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STATE BEE-KEEPERS ASSOCIATION. 99 



dark." I said that I had succeeded in crossing a lighting- 

 bug with bees, and they worked in the dark; and they actually 

 believed it! 



Mr. Niver — Mr. Hershiser, at Buffalo, says that he got 

 up an illustrated lecture and gave it at several of the public 

 schools, handling the bees and combs, and taught the chil- 

 dren. They are more teachable than the older people ; they 

 will remember longer and get things straighter. And he has 

 succeeded in working up a very nice trade in Buffalo. I have 

 thought sometimes it was possible to take a swarm of bees 

 and get them so that they could be shown in the schoolroom 

 for an illustrated lecture, but have never dared try it. 



Mr. York — I have often wondered how we got orders for 

 honey from Buffalo. Now I know. 



Mr. France — On the same idea, our State Normal School 

 sends out about 400 teachers a year, as teachers in the public 

 schools. While I was student there in the school I felt the 

 need of something of this kind, and there were suggestions 

 offered by the students, until it has been now the eleventh 

 year that the Normal School sets apart a piece of a day for 

 instruction on bee-culture, and they come to my house if I 

 have not time to go to the Normal School. They have been 

 there by the score ,and they want to know all there is about 

 the bee-business. This week my little boy, seven years old, 

 just starting in, got up and contradicted the teacher, and 

 said, "I know better." Well, they tried to down him, and if 

 you ever saw an angry boy he was one. When he came 

 home, he said, "Papa, when are you going to have that bee- 

 le-ture? The teacher goes on and says so and so about the 

 bee-stinger, and I told her I knew better." The class came 

 out the next day solely to learn what a bee-sting was, and 

 what the bee's mission is when it is depositing that honey, 

 and I explained.it to them. On this subject the education is 

 going'on, and it is a part of the Wisconsin requirement of the 

 teacher now to teach agriculture in all the schools, and bee- 

 keeping is becoming a branch of that in all the rural districts. 



Dr. Miller — I will tell you a little experience I had. and 

 I want to warn you if you go to lecturing in public school^ 

 to practice a little at home before you go. Last week the prin-> 

 cipal of the high school asked me to come and spend an hour 

 in talking to the pupils, and one 'of the first things I did 

 was to tell them about the bee-sting. I made a picture of it 

 on the board and attempted to tell them how it would work. I 

 had all the barbs running the wrong way, and the thing did not 

 work. If you are going to try it, practice at home a little. 



Mr. Moore — It is an old saying that Pres. York and 

 others have said many a time, that if the honey in this coun- 

 try was distributed as it should be, there never would be an 

 overplus. Every one of you, it seems to me, could work up 

 his own home market in some such way as this, so that al- 

 most no honey would be shipped to the great centers. Now 

 you have no idea what can be done in the way of interesting 

 people with the commonest things around our apiaries. I 

 will tell you how I worked it here in Chicago. One summer- 

 time, to amuse myself and experiment on the people of Chi- 



