182 



THE BEE-KEEPERS REVIEW 



a jumbo. For reasons that I will not take space to explain here, the 

 jumbo is decidedly preferable. 



That 87 pounds of sugar eaten by each American in 1912 is a 

 hoax. The eight billion pounds of sugar reported includes what 

 has been used for making candy, putting up jellies and preserves and 

 many other purposes, including some brands of shoe blacking and 

 printers' inks. 



Oliver Foster. 



By WESLEY FOSTER, Boulder, Colo. 



OLIVER FOSTER was born March 21. 1857, near Platteville. 

 Wisconsin, and died March 12, 1913, at Boulder, Colo. At 

 eleven years of age he moved with his father's family to Mt. 

 Vernon, Iowa, where, at the age of 14, he hived his first swarm of 

 bees from a stump near his home. He steadily increased his colonies 

 except for some winter back-sets. One winter he lost all his col- 

 onies. He married Miss Maria Rockwell in 1880, 

 and at that time had about GTi colonies and was 



a rearing and selling queens to a considerable 



extent. 

 Mr. Foster designed and invented quite a num- 

 •■ — - her of bee-keeping appliances and eqiii])ment, 



and patented a iew of them, but ne\'er ])rofited 

 much from them. He made a very close study 

 of comb honey production and recommended and 

 used the four-beeway section and the slatted 

 separator years before the fence and no-beewa_y 

 section were introduced generally. 

 In 189-1 he moved two car-loads of bees to Los Animas, Colo., and 

 in 1895 brought another car from Mt. Vernon to Los Animas. .Vt 

 Los Animas he specialized in extracted honey production, and the 

 season of 1894 with less than two hundred colonies he harvested 

 about 70,000 pounds of extracted honey, or about 350 pounds to the 

 hive. 



Mr. Foster remained in the extracted honey business at Los 

 Animas till 1902. when he sold out and moved to Los Angeles, Cal., 

 remaining there till 1905, when he returned to Colorado, settling at 

 Boulder, which has since been his home. During the last few years 

 his health was poor, and most of his bee-keeping operations were 

 carried on by leasing his bees to men who have either worked for or 

 with him and whom he could trust with the responsibility of man- 

 aging from 150 to 500 colonies. At the time of his death he owned 

 and was interested in about 1,500 colonies of bees, located in five 

 systems of out-apiaries in three states. 



OLIVER FOSTER 



