BEEKEEPERS’ ASSOCIATION.

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14669, 4 June 1921, Page 2

BEEKEEPERS’ ASSOCIATION.

(To the Editor). Sir.—-In last Saturday’s issue the secretary of the Waikato branch of the National Beekeepers’ Association, takes mo to task for describing that body as being supine and moribund. The members present on tiie occasion (which was the most important meeting of. tiie year) appear from your report to be really offended ' that such truthful, if candid, judgment should hawe ever been pronounced upon them. Well, let us see jUst how matters actually stand in the matter of my charge against the Hamilton branch. Take the meeting at. which the branch demurred at my statement. It was the annual meeting of the main Hamilton centre, and inoludecl the representatives and members of Ihe 'associated four sub-provincial branches of Te Aroha, Te Kuiti, RoXorua and Papakura. The business was to pass remits for consideration nt the forthcoming conference this .mOnlh at Auckland; to elect officers for the ensuing year; to elect a representative to attend the conference? and indeed, to carry out whatever of real benefit to life parent association their business brains eouid devise. ' Such a> serious progrnfnmc should, and would had my charge against them been uncalled for. have indicated such a spirit of zeal and application to life affairs of the National Association in the minds of the members, that there would have been a record meeting of the whole year (fluery—was it?) and a bumper attendance, whereas the total attendance from the live branches, representing an area of nearly 10ff’miles square, was an average of a fraction over one' and a half persons for each branch included in the Hamilton Provincial branch. In, spite of this supineness on the part of Hamilton’s members, the few who did turn up, get angry when' truthful critlcsm is brought to hear upon their moribund inefficiency. and are actually 100 dense to judge tiie justice of my remarks by the paltry attendance at tiie very meeting at which umbrage was expressed. Surely Hie officials of the Provincial branch do not mean to tell us that the'attendance of a paltry eight members uiiuii the most important occasion of Hie whole year can he construed as proving anything else than that the Provincial branch, together with all its sub-branches, lias got into such a don’t care attitude of mind that Mic only epithet which can truthfully ho applied lo its activities (?) is that it is supine, effete, and pretty nearly moribund. Comparisons arc odious, Mr Editor, but is Waikato by any means jealous that the Waipa Bee Club was called info existence to euro that apathy which for years hack lias been the common jibe against the Hamilton branch of the National Beekeepers’ Association, and to cure it by showing Hamilton beekeepers how tilings ought to be done. This we are already doing in 1 lie Waipa Club., as is proved that at our annual meeting wo had 15 members present for only one small area, and that by way of setting a good example to other branches, one firm lias guaranteed an appropriation of (up to) 1125 against the initial expenses for the first year’s organisation. When did Hamilton's brunch ever conceive such an idea? Until the Hamilton Provincial Brandi wakes up to the fact that the old rhyme is true, which runs:— Such mistress, such nan, Such master, such man. and elects for its officers men proved for business ability and acumen.’ the slide of disinterested apathy from which that branch lias been suffering for years past will continue, and while it does not continue I here is no more hope of the Waipa Bee Club even joking about joining so useless a hotly, than there is of hoping that Hamilton beekeepers will gel, anywhere worth getting, while Ihey resent truthful criticism, instead of profiling by il to put their house in order.—l am. etc. H. BARTLETT-MIDLER. President Waipa Bee Club.