THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 367 



WESLEY FOSTER. 



A person is so tremendously interested in his own welfare and 

 progress that it is difficult to write a worth}- autobiographical sketch. 

 The writer writes of things exterior to himself, and when he turns 

 his view inward to set down the things there seen, the problem is a 

 difficult one indeed. 



^ly birthplace is !Mount Vernon. loAva, where is located Cornell 

 College, a Methodist institution my father and mother both attended, 

 and there they met, fell in love and married before either had fin- 

 ished their courses. My uncle, Oliver Foster, was keeping bees at 

 Mt. Vernon at the time I was born, Jan. 5, 1884:. As youngsters, 

 my brothers and I used to earn quite a few pennies helping Uncle 

 Oliver with the easier parts of the bee work. Father at that time 

 did not keep more than fifty colonies, so that we did not have much 

 bee work of our own to do. 



Father moved his family overland to Colorado in the fall of 

 1897, when I was 13 years old, and the trip will never be forgotten. 

 The trip took seven weeks, and I was the right age to enjoy it. 

 The plains, with the dry buffalo grass, level and desolate, except 

 for priarie dogs, coyotes, an occasional ranch house and herds of 

 cattle, was a radical change from the greenness of Iowa. When we 

 reached Greeley district of Colorado I thought alfalfa was the green- 

 est and richest color that could be imagined. 



Father embarked in bee-keeping within a few months after 

 reaching Colorado, and he soon had his first experience with Amer- 

 ican foul brood. 



I attended the Boulder public schools and the State Preparatory 

 school. Went to school in Chicago for a part of two years. I took 

 two correspondence courses which is about the sum of my schooling. 

 Have been in the bee business producing comb honey most of the 

 time. Have been in partnership with my father and brother. W. 

 W. Foster, all of the time. We have operated from 250 to 1,000 

 colonies, and never had what could be called a bumper crop. At 

 the present time T am secretary of the Colorado State Bee-Keepers' 

 Association, and have charge of the Colorado bee inspection under 

 Prof. C. P. Gillette, state entomologist. Father and I are operating 

 about 200 colonies here at Boulder, and in Montezuma county, and 

 my brother, W. W. Foster, has 500 colonies of ours and leased bees 

 at Nyssa, Ore. 



August 31st, 1910, I married Cordia Stevenson, an Iowa girl 

 from my home town, IMount \^ernon. V\^e have a little daughter, 

 Dora May. who brightens our home and whose favorite color is that 

 of the Review cover. She is seven months old. and already devours 

 many a newspaper, so we think she is inclined toward literature. — 

 Wesley Foster. 



