1872.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



191 



two purposes — to make a lai'ge exhibition in my 

 department, and to prove to them that they 

 should have fair play. I thought the result of 

 my assurance vras that they would exhibit ; but 

 on Fair day I found that they still declined to 

 do so, and were still of opinion that no one but 

 Dr. Hamlin could take a premium ; and it is not 

 at all improbable that ]\Ir. King heard outside 

 talk as he states, but is the Tennessee Apiarian 

 Society, or Dr. Hamlin, responsible for such un- 

 founded prejudice, or for the Doctor purchasing 

 a hive on which he can take premiums ? "Why do 

 not these i^ersecuted friends join our Society and 

 outvote and outtalk the Laugstroth members, if 

 they choose. They have been repeatedly invited 

 and urged to do so, but they seem to seek mar- 

 tyrdom. 



Now the awards of premiums at this Fair 

 prove that everything is not cut and dried for the 

 Doctor's benefit, as intimated, but that he stands 

 on his own merits, like the rest of us, for of the 

 three premiums taken by Dr. H., two were with- 

 out competition, and of the three entries by the 

 Doctor, when there was competition, he only 

 took one premium, and that was on his Laug- 

 stroth hive. 



This was my first experience at any fair, either 

 as a manager or exhibitor ; but knowing the 

 squabbles that so often arise over awards of pre- 

 miums, I determined and prided myself on my 

 efforts, to have everything done most fairly. It 

 was the duty»of the superintendents of each de- 

 partment of the Fair to appoint committees in 

 their respective departments, and as my co-super- 

 intendent. Dr. H., was an exhibitor in every item 

 in the bee line, and I only in one, namely, "ex- 

 tracted honey," he turned the entire matter of 

 committees over to me, without any suggestion 

 as to the make-up of them, more than to expiess 

 the hope that it would be done in a manner to 

 give every one a fair chance, as he wanted noth- 

 ing.more; ami I, when it came to premiums on 

 "honey," delegated Mr. King to make up the 

 committee and superintend tlie awards, which 

 he (Jjd on a day when I was not on the grounds 

 at all. 



In making up the committee on hives, the 

 name of every one, with that of the hive he used, 

 was laid before the exhibitors for their approval, 

 and all agreed that the committee was sutisfac- 

 toiy. Some of them were entirely unknown to 

 me until that moment. Each exhibitor then ex- 

 plained the merits of his own hive, except Dr. 

 Hamlin, who, -being one of the superintendents, 

 thought best to allow his employee, Mr. Ladd, 

 to set forth the merits of his hive. I did not see 

 Mr. liarnum on the ground. 



Of the committee of five two were members of 

 the Tennessee Apiarian Society ; and one of these 

 two, notwithstanding he uses the Langstroth 

 hive, voted for King's "Triumph" hive. It is 

 proper to state that Mr. King's hive is not in use 

 here, and his exhibition at the Fair was our first 

 sight of it. 



As to the charge that the Tennessee Apiarian 

 Society will hold on to the Langstroth hive, no 

 matter what better hive may be shown them, I 

 will merely say that we are too smart for that. 

 The only earthly interest we have in any hive is 



in the one from which we can get the greatest 

 yield of honey ; and if it is demonstrated that 

 that can be accomplished by lodging our bees in 

 a immpkin, we will all use pumi^kins. 



I have necessarily made this communication 

 rather long, but my apology is to place the Ten- 

 nessee Apiarian Society in its proper light, to do 

 justice to the officers of the Fair, and to assure 

 Mr. King that it was not a cut and dried affair 

 on the hive question, notwithstanding outside 

 talk. And I herewith leave my statement to the 

 judgment of beekeepers interested in the honor 

 of their co-laborers, if Mr. King did not have 

 fair play. 



J. "VV. FiSHEE. 



Nashville, Tenn., Dec. 13, 1871. 



[For the Americau Bee Journal.] 



Keport from Hartford, Wisconsin. 



CROWFOOT BRO.'S APIAET. 



In May, 1869, we had two hundred and one 

 colonies of bees, mostly Italians. It was such a 

 bad season that we lost by actual starvation 

 forty-nine colonies in the summer, and put up 

 only one hundred and fifty-two in the fall. In 

 the spring of 1870 we took out only thirty-two, 

 and of these we lost eight before the 1st of June. 

 We let them increase to eighty-two that summer, 

 and got about seven hundred pounds of honey in 

 boxes. By June, 1871, they had decrea.sed to 

 seventy colonies, and in the summer of that year 

 we liad thirty natural and fourteen artificial 

 swarms, and obtained by weight fifteen thousand 

 (15,000) pounds of extracted honey, and a little 

 over one thousand (1,000) pounds of box honey. 

 Some of our colonies have now over one hundred 

 pounds of bees, bee bread, honey and combs per 

 hive. We think there will be about four thousand 

 pounds of honey in the hives in the spring, which 

 we can take out, but this is only guess work. If 

 it should prove to be correct it will make in all 

 a little over twenty thousand (20,000) pounds of 

 honey from seventy colonies, besides the in- 

 crease in swarms. You are at liberty to publish 

 this, but we have no time to answer letters of 

 inquiry. We have stated facts, and that must 

 do. 



Crowfoot Bro.'s. 



Hartford, Wis., Nov. 30, 1871. 



[For tlie American Bee Journal.] 



Winter Reared Queens. 



Away back somewhere in the Journal, some 

 one asked what Dr. Gallup's opinion is about 

 queens liatching in winter and becoming fertilized 

 in spring. We have had such cases ourselves, 

 and have already given our ideas of them in the 

 American Bee Journal, but will now give them 

 again, along with some other information. Our 

 idea is that queens hatched in midwinter remain 

 to a certain extent comparatively dormant ; or, 

 in other words, their age does not advance. The 

 editor says on page 9 of No. 1, vol. 1, to this 



