180 



TMm m.'mmmiGMH mm'm j@^MifMir. 



fcA^ki^* i itlll n ^A^kM^kJU^A 



IMr. Robinson, the one whose attack 

 on the Rev. L. L. Langstroth was noticed 

 on page 835 of our last volume, is so com- 

 pletely answered by Mr. Langstroth in the 

 January number of the Bee-Keepers' Mag- 

 azine, that he can offer no excuse even for 

 his vile attacks on that gentleman. , 



Mr. Langstroth, after copying two articles 

 entire from the Ajierican Bee Journal 

 for 1881, on the subject, giving details, facts, 

 and figures to disprove Mr. Robinson's bold 

 assertions, quotes his letter to Mr. R., dated 

 Feb. 26, 1881, the last paragraph of which 

 reads as follows : 



Now, friend Robinson, from all I have 

 ever known of you, I must think that you 

 are a man who desires to do what is right. 

 Weigh well what 1 say, and if convinced 

 that you have fallen into error, I feel con- 

 fident that you will do what Is fair and hon- 

 orable for all parties in this matter. 

 Very truly your friend, 



L. L. Langstroth. 



Mr. Langstroth then argues the matter as 



follows : 



I received no reply to this letter, and I 

 have seen nothing further from his pen 

 about this matter until I had read his Maga- 

 zine article ; from which it appears, that he 

 not only insinuates charges of bad faith 

 against Mr. Parsons, but conveys the im- 

 pression that he regards me as a joint con- 

 spirator with him. 



Now, Mr. Editor, the plain English of all 

 this is, that Mr. R. insinuates that Mr. P. 

 stole bees belonging to other parties, and 

 that we then engaged in the business of 

 soiling queens, bred from his stolen prop- 

 erty 1 and he further wishes the public to 

 believe that my statements as an eye wit- 

 ness to the facts are unworthy of credit. 

 Can Mr. R. expect to find any credence 

 given by honorable men, to such insinua- 

 tions ? 



As, however, he singles me out for a 

 direct charge, viz., that while my motto on 

 paper is, '"Give honor to whom honor is 

 due,' I have signally failed to practice what 

 I have preached, and I have tried to rob a 

 dead man of honor justly due him," 1 must 

 ask a little more space to reply to this accu- 

 sation. For what Mr. R. quotes and refers 

 to as authority for his iusiuuations and 

 charges, it would seem that he had access 

 to all needed sources of information, and 

 has therefore no valid excuse for the mis- 

 takes he has made. 



In the March number of Vol. I, of the 

 AurERicAN Bee Journal, page 69, I am 

 reported as saying to a convention that met 

 in Cleveland, O., on March 15, 18S0, " Last 

 fall, Messrs. Wagner, Mahan, and myself 

 had imported a few colonies of these bees, 

 and this was prior to the Importations of 

 Mr. Parsottfi and the Patent Office." Does 

 this look as though I wished to suppress 

 the credit whicli belougHd to Mahan and the 

 Government for priority to Mr. Parsons ? 



Besides, my article in the American Bee 

 Journal, from which Mr. R. quotes, de- 

 clares plainly that Mahau's bees were on 

 board the same steamer (in his own charge), 

 that brought the bees for Wagner & Co. As 

 regards Mr. R's attempt to make me guilty 

 of " an outrage in attempting to wrest from 

 Mahan the credit due to his enterprise," it 

 seems to me hardly to deserve any serious 

 notice. 



We both admit that there was a struggle 

 between two parties, as to who should have 

 the honor to put ashore from the same 

 steamer, the first Italian queen-bee. Neither 

 of us pretends to have been an eye witness 



to the scene. Mr. R. gives his hearsay ver- 

 sion of the affair, and I give mine. It the 

 German captain was able to gratify his 

 pride, not only in having the first Italian 

 bee imported into this country, in his own 

 steamer, but to be able to say that he 

 brought the first living queen ashore, it 

 does not detract one iota from the merit due 

 to Mahan, as being the first person to make 

 a special voyage to Europe to procure this 

 valuable bee. 



Mr. P. G. Mahan was one of the most 

 skillful manipulators of bees I have ever 

 known, and his name is honorably men- 

 tioned a number of times by me in my work 

 on the " Honey-Bee," for new and valuable 

 observations. More than this, in my history 

 of the Importation of Italian bees, which 

 Mr. R. criticizes so severely, it plainly ap- 

 pears that while all the queens imported by 

 Colvin & Co., in 1859, died before the next 

 spring— and while only one queen with a 

 handful of bees survived to Mr. Parsons, 

 Mr. Mahan had so distanced all his rivals, 

 in preserving and breeding from his impor- 

 tation, as to be able to supply me with 

 American bred specimens of the Italian 

 variety. L. L. Langstroth. 



Dayton, Ohio, Dec. 18. 1888. 



Commenting upon the above, the editor of 

 the Bee-Keepers' Magazine remarks thus : 



Mr. Robinson, in a recent article, was 

 very severe in his criticism of Rev. L. L. 

 Langstroth. He made direct charges of 

 bad faith against the latter, as well as Mr. 

 Parsons, and we are glad that Mr. Lang- 

 stroth has so carefully cleared up this mat- 

 ter, not in a spiteful manner, but by a state- 

 ment of facts which can hardly be gainsaid. 

 We believe in getting at the root of every- 

 thing, and do not believe in hampering 

 what might be the truth, by our personal 

 opinion of an individual. 



We are glad that Mr. Aspinwall, before 

 retiring from the field, has done justice to 

 Father Langstroth, by frankly calling his 

 reply "a statement of facts which can 

 hardly be gainsaid," which has "carefully 

 cleared up this matter," etc. It has always 

 been as clear as the noon-day sun to every 

 one who wanted to know the truth. 



The Annual Crop Report of the 

 Department of Agriculture, just issued, 

 shows that there is a larger aggregate 

 l)roduetof cereals than has ever before 

 been recorded. It will amount to about 

 3,200,000,000 bushels or, fully fifty bu- 

 shels per head. This is about "three 

 times the average supply per capita of 

 Europe from home production, and re- 

 ceipts from other countries amount to 

 only about one bushel per head. The 

 aggregate j)otato production is about 

 200,000,000 l)ushels. The wool clip of 

 1888 was sliglitly reduced in conse- 

 ipience of the reduction of Hocks in 

 Texas and elsewhere. The estimated 

 product is 2G;1, 000,000 pounds. The 

 meat supply has Iteen very abundant. 



The area of maize, as estimated for 

 the crop of 1888, makes an increase of 

 3.280,043 over the crop of 1887 atid 

 13.304,259 acres over the 1879 cen.sus, 

 indicating a gain of 21 per cent, in 

 nine years. The estimate of wheat 

 area makes a reduction of 30.5,045 acres 

 from the breadth of 1887. The .aggre- 

 gate is 37,3.30,198, an increase of only 



1,905,805 on the area of 1879, or a lit- 

 tle more than 5 per cent. The exports 

 will probablj' be less than those of 

 1879-80 by at least 100,000,000 bushels, 

 a quantity more than ample for the an- 

 nual supply of all the increase of popu- 

 lation since 1880. There appears to be 

 a further increase of the area of oats, 

 amounting to l,077,-376 acres, or about 

 41,000,000 bushels increase in the quan- 

 tity produced. The yield per aci'e is 

 26 bushels against 254 bushels in 1887. 



Tlie Dog and the Bees. — A dog 



being annoyed by bees ran, quite acci- 

 dentally, into an empty barrel lying 

 on the ground, and, looking out at the 

 bung-hole, addressed his tormentors 

 thus : 



"Had you been temperate, stinging 

 me only one at a time, you might have 

 got a good deal of fun out of me. 

 As it is, you have driven me into a 

 secure retreat ; for I can snap you up 

 as fast as you come in through the 

 bung-hole. Behold the folly of intem- 

 perate zeal." 



When he had concluded, he awaited 

 a reply. There wasn't any reply, for 

 the bees had never gone near the bung- 

 hole ; they went in the same way as he 

 did, and made it very warm for him. 



The lesson of this fable is, that one 

 cannot stick to his pure reason while 

 quarrelling with bees. — Sel. 



I^aiighinsr.— Mr. C. Osborn, of Dan- 

 ville, Ind., on March 9, 1889, sends us the 

 following : 



Dear Sns :— Could you afford to reprint 

 in your valuable Bee Journal Mr. Secor's 

 "Removing Bees from the Cellar," and 

 " What is the Use of having Friends," etc.. 

 for the special benefit of the bee-keepers of 

 this vicinity ? We have been two years 

 without honey, and are so blue tha't we 

 never laugh ! 



Oh ! yes, we might reprint it sometime, 

 as soon as we find room. It will help us all 

 to " laugh and grow fat,"— grow more amia- 

 ble and jolly as the years go around. It 

 will never pay to be bhie and melancholy t 

 Never. 



Xlie April IVumber of Frank Les- 

 lie's Sunday 3ltigazlne is unusually rich in 

 illustrated articles of present interest. 

 Among them may be mentioned " American 

 Engineers in Angola," by David Kerr ; 

 "Duluth and Environs," by William H. 

 Ballou ; "Through the Alleghanies on a 

 Locomotive," by H. W. De Long. Easter 

 coming in April, there are some poems re- 

 ferring to that festival, and an article and 

 illustation on "Lily-Culture in Bermuda." 

 Dr. Talmage's sermon is on " Easter Blos- 

 soms,"' and the music page is devoted to an 

 "Easter Carol," by Arthur Henry Brown. 

 The number also contains much interesting 

 miscellany. 



