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88 



NINTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



of your apiary. It would be well to do 

 this in the dead of the night; and you 

 would be less likely of a possibility of 

 its spreading. The foul brood that I 

 had was pronounced by Mr. France to 

 be American foul brood, and Dr. Phil- 

 lips also said that it was American 

 foul brood. 



You have to be very careful and keep 

 inspecting and watching carefully all 

 the time; you may have to treat them 

 the second and even the third time. 



As for the comb. I put that into 

 gunny sacks as fast as I cut it out of 

 the frames, and burn the frames up. 

 Some of the frames I would put in 

 boiling water and boil them for half 

 an hour or more. I don't know but 

 what I will burn them up yet. Then 

 I get kettles of boiling water, put the 

 comb, sack and all under boiling 

 water, and boil for thirty minutes 

 before skimming. I understand these 

 microbes will live from fifteen to twen- 

 ty-five, or even thirty, minutes in boil- 

 ing water; carbolic acid does not de- 

 stroy them; nothing except to put 

 them in hot water and boil them per- 

 sistently for half or three quarters of 

 an hour. I did all that, and, my 

 friends, if that method will be adopted, 

 and we will all use precaution and 

 care, I think we will get along without 

 any trouble. 



"We have to be careful and cut ofC 

 every avenue of the bees getting into 

 diseased honey and combs taken out 

 of hives; to burn the frames up is 

 about as sure a way as any; yet I 

 don't think that need to be done every 

 time. It is going to take some work 

 to boil them and fix them up; I don't 

 know but that I would as soon buy 

 new frames as to clean up the old 

 ones. 



As to the kind of foul brood law you 

 want: You simply want a law that 

 will clothe a bee-inspector who is 

 competent, one who knows how to dis- 

 charge his duty, with authority to go 

 on the premises of any man who keeps 

 bees and inspect his bees, and if he 

 finds the bees diseased, to put them 

 under immediate treatment. 



You want to have your law framed 

 so as to allow an inspector to go on 

 the premises of a man, whether he 

 wants him to or not. 



In many cases of diseased horses, 

 the horse, to all external appearances, 

 may be sound, yet a veterinary sur- 

 geon will examine the horse and prove 



beyond question of doubt that the 

 horse is diseased. 



To allow an inspector to go on a 

 man's premises and inspect his bees, 

 only when the bee-keeper chooses, has 

 to be dispensed with, and whether a 

 man wants him or not, he must have 

 the authority to go. 



It is hard for a person to give up a 

 family horse when it has been found 

 diseased, yet I have seen one of my 

 neighbors lose seven head of horses 

 and mules, in order to get rid of a 

 disease, and there was no way to do it, 

 except to destroy the animals. 



It is different with us; I don't be- 

 lieve it is necessary to destroy the 

 bees or hives. I don't believe it is 

 necessary if it is treated at the right 

 time of the year. 



"We have a law in Kansas that reads 

 that upon the petition of twenty-five 

 bee-keepers in the county, a bee in- 

 spector shall be appointed, who must 

 be known to be competent, and have 

 proper recommendations that will in- 

 sure that the work will be done. In 

 our State the law is not operative only 

 in part, in this respect. Many of our 

 counties have not as many as twenty- 

 five bee-keepers, so last winter we 

 got a bill through the house, giving 

 the nearest bee inspector jurisdiction 

 in such counties. 



In the matter of legislation, I have 

 served three terms. One senator has 

 some pet measure that he wants to 

 put through, and because you cannot 

 support him, he says he will not sup- 

 port you, and oftentimes your bill is 

 lost in just this way. I don't believe 

 that you have all had the experience 

 I have in securing legislation. You 

 want to select your committee; they 

 did in Springfield; they selected a leg- 

 islative committee consisting of twelve 

 members, and I told them to select the 

 very ablest men they had; the most 

 intelligent and best informed in bee- 

 keeping, men well acquainted, who 

 knew the senators and members of the 

 House, and in addition to that to re- 

 quest every member of the bee-keep- 

 ers' association to say to his represent- 

 atives, members of the House and 

 Senate, that he wanted them to support 

 a bill of that kind, telling them what 

 we stood in need of in the State of 

 Illinois. You have more members of 

 the State organization than any other 

 State in the Union; but that is per- 

 haps not one out of twenty of the bee- 



