1871.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



151 



when his experiment shows that the shallow hives 

 wintered best. It savors strongly of a thrnst at 

 the Thomas hive withont good grounds for do- 

 ing so ; but thrust away, you can't hurt it. 

 Brooklin, Ontario. J. H. Thomas. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Bees at Bremer County (lovia), Pair Grounds. 

 . Gallup in a Pix ! 



On the morning of September 20th, Gallup 

 reported himself at my home in Waverly, as per 

 agreement ; and after a late breakfast, the 

 remainder of the forenoon was spent in looking 

 over my bees and showing him the queens in my 

 nucleus hives, &c. After dinner we took a drive 

 to the Bremer county fair grounds and made a 

 few entries with the Secretary of a stand of bees, 

 box honey, extracted honey, a Peabody Honey 

 Extractor and several other things. (I wdl 

 here say that I expected to have one of M. M. 

 Baldridge's Geared Extractors on exhibition, 

 l)ut it did not make its appearance.) After 

 looking after the stock that was last coming in, 

 we took a drive in the country, as I was anxious 

 to show Gallup the finest country to be found 

 in our beautiful State of Iowa, that lies in the 

 vicinity of Waverly. 



In our ride we came in contact with a drove 

 of cattle, and among tliom was a beautiful cow 

 with a calf a few days old. I was in want of a 

 fresh milch cow, and on Gallup's judgment I 

 bought this one for forty dollars. I will here 

 thank him for his good judgment in this case, 

 as the cow is a No. 1, and my neighbors call her 

 the Itnlian cow, I suppose from her very yellow 

 hide or her nearness to my bees. 



We soon found ourselves at the post office, 

 and when the mail came in, which was about 

 4 o'clock p. M., I received ten Italian queens 

 from Adam Grimm, of Jefferson, Wisconsin. 

 We drummed out three black queens tliat even- 

 ing and introduced Italians, Gallup style, with 

 tobacco smoke, all in less than an hour's time. I 

 introduced several queens last summer with 

 tobacco smoke, some successfully and some un- 

 successfully. The first attempt was made in 

 last July, when I put one in for a little pill doc- 

 tor. I gave them a big dose, thinking he could 

 cure them if I gave them too much smoke ; but 

 some of them, never came to, as he informed me 

 they died of congestion of the brain ! But he 

 soon had a fine stock of three banded Italians. 



Next morning I closed up a stand of my Ital- 

 ians, to take to the fair, placing them on a 

 spring wagon, with Galluj) and myself aboard. 

 When we arrived at the grounds, about three 

 fourths of a mile distant, we i^laced the hive on 

 a box at the same place where I had a stand 

 opened last year, exhibiting the queen at least 

 a hundred times and no harm done. 



I left Gallup to open the entrance of the hive 

 .and let the bees out whenever he plea.sed, and 

 wended my way to the Floral Hall with my 

 honey and other traps. I had hardly reached the 

 Hall when I perceived such a confusion among 

 the teams breaking away, with everybody run- 

 ning and calling for help. I was not long iu 



getting back to my beehive, and the bees were 

 just boiling out. Phew 1 but were not they mad, 

 pitching into everything within twenty rods of 

 the stand, except the pens of Chester white 

 pigs, and Berkshire and China hogs. I suppose 

 they thought there was plenty of war on the 

 Bhine, and passed them by. 



They seemed to have a particular spite at a 

 little short-tailed dog and nearly covered him. 

 The little fussy fellow not having faith enough 

 to roll in the grass and weeds to rid himself of 

 his tormentors, rushed madly in among a crowd 

 of ladies, and such "cutting up" as followed, I 

 never saw before. I could think of nothing like 

 it but driving sheep, when I was a boy in my 

 native town among the beautiful hills and moun- 

 tains surrounding Danville and St. Johnsbury 

 in Vermont, when the little dogs would come 

 out and scatter the slieep, till they learned how 

 to jump over stone wails and almost climb trees. 



I soon found it was no place for me, as the 

 excited folks were loudly taking my name in 

 vain, as well as vocifei'ously blessing my bees. I 

 retreated i n good order to Floral Hall, and got 

 behind a 200 lb. squash, which I used as breast 

 work. I had been there only a few minutes 

 before our Mayor (one of the officials, by the 

 way of our Bremer county fair) came and in- 

 formed me that I must remove those bees, as they 

 would spoil the fair, keeping up the while a brisk 

 fist fight with a bevy of bees that were trying 

 to close up his eyes ; all the other good citizens 

 pi'esent at the interview keeping his worship in 

 countenance by perprtrating similar military 

 gesticulations and fandagoes, to save their own 

 peepers from temporary occultation. But a 

 fat woman who happened to be present, noted for 

 her good sense as well as lustiness, advised him 

 to get down on the ground in the grass, and the 

 bees would leave him. He, however, having his 

 attention pretty much engrossed at that moment, 

 misunderstood her and supposed she meant he 

 should get down to his best ruiuiing time. So 

 he started oft" t)n the race course and made good 

 time, as his heels showed. Meanwhile a large 

 white bull with harness on, had more bees on his 

 back than he had nerve to stand, and seeing our 

 small Mayor, of some ^(iO lbs. weight, making 

 such remarkably good time on the race course, 

 broke loose and took the track also, shortening 

 the distance so exceedingly at every jump between 

 him and the I>Iayor, that in a few minutes bets 

 ran two to one on the white bull. But sud- 

 denly he stopped, p.awed sand and threw it on 

 his back, before he resumed his onward course, 

 and thus the Mayor made the home stretch |ths 

 of a second ahead of the white bull. 



But I must not forget our marshal, who was 

 gate keeper in this interesting occasion. He is 

 a brave fellow, and served his country faithfully 

 four years in the 2d Wisconsin Regiment, and 

 was present at the capture of Jeff. Davis. He 

 retreated in good order half a mile from his 

 post, and kept up a manful fight all the way. 



Some dozens of operators, too, busily testing 

 the merits of various machines and ingenious 

 contrivances, each warmly contending that his 

 was the best, suddenly brought their discussions 

 and controversies to a close, by unanimously 



