Beekeeping as an Occupation 17 
that there be some incentive to compel action, the financial 
incentive being most efficient. The small beekeeper usually 
becomes a menace to the industry in such an outbreak and 
not until most of these men lose all they have is much progress 
made against disease. 
The most economical development of the larger honey 
markets for the beekeepers of any region can come only 
through co-operation in buying necessary supplies and in 
selling their products. So long as there are so many thou¬ 
sands of beekeepers with small financial interest in the 
industry, such co-operation is rendered virtually impossible 
and the industry is thereby retarded. In some of the 
western states, beekeeping is carried on chiefly by extensive 
beekeepers and they have found co-operation practical and 
profitable, while the beekeepers of the east still fight their 
battles individually, co-operation being made practically 
impossible because of the thousands of beekeepers who 
could not be reached by such a co-operative movement. 
Similarly, it is difficult to bring about concerted effort 
in having desirable laws passed for the protection of the 
industry or in instituting any agency for the advancement 
of the industry unless there are a number of men whose 
financial interest is sufficient to induce them to spend time 
and money in working for the things they need as beekeepers. 
Beekeepers are very human people, and “money talks” in 
this business as well as in other lines of human endeavor. 
There is therefore adequate reason in the view that the 
development of beekeeping to its true place in American 
agriculture depends on the making of a large number of 
professional beekeepers and this in turn implies the elimina¬ 
tion of the beekeeper with a few colonies, little interest and 
still less of willingness to work for the industry. 
While the number of professional beekeepers is increasing 
in a way to give satisfaction to those interested in the best 
development of the industry, a word of caution may not be 
amiss. Some beekeepers feel that as professionals they 
must engage in no other business, whereas for certain months 
