ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



89 



keepers in the State. I don't know- 

 how many thousands of colonies ydu 

 have; the probability is you have from 

 250 to 300 thousand colonies in the 

 State of Illinois. A great many men 

 have nearly everything they have, in- 

 vested in the industry of bee-keeping. 

 When the members of the legislature 

 see your wants and needs, I believe 

 they will be in favor of giving you the 

 law you require. We have to let them 

 know what our wants are. 



You want an intelligent, capable leg- 

 islative committee. If you have some 

 men personally acquainted with your 

 Governor, who will talk to him and 

 tell him how important this matter is, 

 and get him to say a few words in his 

 message, that from time to time a sum 

 of money has been appropriated in the 

 State of Illinois, endeavoring to stamp 

 out foul brood, but that without a 

 competent bee inspector, clothed with 

 authority to enter a man's premises, 

 whether he wants it or not, it is not 

 answering its purposes, it will be 

 apt to get you what you want. 



Oftentimes the senators do not give 

 this any consideration, not that they 

 mean any harm, but because they feel 

 it is of little consequence. 



When our bill went first to the Sen- 

 ate, one of the Senators said: "The 

 idea of asking for an appropriation to 

 clothe a man with authority to take 

 dead bees out of combs." That was 

 all he knew about it. 



I remember when the first conven- 

 tion met at Indianapolis. I was re- 

 quested to deliver the opening address. 

 The then Governor of the State of Illi- 

 nois came into the hall. I would have 

 given everything I was in possession 

 of if I did not have- to make that ad- 

 dress. There was the Governor of the 

 State present to see me probably make 

 a break down. I studied over the mat- 

 ter, and came to the conclusion that 

 he probably could not .tell the differ- 

 ence between a queen-bee and a horse- 

 fly; that broke the ice; I delivered the 

 lecture, and he sat there and seemed 

 to be interested. 



Governor Folk, of Missouri, vetoed 

 our bill because he didn't know any- 

 thing about it. T saw him, and talked 

 with him, and I wrote him a letter, 

 telling him that he had committed a 

 Wrongful act, having passed on some- 

 thing that he simply didn't know any- 

 thing about. He afterwards approved 



the bill, and they now have an efCect- 

 ive law in the State of Missouri. 



I believe you people can get it here. 

 You want to have a strong Legislative 

 Committee, and it is going to take a 

 little money to support it. The men 

 should go down to iSpringfield, and 

 stay there two or three weeks, or a 

 month, and get busy among those rep- 

 resentatives and senators, and make 

 them acquainted with your business. 



Get the most influential members of 

 the House and Senate to work for your 

 measure, and I believe you will get 

 such a law as you desire. 



I thank you for your attention, and 

 for giving me the permission that you 

 have granted me to talk about this 

 matter, because I feel very deeply in- 

 terested in it. 



I have reached a time in life when 

 I cannot perform manual labor, and 

 the ailments which I contracted while 

 a soldier in the army drove me out of 

 my profession. 



I now keep bees as a pastime. 



I believe there is money in the busi- 

 ness if one have enough phyysical en- 

 ergy and strength to carry it out, and 

 my ow^n State of Kansas is going to 

 be among the foremost States in the 

 Union. 



Curing Foul Brood. 



"Did Dr. iMiller, of Marengo, cure his 

 bees of foul brood?" 



Dr. Miller — ^Yes, I did. Now I am 

 not going to take the time to tell all 

 about my experience. I want to give 

 a few^ points directly from experience, 

 especially where something seemed 

 new to me. You have literature on 

 foul brood, and perhaps you are read 

 up on it as well as I am. I want to 

 say to you that if you have read as 

 much about it as I have, you have 

 read quite a good deal, but experience 

 is something that is a little different 

 sometimes from reading. 



In the first place, the matter of 

 shaking. 



We are used to saying "shake" ui)on 

 comb foundation, but we didn't shake, 

 at least not more than one colony. 

 Dr. Bohrer is right in saying that the 

 way to do is to brush and not to shake. 

 There is no use in scattering a lot of 

 honey about. I don't know of any ad- 

 vantage that there is in shaking. I 

 would brush the bees, always. 



Allow me to say that if at any time 

 I do not give exactly what you want. 



