and
professional men, also are beginning to study beekeeping. They attend
short courses, subscribe to scientific bee papers and study bee
literature. With increased study and knowledge the whole status of the
beekeeping industry is just now undergoing a rapid change. Professional
beekeepers, men who devote their whole time to beekeeping, are
increasing, and more amateurs are turning to professional beekeeping
every year. Organizations of beekeepers now exist in nearly every state.
Their object is to spread knowledge among their members and to secure
better prices for their product by co-operative marketing. Contrary to
fears of more conservative beekeepers the demand for a first class
article of honey is increasing more rapidly than the supply. A national
organization of beekeepers and bee societies is taking up just now
national problems in connection with their industry and has succeeded in
making the government interested in this "infant industry." An
appropriation of $200,000 has just been allowed by the agricultural
committee of the Congress to develop beekeeping in localities where help
is needed. The state of Minnesota allows an annual appropriation for
beekeeping interests of $10,000, divided among the following branches:
Bee inspection department, which takes charge of bee diseases, $2,000;
state fair exhibits for premiums and maintenance of a bee and honey
building in connection with our State Fair, $1,500. The Division of Bee
Culture at the University Farm, which has charge of teaching,
demonstration, extension work, research, queen rearing, correspondence,
statistics and model apiaries, $6,500. Minnesota beekeepers should be
grateful to those men who have helped them to raise their industry from
a mere nothing, until we have become the acknowledged leaders in
beekeeping among all the states of the Union. They, however, are rapidly
following, nearly all states now have efficient bee inspection laws, and
twelve universities have followed our lead and have included beekeeping
in their curriculum.

But we must not be satisfied with what we have accomplished. Out of
$14,000,000 worth of honey which this state produces (by figuring) only
$1,000,000 worth are gathered every year, and beekeeping in the state
must grow to fourteen times its present proportions before it will be
anywhere near its possibilities.

ORCHARD NOTES.

Conducted monthly by R. S. MACKINTOSH, Horticulturist, Extension
Division, Univer