HEARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE. O75 
Of the force indicated above the assistants could devote considerable time to office 
work, and all of the time of the clerk would be occupied in this manner. 
The office work, in addition to the experimental work which has been enumerated 
above, which it is proposed should be accomplished, is: 
First. To collect data regarding apiculture in the United States: (a) As to princi- 
pal honey-producing plants of the various regions; (b) as to losses of bees by disease, 
and in wintering; (c) as to races now kept; (d) as to proportion “f frame and box 
hives now in use. 
Second. On the basis of these data it is proposed to map on outline maps of the 
United States the areas of the principal honey-producing plants, and to determine 
where and what new plants could be disseminated for the purpose of increasing bee 
pasturage. 
Third. The publication of a bulletin on pasturage for bees, the manner of increas- 
ing it, with cultural and other notes on new honey-producing plants; a bulletin 
treating of migratory or pastoral bee keeping; and a bulletin on the best methods of 
rearing queen bees. 
Fourth. The beginning of a card index of apiarian literature. 
Fifth. The beginning of careful studies to complete a knowledge of the life histories 
of various insect enemies of bees. 
Sixth. The rearing and distribution for the testing and introduction of fresh blond 
into different parts of the country of 300 queen bees of improved races and crosses. 
DEMAND FOR WORK OF THIS NATURE. 
Apiarian societies, including the National Bee Keepers’ Association of the United 
States, have repeatedly passed resolutions favoring such work as is here indicated. 
Committees have been appointed, both to urge legislation and executive action in 
favor of it, and if their influence and activity have been slight, it has been chiefly 
caused by a lack of knowledge of how to proceed. The Department has frequently 
been appealed to by letter and by numerously signed petitions to undertake nearly 
all of the investigations here enumerated. The apiarian journals of the country have 
for many years been unanimous in urging the extension of the investigations of the 
Department. All bulletins of apiculture thus far issued have been very highly com- 
mended by the bee keepers of the United States as being worthy of rank with the 
most useful work done by the United States Department of Agriculture. They are in 
constant demand. Many thousands of copies of Farmers’ Bulletin No. 59, ‘‘ Bee Keep- 
ing,’’ have been called for. Three editions, including a Congressional edition of 20,000 
copies, and several reprints of the third edition of the larger bulletin entitled ‘‘The 
Honey Bee: A Manual of Instruction in Apiculture,’’ have been eagerly sought for by 
individuals. Frequent suggestions have also come to the Department that bulletins 
on special topics relating to the industry would be equally acceptable. 
ESTIMATED VALUE OF WORK ALREADY DONE. 
It is extremely difficult to arrive at a definite money value of the work already 
done by the Department of Agriculture for the advancement of this industry, espec- 
ially the indirect value. 
The introduction and extension of bee keeping favors the production of larger and 
better fruit and seed crops through the more perfect pollination of fruit blossoms and 
seed blossoms. Information on this subject has been widely disseminated by the 
Department, and the views of fruit and seed growers have been greatly modified 
thereby, so that the great value of bees to the orchardist and seed grower has come 
to be generally recognized. Individual bee keepers also often express in letters 
addressed to the Department the direct value—even to the extent of many hundreds 
of dollars, to them, of the methods advised by the Department publications on api- 
culture, and of the new races and crosses of bees introduced by the Department. 
With the increase in apiarian products the demand has steadily kept pace. Vast 
quantities, as compared with those actually used, could and would be profitably 
employed, were the public to understand more fully the wholesomeness of honey as 
an article of diet, and the practical applications which honey and wax find in the 
arts, in manufacture, and medicine; also the introduction of better methods, and 
the resultant larger yields from the individual apiaries, would tend to place the 
price of the products at a figure more within the reach of the masses of the people. 
So many uses have been found for wax in recent years that the article has become 
scarce and prices have been advanced considerably. With the introduction of more 
productive races of bees, and through the introduction of honey-yielding plants into 
new regions where they would fill in gaps in the honey yields, it is safe to say the 
value of apiarian products might be doubled within a decade. 
