102 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



June 



pugilistically inclined; and to the best 

 of my knowledge my name has never 

 been used in connection with the presi- 

 dency of the United States. So you see 

 if my history is uninteresting it is not 

 my fault, but simply the destined 

 course of fate. 



I was born in Forest county, Pa., in 

 the closing month of 1865. My parents 

 removed from there to a farm in Ve- 

 nango county, which was my home for 

 the next eighteen years. Here I went 

 to school, played, fished, and (when I 

 couldn't help it,) worked on the farm 

 until I was sixteen years of age, when 

 I entered upon a course at Scrubgrass 

 Academy, preparatory to going to col- 

 lege. 



My plans for the future were all laid 

 — T was going to be a lawyer. But "the 

 best laid plans of mice and men gang 

 aft a-gley." While I was growing up 

 on one farm, a little girl was growing 

 up on an adjoining farm. Well, to 

 m.ake a long story short and save em- 

 barassing details, I didn't go to college. 

 But in the fall of 1885, when I was 20, 

 and Miss Mary Heckathorn, of the ad- 

 joining farm, was 18 years of age, we 

 were married, and settled on a farm. 

 In the spring of 1887 we removed to the 

 city of Franklin, where I have since 

 been engaged in the oil business, in the 

 employ of the Standard Oil Company. 



Among my earliest recollections are 

 the rows of box hives of bees that 

 stood under the walnut trees in my 

 maternal grandfather's back yard. My 

 father, too, kept bees in box-hives. But 

 about all either of them knew about 

 bees was enough to hive them when 

 they swarmed, and kill one when they 

 wanted honey. The issuing of a 

 swarm was always the occasion of 

 some very lusty and somewhat dis- 

 cordant music, in which I always took 

 a prominent part: beating a pan or a 

 boiler and yelling like a dervish. 



When I came to Franklin this was 

 the extent of my bee-knowledge. Short- 

 ly after coming here I made the ac- 



quaintance of Charles Pizer, (now de- 

 ceased), who had kept bees for several 

 years prior to his coming to town. In 

 company with him I was one day going 

 past the large apiary of Mr. H. S. Sut- 

 ton. The day was nice and warm and 

 the hum of the bees could be heard out 

 to the road. Mr. Pizer proposed that 

 we stop and have a talk with the own- 

 er. Accordingly we went in and inti'o- 

 duced ourselves, and then the two old 

 bee-keepers let out, as only bee-keep- 

 ers can. 



In the conversation which followed 

 I was strictly "not in it," but I was not 

 far away. The atmosphere around 

 there was impregnated with the germs 

 of bee-fever, and before I got away 

 from there they had taken a deep hold 

 on me. It is the only disease I have 

 ever had, from which I have not re- 

 covered. But I never got over the bee- 

 fever, and I have had it so long that I 

 have given up ever getting over it. Be- 

 fore leaving, Mr. Pizer and I each pur- 

 chased two colonies of bees. I took 

 mine home and commenced to study 

 bees. If those bees could have done it 

 they would have handed me over to the 

 police for a nuisance many times be- 

 fore the summer was over, as I spent all 

 my spare time with them. I made so 

 many trips to Mr. Sutton with ques- 

 tions that I often wonder now, that he 

 didn't set his dog on me. I got Root's 

 A. B. C. book and read it, and re-read 

 it, I don't know how many times; it 

 seemed like ten thousand, anyway. I 

 then procured nearly all the other 

 works on the subject, and have taken 

 nearly all the bee journals published 

 in this country ever since. 



I have been fairly successful as a 

 bee-keeper, securing good crops of 

 honey and wintering with very little 



loss. 



I keep about forty colonies; run 

 mostly for comb honey. I have a good 

 home market for all my honey, as well 

 as local reputation as a "crank" on 



bees. 



