<Trying to discover exactly when the Vermont 
Beekeepers Association was started>

Mike,

I don't know if you have any leads concerning the
founding date of the Vermont Beekeepers Association.
But I will provide you with what I have found.
Perhaps the 'Vermont Bee Keepers Association records
book' located in the google books link below may be obtained
in a good agricultural library.

I have discovered that when searching 19c text, one 
must remember to spell  'bee-keepers'  the right way.  ;)

I can place the existence of the Vermont Beekeepers
Association as far back as 1872
Vermont public documents: -1872, Volume 3 - Page 19
O. C. Wait, Secretary of the Vermont Bee- Keepers' Association

This link may help:

http://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=%22vermont+bee-keepers%22&tbs=,cdr:1,cd_min:Jan%201_2%201850,cd_max:Dec%2031_2%201880&num=10

Vermont Bee Keepers Association records
Vermont Bee Keepers Association, Addison County Bee Keepers 
Association, Champlain Valley Bee Keepers Association 
- 1875 
Two volumes of records of the Addison County Bee Keepers Association, 1875-1879, 
the Champlain Valley Bee Keepers Association, 1879-1886, 
and the Vermont Bee Keepers Association, 1886-1944, 
including minutes of meetings, and financial and membership reports. 
Volume one is 1875-1910; volume two is 1917-1944.

Best Wishes,
Joe Waggle
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/HistoricalHoneybeeArticles/

A Vermont man has discovered that
the bee travels from three to ten miles
to change his abode when the pasturage
does not suit him or when the
new swarm must start out. The
natural home of the wild bee is in the
hollow of an old tree. The timber is
being fast cut away, and the Vermont
man says that a man can catch more
swarms of wild bees with an empty
nail keg than with a nice hive, because
the keg more nearly resembles
the bee's natural home. 
- Decatur, Illinois 1885

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