Norwich bulletin., 1912-04-16

President Allen Latham of the Con- nectlcut Beekeepers' association and his home aplary and Let Alone" sys- ten are made the subject of a page article in The Country Gentleman, which uses also illustrations of the hives In MT. Lathams yard on the Reservoir road, Norwich Town.
 Broken All the Conventions.
 Of President Latham and his system of beeSeepng Arthur c. Miller writes in ths magazine:
 In the state famed for it's wooden Nutmass lives a man who has dared to break all the conventions of an ancient and tradition fettered industry and to undertake to do those things which it's great teachers say cannot be done and should not be attempted. And he has won. Allen Latham of Connecticut be- gan bookkeeping in 1884 with one colony of bees and in almost total ignorance of the habits of the Insects and of the ways to care for them He had shis ups and downs. but kept studying and experimenting until now he is one of lhe most skilled of the thousands en- gaged in the industry, and has forced success where others have failed.
 Invented His Own Hive.
 By profession he is a school teacher, md his summer vacations afforded him the opportunity for work with bees. The salary of a school teacher. after airing for 8 growing family, does not .fford much surplus for investment, and hence early !n his work with bees ne foun1 it advisable to make his own hives and many of his own imple- ments. More over, he had pronounced deas of his own as to what a beehive should be, and it was much cheaper to put these ideas into concrete form at home than to have the supply manu- lecturers do it. It is said that no man really has the bee fever until he begins to invent new beehive. If this is true Mr. Latham caught the fever early. md it has been increasing in intensity ever since.
 Bees in Fifteen Different Places.
 He keeps bees in fifteen different places, some of which hs sees but once ! year In some he has but one colony, lsing it to test the honey resources before putting a number there. In other places he keeps dozen or more, and in his home yard he has 80. Al together he has 1S0 colonies. The dis fant hives are sometimes established on land of persons who want the bees for the fertilization of fruit blossoms md gladly furnish place for the bees md shelter for any needed implements IT temporary storage for extra hives or 1rops of honey; or arrangements are made whereby tine land owner or ten mt furnishes these things in return for ! percentage of the crop of honey.
 The WinsIess Queen.
 In some cases these persons hive any nance swarm of bees, but swarIns are rare from these big hives Usually the Iueens are clipped so that when a swarm goes out the queen on leaving the hive drops to the ground and crawls away. The swarm, upon dis covering her absence, returns to the hive. By the time the young queen has matched and is ready to fly the bees have settled down to work again and nave forgotten all about swarn1ing. Occasionally a swarm Is lost, but Mir. Latham does not consider this very serious or at all commensurate with the cost of preventing it.
 "Let Alone" System Is Original.
 The hives and the system used in the. outyards are most interesting, for al- though much that is novel may be found in his home yard, particularly his queen rearing system, 1t is in his outyard methods that he has complete ly set ct naught many of the canons of beedom. He calls the hive and sys- tenn the Let Alone" for literally he lets them alone most of the time. One little group which is at the old home stead in Massachusetts he sees only at Christmas, when he removes his crop of honey. One can see the bookkeeping veterans raising their hands in horror at such methods and predicting all sorts of fcalamities. MT Latham has done it. however, year after year, and both he and the bees continue to thrive.
 Average 1oo Pounds on Cape Cod.
 Perhaps the strangest place to look for success In beeheeping and espe- cially on any such "let alone" system, Is the end of Cape Cod But he has a dozen thrifty colonies in Province town and other lesser groups scat tered along the Cape as far as Truro. He usually removes all the ripe honey from these hives about the first week in July and again about the first of September taking what honey there