Hutch- 

 inson, Kans., and there was a 

 man t^ere who delivered a lec- 

 ture, who put in three hours, and 

 if he gave one sentence that was val- 

 uable to bee-keepers of that country, I 

 could not find it; he made the people 

 believe that he had' a wonderful mag- 

 netic influence over bees that nobody 

 else possessed. We want to shut down 

 on this sort of thing; we don't want 

 to tolerate anything of this sort; it is 

 not right. If a man goes into a cage 

 to exhibit bees, let him tell the people 

 how it is done. When bees are loaded 

 down with honey they never act on the 

 offensive, but on the defensive. You 

 can take them in any cage and handle 

 them so long as you don't pdnch one of 

 them. The young lady this afternoon 

 didn't tell the w^hole story; she started 

 to tell about bees getting into bed with 

 the man. Some one told me of a 

 schoolteacher; a little boy, where the 

 school teacher stayed, had to sleep 

 with him; he was in the habit of 

 kicking and tossing in his sleep, and 

 the school teacher would punch the 

 boy. You know boys sometimes get to 

 talking in their sleep; this "boy wanted 

 to get even with the teacher, so the went 

 to a bee-hive and got a dozen or two 

 bees, and put them in a bottle and took 

 them! to his bedroom. He put them 

 in bed, under the cover, on the old 

 school teacher's side of the bed. Well, 

 they had been in bed only a short 

 time, when he began slapping himself 

 and making the greatest fuss, and he 

 declared to the landlady she had the 

 biggest fleas he ever run across in all 

 his life! 



Mr. York — That must be "another 

 story." 



Dr. Bohrer — That w^as no story; that 

 was an actual fact. 



Mr. Stone — ^When we first got an ap- 

 propriation and started out to find a 

 foul brood inspector, we looked all over 

 the State for one; application was 

 made to different parts of the State, 

 and we could not find a man who was 

 willing to be foul brood inspector. Our 

 president was Mr. Smith, and he said 

 he had experience in wiping it out of 

 his own apiary, and knew how it had 

 to be done, and he expected he could 

 afford that much time, and he would 

 try it. Now, at this time, it does not 

 seem that we have any trouble in get- 

 ting a foul brood inspector. We have 



