APUir. 1, 1915 



267 



GENERAL CO: 



PONDENCE 



MOSES QUINBY, FATHER OF PRACTICAL AMERICAN BEEKEEPING 



DV LYMAN C. KOOT 



On aeeouiit of my long acquaintance with 

 and rclationsliip to Mr. Quinby, I welcome 

 with the greatest satisfaction this Quinby 

 luiinber of Gleanings and tlie reprint of 

 the first edition of his " Mysteries of Bee- 

 keeping." This spring' is the fortieth anni- 

 versary of his deatli; and the facts of lais 

 life, familiar to all beekeepers at that time, 

 will bear repetition now for the younger 

 generation. 



!Moses Quinby was of English stock, 

 descendant of William Quinby, who came to 

 America prior to 1664, and settled in West- 

 chester County, being one of its ]iatentees. 



Fig. 1. — Mases Quinbv's home in Greene Co., N. Y. 



The family continued to reside in this 

 county, and Moses Quinby was born in the 

 town of North Castle, son of William Quin- 

 by and Hannah Sands, on April 16, 1810. 

 During his boyhood his family removed to 

 Coxsackie, Greene County, New York; and 

 living in both places in the country he was 

 early associated with life on the farm and 

 in the woods and fields, and his knowledge 

 of the habits of birds and animals began at 

 an earl}- age. 



Here in the town of Coxsackie, in 1828, 

 at the age of 18, he earned his first money, 

 working in a sawmill, and with it purchased 

 his first swarm of bees and began the twen- 

 ty-five years of study and experiment which 

 prepared him for the writing of his book, 

 published in 18.'i.3. Tn 1832 he married Miss 



Martha Powell Norbury, also of English 

 extraction, and, like Mr. Quinby, a Quaker. 

 They were married at the Norbury home- 

 stead. From this time till his removal to 

 the Mohawk Valley he lived at the home 

 shown in Fig. 1. There was a mill on the 

 place, the ruins of wliieh may still be seen 

 in the picture on the cover of this number 

 of Gleanings, and he earned the support 

 of his family in these early years running 

 the turning-lathe and doing cabinet work, 

 many specimens of household furniture 

 made by him being now the valued posses- 

 sions of his granddaughters. Here also he 

 made his hives and the 

 first honey-boxes. It 

 was gratifjdng to m.e 

 on a recent visit to 

 find remaining, after 

 eighty years, so many 

 evidences of Mr. Quin- 

 by's work at his early 

 home. In Fig. 2 may 

 be seen the terraced 

 side hill Avhere hi.s 

 rows of hives were ar- 

 ranged. I have reason 

 to believe that at this 

 period there were 

 more bees kept in this 

 section than in any 

 other part of the Unit- 

 ed States. For years 

 after Mr. Quinby's 

 death I have been to 

 this location to buy 

 bees to replenish my 

 home apiaries. On a recent visit I saw 

 small apiaries, many of them using the 

 form of hive Mr. Quinby had recommended. 

 He saj'S he " commenced without any 

 knowledge of the business to assist him, 

 save a few directions about hiving, smoking 

 them with sulphur, etc." Beekeeping was 

 considered a matter of luck. His friends 

 and neighbors on all sides discouraged him. 

 One wise old man predicted failure for him 

 because he pottered with them too much, 

 boring holes in the top of the hives and 

 disturbing them. All of this advice only 

 stimulated him to greater action. He pre- 

 fixed to the word "luck" a big P, and 

 underlined it. 



Here he spent twenty-five years experi- 

 inentint;- and writing, with a determination 



