458 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



iriRS. L.. HARRl§OX. 



The subject of our sketch this week — 

 Mrs. L. Harrison, of Peoria, Ills. — is 

 perhaps the best known among the 

 women who write about bees. Her name 

 has been familiar to all our readers for 

 years, as well as to the thousands upon 

 thousands who have been permitted to 

 read her valuable apiarian writings in 

 both the Orange Judd Farmer and the 

 Prairie Farmer — excellent agricultural 

 periodicals published in Chicago. 



Mrs. Harrison has for years answered 

 questions for our department of " Que- 

 ries and Replies," besides contributing 

 an occasional article or letter. Her pen 

 productions are entirely original in style, 

 always couched in vigorous language, 

 and often contain an amusing refer- 

 ence, which, taken all together, make 

 her an intensely interesting writer. 



Through the kindness of the Orange 

 Judd Farmer, we present herewith Mrs. 

 Harrison's picture, and from the " Por- 

 trait and Biographical Album of Peoria 

 County, Illinois," we have taken the fol- 

 lowing sketch of her life : 



Mrs. L. Harrison is deserving of spe- 

 cial mention on account of her eminent 

 success as a bee-keeper and a writer on 

 the management of the honey-producing 

 insects. Since 1876 she has edited the 

 bee-department of the Prairie Farmer, 

 being likewise a member of the staff of 

 a British apicultural journal, and for the 

 past four years has been the apiarian 

 editress of the Orange Judd Farmer. " A 

 B C of Bee-Culture," has this to say of 

 her : 



" Among women no bee-keeper is more 

 widely known than Mrs. Lucinda Harri- 

 son. Born In Coshocton county, Ohio, 

 on Nov. 21, 1831. She came in 1836 



to Peoria county, Illinois, her parents, 

 Alpheus Richardson and wife, being 

 pioneer settlers. Public schools were at 

 that time undeveloped, and educational 

 advantages few, but her parents gave 

 her the best to be had in private schools. 

 Her brother Sanford was a member of 

 the first class which was graduated from 

 Knox College, and she then spent a year 

 at ail academy taught by him at Gran- 

 ville, Ills. 



" She taught school from time to time 

 until 1855, when she married Robert 

 Dodds, a prosperous farmer of Wood- 

 ford county, who died two years later, 

 leaving her a widow at twenty-five. She 

 was married to her present husband on 

 July 4, 1866." 



Mrs. Harrison thus describes her en- 

 trance into the ranks of apiarists : 



" In 1871, while perusing the reports 

 of the Department of Agriculture, I 

 came across a flowery essay on bee-cul- 

 ture from the graceful pen of Mrs. Ellen 

 S. *rupper. I caught the bee-fever so 

 badly that I could hardly survive until 

 the spring, when I purchased two colo- 

 nies of Italians from the late Adam 

 Grimm, of Jefferson, Wis. The bees 

 were in eight-frame Langstroth hives, 

 and we still continue to use hives ex- 

 actly similar to those then purchased. 

 I bought the bees without my husband's 

 knowledge, knowing full well that he 

 would forbid me if he knew it, and many 

 were the curtain lectures I received for 

 purchasing such troublesome stock. One 

 reason for his hostility was that I kept 

 continually pulling the hives to pieces 

 to see what the bees were at, and kept 

 them on the warpath. 



" Our home is on three city lots, and 

 at the time I commenced bee-keeping 

 our trees and vines were just coming 

 into bearing, and Mr. Harrison enjoyed 

 very much being out among his pets, 

 and occasionally had an escort of scold- 

 ing bees. 



" Meeting wijh opposition made me 

 all the more determined to succeed. I 

 never wavered in my fixed determination 

 to know all there was to be known about 

 honey-bees, and I was too inquisitive, 

 prying into their domestic relations, 

 which made them so very irritable." 



It is credited to Mrs. Harrison that 

 she has written more than any woman 

 in the world on the subject of bee-keep- 

 ing, as opening up a new industry for 

 women. Her writings have been exten- 

 sively published not only in the United 

 States, but in Great Britain and on the 

 Continent, as well as in Australia and 

 the South Sea Islands. Her articles 



