THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



773 



Explanatory.— Tbe figures before the 

 names indicate the number of years that the 

 person has liept bees. Those after, show 

 the number of colonies the writer had in the 

 previous spring and fall, or fall and spring, 

 as the time of the year may require. 



This marlt O indicates that the apiarist is 

 located near the centre of the State named: 

 6 north of the centre ; 9 south ; 0+ east ; 

 ♦O west; and this 6 northeast; N3 northwest; 

 o^ southeast; and P southwest of the centre 

 of the State mentioned. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



In Memoriam— Wm. W. Gary. 



Born in Coleraine, Mass., on Febru- 

 ary 24, 1815, and died on Dec. 9, 1884. 



It affords me a melancholy satis- 

 faction to review my long acquaint- 

 ance with the late Mr. Wm. W. Gary, 

 and to set out more fully than has yet 

 been attempted, some of the impor- 

 tant services which he rendered to 

 bee-keeping. To do this seems to me 

 the more obligatory, as he so seldom 

 used his pen for the press that these 

 services might otherwise fail to be 

 put on record. 



After testing quite largely my 

 movable-comb frames in West Phila- 

 delphia, in the bee-season of 1852, in 

 the fall of that year I went to Green- 

 field, Mass., to introduce my hive 

 where I was best known as a bee- 

 keeper. Mr. Gary kept some bees in 

 the adjoining town of Goleraine, and 

 was among the tirst to take an interest 

 in my invention. He was very fond 

 of bees, and more tlian usually 

 familiar with their habits— and as soon 

 as he saw the working of the hive, he 

 believed that it would make a revolu- 

 tion in bee-keeping. For the six 

 years that I remained in Greenfield, 

 we were in such frequent communi- 

 cation that in furthering my experi- 

 ments his apiary was almost as much 

 at my service as my own. 



In the spring of 1860, I was invited 

 by Mr. S. B. Parsons, of Flushing, L. 

 I., to advise him how best to breed 

 and disseminate the Italian (Ligurian) 

 bees which he had recently imported. 

 Finding that the person who came in 

 charge of most of these bees, could 

 not do the work that was expected of 

 him, I advised Mr. Parsons to secure 

 the services of Mr. Gary. To great 

 energy of character and good business 

 habits, he united long experience in 

 the management of movable frame 

 hives with an enthusiastic desire to 

 see the introduction of these foreign 

 bees made a success. From my in- 

 timate acquaintance with him, I 

 could further assure Mr. Parsons that 

 with all these requisites for the posi- 

 tion, he possessed in as large a degree 

 as any one I had ever known, that 

 " highest fidelity " which Columella, 

 nearly 2,000 years ago, declared to be 



an essential qualification for the 

 superintendence of an apiary — and 

 wliich he thought was very rarely to 

 be met with. Is it much easier to 

 find that now, than it was then V 



Mr. Gary's work in Mr. Parsons' 

 apiary fully justified his selection. 

 While tlie ' foreigner, in a separate 

 apiary established by Mr. Parsons, 

 and furnished with just the same 

 facilities for breeding queens, failed 

 to rear enough even to pay for the 

 black bees and feed that he used in 

 his operations, Mr. Gary supplied 

 all the queens needed in Mr. Parsons' 

 apiary, and filled all his numerous 

 orders. 



i'' No better proof could possibly be 

 given of the extent and thoroughness 

 of his work, than the fact that 11.3 

 queens bred by him that season, were 

 so carefully prepared for shipment 

 under the joint supervision of himself 

 and Mr. A. G. Biglow, that all except 

 two of them were safely carried by 

 Mr. Biglow from New York to San 

 Francisco ! Mr. B. had stopped over 

 one steamer on the Isthmus of Pan- 



ama to give his bees a cleansing 

 flight, and one queen entering the 

 nucleus of another, both were killed. 

 The colonies to which they belonged, 

 when examined on their arrival at 

 Galifornia, were each found to have 

 reared another queen. 



To appreciate fully the extraordi- 

 nary success of Mr. Gary as a breeder 

 and shipper ot Italian queens, it 

 needs but to be stated that during 

 this very year but few queens came 

 alive, out of the many sent from 

 Europe, and that for years after, a 

 large part of our imported queens 

 either died on the way, or arrived in 

 such poor condition as to be of little 

 or no value. It will be remembered 

 by some of the old readers of the 

 American Bee Journal, that Mr. 

 Gary was the first person to send a 

 queen across the ocean, in a single- 

 comb nucleus, with a few workers. 

 She was consigned to my lamented 

 friend, Mr. Woodbury, of Exeter, 

 England, and reached" him in excel- 

 lent condition. Those who now 



receive the queens which are sent by 

 mail from Europe, and even from 

 Syria, should bear in mind that only 

 after many and costly experiments 

 has such admirable success been 

 secured. 



After his splendid achievements in 

 Mr. Parsons' service, Mr. Gary greatly 

 enlarged his own apiary, and placed 

 himself in the front rank of reliable 

 breeders of Italian queens. 



When Dr. E. Parmly, of New 

 York, imported a number of Egyptian 

 queens, he entrusted them to Mr. 

 Gary, having, as I know, as strong 

 confidence as myself in his sagacity 

 and fidelity. Mr. Gary first called my 

 attention, in his own apiary, to the 

 inferior appearance of the comb honey 

 of those bees. It was capped in such 

 a way as to look like honey damaged 

 by " sweating " — so-called — after be- 

 ing kept in too damp a place. He 

 was also the first to notice that Egyp- 

 tian bees in extending their combs, 

 built their lower edges almost per- 

 fectly square throughout their whole 

 length — in marked contrast to the 

 way in which black bees build them — 

 and improving in this respect even 

 upon the Italians. Although I im- 

 ported the first Egyptian queen, Mr. 

 Gary tiad the largest experience with 

 this variety, and after a fair trial we 

 both discarded them as very much 

 inferior to the Italians. 



While Mr. Gary was a great enthu- 

 siast in bee-culture, and always ready 

 to accept every discovery and im- 

 provement, he was not carried away 

 by plausible novelties or conceits. 

 When near him, I always took pecu- 

 liar pleasure in communicating to hira 

 all matters that from time to time 

 were engaging my attention, and our 

 occasional meetings in later years 

 were highly prized. He seldom 

 failed to detect any flaw in what was 

 sulimitted to his judgment, and his 

 deliberate " yes "' or " no " had greater 

 weight with me in bee-matters than 

 that of almost any other person. 



Mr. Gary's location was inferior in 

 honey-resources to those who in this 

 country have achieved the greatest 

 pecuniary success from the keeping of 

 bees ; he was also quite lame from an 

 accident in his youth, yet notwith- 

 standing these and other obstacles, 

 he built up gradually a large apiary. 

 He was not only a strictly honest 

 man, but a highly liouorable one in 

 all liis dealings ; and in cases of doubt 

 he made it his rule to give his cus- 

 tomers the benefit of that doubt, 

 instead of claiming it for himself. 

 Like myself he had the help of an 

 only son in the management of his 

 business, but luppier in this respect 

 ttian myself, he was not called to 

 lament his premature death. 



Mr. Gary's interest in bees ceased 

 only with his life. A few weeks 

 before his death he was able to be 

 out in his apiary, where he witnessed 

 with much pleasure some novel ar- 

 rangements for the safe wintering of 

 a colony in ttie open air. 



Samuel Wagner, Moses Quinby, 

 Richard Colvin, Adam Grimm, Ros- 

 well G. Otis, Wm. W. Gary— they have 

 all passed away ! And probably no 



