440 



CJLEANINGS IN iJEE CULTURE. 



June 



person spellbound as he explained, often at great 

 leng-th, his experiments, views, and methods. The 

 same spirited, forcible style characterizes his writ- 

 ing's, as all who read the bee journals know. His 

 nervous energy, excessive love of fun, and desire 

 for hard-earned victory, make him an eager con- 

 troversialist. He fairly grows fat, mentally, in a 

 good square honest intellectual wrestle. I have 

 sometimes almost feared, 1 hope without reason, 

 that his love of triumph made him to rejoice at the 

 discomfiture of an opponent as much as in the vic- 

 tory of the right and true. I have also wondered 

 If, as with most of us, prejudice might not at times 

 warp his judgment respecting those who dia'ered 

 with him in view. His nervous temperament, and 

 slight, overworked body, would make this possible. 

 As he has sometimes written me in a complaining 

 mood of some element in the bee-keeping world, 1 

 have thought of Christ's remark to Martha, "Thou 



ing wife has been Mr. Heddon's only partner for 

 the seventeen years of his beekeeping experience. 

 Mr. Heddon has told me that he commenced bee- 

 keeping with nothing exceiH a stout heart, and he 

 had given this away to that "sweetest girl." He 

 has been a specialist all that time, except for a brief 

 period of iate, when he has sold supplies. This di- 

 version he has told me was a loss to him. Now he 

 is worth thousands of dollars. He went into the 

 supply business in 1870, in hopes that, by a circular, 

 he could answer many of the questions that now 

 came to him in letters, and save time to his bus- 

 iness. His present capital he credits almost ex- 

 clusively to honey production. He has had as many 

 as r>")0 colonies of bees at one time, which were kept 

 in three separate apiaries. He now has 4.50 in two 

 apiaries. In 1877 his Glenwood apiary, worth S'lSOO, 

 and numbering r9 colonies, gave him a cash income 

 of $1070, and increased to 207 colonies, all but two of 



.lAldES HEDDON, DOWAOIAC, MICHIGAN. 



art troubled about many things," and have wished 

 we were all Marys who had "chosen the good part" 

 that should not be taken away from us. 



How many of us have found the door to a delight- 

 ful life, in the most beautiful and charming girl of 

 the world! This was doubly true of Mr. Heddon. 

 The "sweetest girl in the town " not only provid- 

 ed Mr. H. with one of the happiest homes in the 

 State, but led him into apiculture. Miss Hastings' 

 father was a bee-keeper, and with him Mr. Heddon 

 worked one year. No wonder ho advises all to take 

 a year with an experienced bee-keeper. If he will 

 furnish conditions like those of his own apprentice- 

 ship, 1 think few young men will hesitate. As lit- 

 tle wonder that he looks so fondly on the"gude 

 wife " when she took him from the dull routine, 

 machine-like life of the clerk, into the active, 

 pleasant, intellectual life of the apiary. This lov- 



which came through the following winter in good 

 condition. The expense in earing lor this apiary 

 that year was .$200. One year, with 10 colonies he 

 increa.sed to .?3, and sold $800 worth of honey. All 

 of the 33 colonies wintered the succeeding winter. 

 At that time honey sold for a very high price. His 

 largest yield for one season, of a single colony, was 

 410 lbs., all but 48 of which was extracted. He once 

 secured 29 lbs. 13 oz. of unripe extracted honey as 

 the result of a single day's gathering of a single 

 colony. 



Of course, all has not been smooth sailing, as he 

 has as large stoi-ies to tell of winter losses. He 

 thinks the winter of 18Sl-'.5 snatched $1800 from his 

 pocket-book; yet he murmurs not, as he thinks that 

 winter solved the difficulty, and he Will lose no 

 more. We all hope he is correct. 



Mr. Heddon is very neat and methodical. It is a 



