(&QXVt$VO\\&mt£. 



Vot the American Bee Journal. 



Death of the Rev. William C. Cotton. 



W3I. CARR. 



This good old veteran Bee-master was 

 born in 1814 and died on June 22d, 1879. 

 Mr. Cotton was the eldest son of the 

 late Mr. W. Cotton, some time Gover- 

 nor of the Bank of England. He was 

 formerly student of Christ Church, Ox- 

 ford, and Newcastle scholar. He was 

 through life an ardent bee-keeper, and 

 by his writings and personal example 

 did much to popularize the science of 

 apiculture. When quite a boy his 

 father read to him a translation of 

 Virgil's fourth Georgia on Bees, and 

 the next morning, he tried to carry out 

 Virgil's instructions how to get a swarm 

 of bees, so tried to bribe his father's 

 farming man, by promising him, a 

 small taste of Ins first honey, if he 

 would kill a two-year old bull-calf, so 

 that from the maggots when it decom- 

 posed, he could get a swarm of bees; 

 his father hearing of his son's wish to 

 kill the stock, procured for him his first 

 swarm of bees. 



In 1833, the Oxford Apiarian Society 

 w r as formed through the exertions of 

 Mr. Cotton, who undertook the duties 

 of Secretary. In 1838 he wrote two "short 

 and simple letters to Cottagers, from a 

 Bee Preserver." Twenty-four thousand 

 copies of these letters were published. 



In 1842 he produced the well-known 

 work entitled " My Bee Book," which 

 not only treated of the best modes of 

 management of bees at that time in all 

 parts of the world, but which also in- 

 cluded several rare treatises of former 

 English apiarists, on the economy and 

 practical management of bees. . 



In 1841 Mr. Cotton became domestic 

 •chaplain to the late Bishop of New 

 Zealand, Dr. Selwyn, with whom he 

 embarked on board the Tomatin at 

 Plymouth, on the 20th of December of 

 that year. On the voyage out, and sub- 

 sequently, Mr. Cotton rendered the 

 Bishop much assistance in translating 

 the Bible into the native tongue. Mr. 

 Cotton took with him four colonies of 

 bees, and many marvellous stories are 

 told of his mastery over his favorites 

 on ship-board. He was very successful 

 in the introduction of the cultivation of 

 bee-keeping in his adopted country ; 

 and in 1848 he produced his " Manual 

 for New Zealand Bee-Keepers," pub- 

 lished at Wellington, New Zealand. 



Before the introduction of the honey- 



bee into New Zealand, they had to send 

 over to England every year for the 

 white clover seed ( Trifolium repens) as 

 it did not seed freely there, but by the 

 agency of the bees they are now able to 

 export it. New Zealand is such a good 

 country for bees, that Mr. Cotton told 

 me one colony had increased to twenty- 

 six in one year. The natives call the 

 bee, the white man's fly. 



After his return to England, Mr. 

 Cotton was presented in 1857, to the 

 Vicarage of Frodsham, Cheshire. I 

 made his acquaintance on August 29th, 



1868, and we kept up the correspondence 

 to the last year of his life. He was a 

 very kind, generous man, and capital 

 company. On the third day of June 



1869, he was watching my bees in the 

 Unicomb hive, when I happened to say 

 to him, "you see the queen, always 

 turns her body so that her head is below 

 the horizontal line, when laying an 

 egg." He exclaimed, does she V I 

 said ! there she is again turning her 

 body so that her head is below the 

 horizontal line. After watching the 

 queen lay a number of eggs, he said, I 

 have represented the queen laying with 

 her head upwards in " My Bee Book," 

 but in the next edition I will turn the 

 plate the bottom side upwards, when it 

 will be all right. The Rev. L. L. 

 Langstroth and others have copied this 

 plate out of Mr. Cotton's Bee Book, 

 and have all made the same mistake. 



In 1872 Mr. Cotton published a most 

 amusing work entitled " Buzz-a-Buzz, 

 or The Bees done freely into English,'''' by 

 the author of My Bee Book, from the 

 German of Wilhelm Busch. It is 

 written in rhyme, profusely illustrated, 

 and as the author says in his preface, 

 "The verses were written up to the 

 pictures, rather than translated from 

 the German Text." It is a most amus- 

 ing production, and there is much truth 

 lying hid under the comical stories, and 

 still more in the illustrations, and the 

 notes which are appended may be found 

 useful even by scientific bee-masters ; 

 and any one who saw the honest, burly, 

 English form of the author, in his guaint 

 blouse at the first show of the British 

 Bee-Keepers' Association at the Crystal 

 Palace in 1874, will read Buzz-a-Buzz 

 with redoubled delight. 



Mi'- Cotton, to the end of his life, re- 

 tained his love for the fascinating study 

 of his youth. He took a great interest 

 in the establishment of the British 

 Bee-Keepers' Association, became one 

 of its first Vice Presidents, and was 

 one of the judges at its first show. 

 Though in issuing his Letters to Cottagers, 

 he designated himself a " Conservative 

 Bee-keeper," he was ready when con- 



