20 ASSOCIATION OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGISTS. 



smoker and veil to start with, can open up and take out the frames 

 filled with brood, or honey, and covered with bees, from a hive of 

 .Italians or Carniolans with complete safety, and once accustomed to 

 it will often dispense with both veil and smoker. Try it. It is an 

 important part of the outfit of the entomological instructor, and the 

 experiment-station man who has occasion to discourse before farmers' 

 institutes will find it sometimes very useful in helping out a pro- 

 gramme. It is astonishing how little is known by a large proportion 

 of farmers about keeping bees properly. Excellent books on the sub- 

 ject are obtainable. Good special journals may be secured for a 

 trifle. Special columns in agricultural papers are devoted to the 

 subject, and in spite of it all one finds many farmers still keeping bees 

 in box hives and unfamiliar with simple facts in the economy of a 

 colony that have been repeated in one way or another again and again 

 for more than two hundred years. It is for the station entomologist 

 and teacher to remedy this state of affairs* But he will make little 

 impression until after he has acquired such a practical acquaintance 

 with apiculture that he can go through a hive, take out a queen and 

 clip her wings, cut out unnecessary queen and drone cells, hive a 

 swarm deftly, feed his colonies when necessary in fall and spring 

 without permitting robbing, winter them successfully, and produce 

 enough good honey to pay all expenses and leave a small surplus. 

 When he can do all these things he can hold his own with the hard- 

 headed ones who still believe the box hive better than any other and 

 regard the old-style black bee as the greatest honey gatherer and 

 hardiest bee knoAvn. 



SERICULTURE. 



It is too soon to make very positive statements about the outcome of 

 the project set on foot at Tallulah Lodge, Ga., having for its object 

 the establishment of silk growing in the United States. Such at- 

 tempts have been made before and have failed. The chief reason for 

 these failures is believed to be the small wages earned by those who 

 rear the worms, in proportion to the time required. Our people, it 

 has been said, can earn more at other employments. It seems prob- 

 able, however, that this is not the sole or even the main cause for the 

 failure thus far to establish silkworm rearing as an industry in the 

 United States. People are prone to do what the majority of those 

 about them do. There is a fashion in these things as in wearing 

 apparel, and when most of one's friends and neighbors are enthu- 

 siastic in the growing of cotton, oranges, corn, or rice, it is natural 

 that the interest in such things should pervade and dominate every 

 member of a community. It requires time and persistence, under 

 such conditions, to gain favor for other pursuits, and I apprehend 

 that it is this preoccupation of the American mind with other busi- 



