Bees are kept both for profit and for pleasure.  The old fashioned beekeeper with his hybrid bees, kept in immovable hives, logs or boxes, did not derive much profit from his bees.  He kept them mostly for pastime.  During the last fifteen years men with new methods of management and modern equipment have been rapidly superseding the picturesque old beekeepers.  Modern beekeeping courses are now taught in connection with our institutions of learning, and young men full of energy and ambition are beginning to realize that beekeeping is offering one of the few opportunities to make a comfortable living with a comparatively small expense.  Older beekeepers, both on the farm 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.