April, 1916. 



125 



^)^^F*"-.-^is3( 



American Hee Journal 



3 



vacation camp on Cape Cod, where 

 there is supposed to be little but a suc- 

 cession of sand dunes, and of course 

 he keeps there a few liives of bees for 

 his amusement, which pay tribute to 

 his skill with a small amount of sur- 

 plus. He is a typical Yankee. You 

 should visit his garden in late summer. 

 It reminds one of another garden de- 

 scribed by a very ancient historian as 

 a place where the Lord " made to grow 

 every tree that is pleasant to the sight 

 and good for food ;" only Mr. Latham's 

 garden contains a bewildering profu- 

 sion of vegetables as well as trees bear- 

 ing fruit. Better than garden, and bet- 

 ter than success in beekeeping, Mr. 

 Latham has a most charming family 

 and delightful home. 



Some 3t> or 35 years ago Mr. A. E. 

 Manum, of Bristol, Vt., was one of the 

 most pushing and enterprising bee- 

 keepers in New England. In addition 

 to a large stock of bees he did quite a 

 business in manufacturing hives and 

 other supplies for beekeepers. There 

 came a particularly good season when 

 basswood gave an unusual flow, and he 

 secured 35,000 or 40,000 pounds of 

 choice section honey. He reasoned 

 that if he could produce such a crop 

 with the stock he then had he could 

 with a much larger stock secure in a 

 few years a fortune, so he began to in- 

 crease his yards rapidly without much 

 regard to the seasons. 



Meanwhile the lumbermen were busy 

 cutting down the basswood for lumber, 

 and by the time he had seven or eight 

 hundred colonies his bee-pasture was 

 ruined and his large stock of bees lit- 

 erally ate him out of house and home. 

 His stock dwindled until he lost inter- 

 est in them, and before he left for Cali- 

 fornia some years ago his last colony 

 was dead. Mr. Manum was very hos- 



Allen Latham 



pitable, and many are the enjoyable 

 chats or visits I have had with him. 



He had a rather unusual command of 

 language for one with no greater ad- 

 vantage of educalion than he had 

 enjoyed. He was of French extraction, 

 and in learning English he seemed to 

 choose his adjectives with unusual 

 care, more so by far than the average 

 person born of English-speaking par- 

 ents. His swarm-catcher, invented and 

 introduced by him is, I believe, still 

 listed in the catalogs of our large sup- 

 ply houses. 



New England as a whole is not an 

 ideal section for beekeeping. This is 

 especially true of Massachusetts. Yet 

 Prof. Burton N. Gates is doing a great 

 work for that State. The Agricultural 

 College at Amherst was, I believe. 



through the influence of Prof. Gates, 

 the first in the country to give a com- 

 plete course in beekeeping, with an 

 apiary and a building for laboratory 

 work. 



My acquaintance with Prof. Gates 

 has been exceedingly pleasant. He is 

 greatly interested in the uplift of bee- 

 keeping, not only in Massachusetts but 

 through the length and breadth of our 

 country. 



There are few persons, perhaps, in 

 New England who have spent more 

 time in the careful first hand study of 

 bees than Arthur C. Miller, of Provi- 

 dence, R. I. Confined as he is to his 

 office as a bank cashier much of the 

 day, we can imagine the pleasure he 

 takes with the bees during his leisure 

 hours. He holds a facile pen, and is, 

 when he has the time, a charming 

 writer. While we do not agree with all 

 his conclusions, I count it one of my 

 misfortunes that I have not had the 

 opportunity to become better ac- 

 quainted with him. 



Henry Alley, now deceased, of Wen- 



ARTHUR C. MILLER OF RHODE ISLAND 



J. E. Crane 



ham, Mass., was for many years an ex- 

 tensive queen-breeder. My acquaint- 

 ance with him was slight. I do not 

 think he tried to produce honey to any 

 great extent, but confined his efforts to 

 rearing queens. His contributions to 

 bee journals were read with interest. 

 For a number of years he edited the 

 Apiculturist. 



Mr. A. W. Yates, of Hartford, Conn., 

 for many years secretary of the Con- 

 necticut Beekeepers' Association, is a 

 man of splendid physique and push, 

 and to him perhaps more than any one 

 else are due the wonderful bee and 

 honey exhibits at the Charter Oak Fair, 

 as he has been the superintendent of 

 the exhibit for a number of years. 



He is in business in the city of Hart- 

 ford, yet he finds time to care for two 



