INTRODUCTION. 



My memory begins with standing in front of a colony of bees, with a 

 brush-broom in hand; and until I was large enough to take interest in the 

 apiary work, whenever I saw a colony of bees they commanded my atten- 

 tion, and my gratification was not appeased until I had seen the owner and 

 questioned him (or her) concerning the bees; and many times I have been 

 rebuked for continual questioning. At that time we were traveling in an ox- 

 wagon over Texas, where I saw much of the bee and honey industry, and 

 my interest in the honey-bee grew deeper, and it is needless to say that driving 

 a sleigh around over the wood while the bee-hunters were finding bee-trees, 

 and cutting them, was the joy of my boyhood days. Whenever bees were 

 robbed in the settlement I was always on hand, ready to take part. I soon 

 became a bee-hunter myself, and all spare moments were spent at this; and 

 many times I have looked up trees on Saturday evenings (for it was a"bout 

 all the leisure time I had) so constantly that I would have a "crick" in my 

 neck and all the following week. Many times I have cut and robbed rich 

 bee-trees, and no one with me to share the pleasure. 



Besides looking after bees for others we established an old-style box-hive 

 apiary (for it was the best we could «do then, for there was no better hive 

 known to us. 



I took a leading interest in this apiary, and a few times we had a 

 good apiary established. Then they would die back to only a few colonies, 

 and I did all I could to save them. Finally one spring we had only one 

 hive left, and later in the spring I turned it bottom end up and found it a 

 mass of moth. I went down in the pine thicket and sat down beside a tree 

 and took a long cry over the death of the last colony, and then and there 

 I resolved that, if I ever had another start of bees, I would give them 

 even more and better attention. 



Then I tried to buy another start of bees, but failed. I found many bee- 

 trees, but failed in saving the bees; so for several years we had no bees, and 

 farm life was not what it once was to me; for when we had the apiary I 

 would spend my leisure moments at noon under the shady mulberry-trees 

 where it was located, doing all I knew how to help the bees, and I would 

 watch the little streams of them as they would pour in and out of the hives, 

 and listen at night to their heavy roar. But now this inspiration was a thing 

 of the past, and farm life had lost its greatest charm to me. 



Several years elapsed, and I looked after bees only for others. 

 Finally a widow lady gave me a colony for giving her bees such good 

 attention. One cold winter night I carried the hive of bees home. The bees 

 were in an old-style box hive, so badly decayed on one side at the bottom that 



