Nov. S, 1903. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



709 



I Convention ProccedinSs j 



THE LOS ANGELES CONVENTION. 



Report of the Proceedingrs of the 34th Annual 



Meetings of the National Bee-Keepers' 



Association, Held at Los Ang-eles, 



Calif., Aug. 18, 19 and 20, 



1903. 



(Continued from page o''S.) 



REMINISCENCES OF BEE-KEEPING AND BEE-KEEP- 

 ERS IN THE EARLY DAYS. 



J. S. Harbison — I did not expect to be called on here to 

 make a speech. I have been a worker and not a speaker, 

 and if I give you a rambling talk, it will be all you should 

 expect. 



I may as well start out a little on the lines my friend, 

 Mr. Root, who has just preceded me, has suggested, and go 

 back to the early trials and tribulations of bee-keeping in 

 my experience. 



My father kept bees from my earliest recollection, and 

 I became the owner of bees at quite an early age, and did 

 much of the work of taking care of my father's apiary, 

 which consisted of probably 20, 30 — SO hives at most. 



I came to California in 1854, landed in San Francisco 

 Nov. 20, which will be 49 years the coming November. My 

 first experience was the importation of fruit-trees, which I 

 carried on for two years, and laid the foundation for those 

 great orchards on the Sacramento River, extending from 

 Marysville to Lower Sacramento. 



During those two years I studied the flora of California, 

 and became satisfied that bee-keeping wou'd succeed. After 

 I had made a shipment and returned, I sold out my tree and 

 nursery interests in the winter of '56, and returned, say in 

 April, '57, with the intention of preparing a shipment of 

 bees for California, and I made that shipment, as I did not 

 know of there being any bees in California until after my 

 getting the shipment to California. 



When I returned to my home in Lawrence Co., Pa., 

 and there prepared my bees, I took chosen lumber, had it 

 sawed out about js of an inch thick, and made boxes of 

 about a cubic foot capacitj'. I made them light, because we 

 had to pay at the rate of about SI. 00 a pound freight from 

 Newcastle, Pa., to Sacramento, hence it required economy 

 in preparing the hives. When I was ready to ship them I 

 added a chamber of about 3x8x13 inches, as a place for them 

 to get off their combs and carry out their dead during the 

 voyage, and that was ventilated by a wire net, giving some 

 ten inches of wire ventilation. 



I started with 116 of these colonies, and got all through 

 except six. Six were entirely dead on arrival. Of course, 

 they were all reduced in numbers. While I was preparing 

 these bees at my old home, my old neighbors there thought 

 that I must be a little " off. " I never could get them to 

 California, they said. My father tried to persuade me that 

 it was not a good thing for me to do, and all that. They 

 tried to persuade me, but it had no effect on me. I said, 

 " Father, I am doing this with my own money, and if I suc- 

 ceed, well, and nobpdy will be the worse for it." Then he 

 tried ridicule. He named them " the dollar hives," when 

 our neighbors all joined in and said I was preparing dollar 

 hives, but I went on just the same. 



When I prepared these to ship in November, I had to 

 take them on canal boats from Newcastle, Pa., to Roches- 

 ter on the Ohio River, and from there on a steamer to Pitts- 

 burg, and from there by rail. They were taken to the 

 Union Depot in Pittsburg, hauled in there, perhaps, about 

 lor 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and the train did not go 

 until evening. While they were being transferred by the 

 express company, I was to have supervision and direction, 

 so I staid pretty close to my bees during that time, and as 

 people came into the train, as is usual preceding its depart- 

 ure, the hives sat there, very plainly marked "Sacramento, 

 California." I heard many uncomplimentary remarks. 

 Some of those people had been in California. There were 

 no bees there ; there was nothing for them to work on when 



they got out there. There must be some fool ; and some 

 put it a little stronger than the simple word fool. 



Very near train time, however, there camealong an un- 

 dersized gentleman, very nicely dressed, and he took in the 

 situation, looked around, singled me out as the owner, and 

 said, " Are you the owner of these bees ?" I said, " Yes." 



" I see they are marked for shipment to California." I 

 said, "Yes, I am going to take them to California." 



He said, " Have you been there ?" I replied, "Yea." 

 ■ " Have you ever been engaged in bee-keeping ?" I said, 

 "Yes." 



"Do you know you can get them there?" " Yes," I 

 said, "I have letters from the head agents of the steamship 

 companies," naming them, that is, the steamship companies 

 in New York, and the Panama railroad. " I have arrange- 

 ments made by which I am assured of every facility at their 

 disposal for getting them through." 



These questions were so pertinent, and the people be- 

 came so interested, that there was a great crowd around. 

 Then the murmur started, what a great enterprise it was, 

 what a great undertaking. This gentleman shook hands 

 with me and said, " I hope you will get there safe. Indeed," 

 he said, "I am very sure you will, for you understand the 

 business." It made it a little bit trying for me. I was 

 comparatively a young man, but very resolute and self- 

 willed to do what I thought I could do, and which I did do, 



I got them through. Every facility was afforded me, 

 I went down with Capt. R. L. Whiting, of the Steamship. 

 "Golden Gate." I had made his acquaintance on my trip 

 down to Panama, told him of my plan, and he said, " If you 

 should be so fortunate as to connect with my ship in going 

 out, I will take great pleasure in affording you every facilit^r 

 in my power." 



When I reached Aspinwall with my bees, who should I 

 meet on the gangway but Capt. R. L. Whiting ? He recog- 

 nized me at once, inquired if I had the bees, etc., and con- 

 gratulated me that I was getting along all right, and gave 

 me some information as to getting them across the Isthmus. 

 And so with the kind assistance of those men who were 

 willing to assist in the introduction of new enterprises into 

 California, I got there, made a success of it, and it has 

 given me great pleasure to know of the success that has 

 attended bee-keeping here in California. 



Then the bees sold readily for two years at $100 a colony 

 in Sacramento. My "dollar hives " increased somewhat in 

 value when they were sold at $100. I presume there are 

 some of you beekeepers here who probably paid something 



like that for bees. I knew colonies that I had sold at $100 

 were resold by other parties at $200, and then they made 

 money out of them. 



A Member — There is a Mr. Hale, that was alongside of 

 me 12 years in Los Angeles, and he said he bought 15 colo- 

 nies from you and paid you $1500. 



