1918 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



191 



REMINISCENCES OF EARLY AND LATER DAYS 



Recollections of One ot New York's Best Beekeepers Since Beginning With Bees 



THE earliest recollections of my 

 beekeeping activities date back 

 to my schoolboy days, when a 

 small lad 8 or 9 years old, in the 

 early fifties. In the city of Bernburg, 

 the capital of Anhalt, with about 15,- 

 000 inhabitants, I was by chance in- 

 troduced to the joys and woes of my 

 earthly existence. 



In a small garden, back of a row of 

 closely-built city blocks, grandfather 

 kept in a roughly built shed, from 

 8 to 10, sometimes as many as a 

 dozen colonies of bees. They were 

 all in the customary straw skeps, the 

 same as all beekeepers used at that 

 time. The usual way and the only 

 possible chance of gathering up the 

 season's surplus crop, was by tipping 

 the skep to one side, driving the bees 

 by means of the blowpipe as much as 

 possible from one of the side combs 

 and cutting this with a long hook- 

 shaped knife from its fastenings. 

 The part I generally played in this 

 operation was to hold the pan while 

 grandfather filled it with what we 

 would call at the present day chunk- 



G. C. Greiner 



honey. Sometimes it would also fall 

 to my lot to hold, and even use, the 

 pipe when grandfather's hands were 

 busy holding the skep and cutting 

 the honey. It always raised me sev- 

 eral notches in my boyish estimation 

 to be called upon for such important 

 assistance. 



One episode of those early days 

 left indelible marks on my memory 

 even to the present day. I was yet a 

 mere child when grandfather hired 

 me for "einen silbergroschen (about 

 3 cents) to get one of those straw 

 skeps from a beekeeping friend who 



By G. C. Greiner 



was village teacher about two miles 

 distant from our city. To carry the 

 skep easily, grandfather rigged me up 

 some straps, knapsack fashion, and 

 encouraged by the silver coin, which 

 looked like a fortune in my eyes, I 

 started on my mission. At first, 

 when I started from that village on 

 my home trip, the skep was not much 

 of a load, but it soon began to grow 

 heavy, and the farther I went the 

 heavier it grew, and before I had 

 covered half the distance the load 

 becoming too much for my yet ten- 

 der constitution, I caved. I do not 

 now remember how my venture 

 finally terminated, but I have a very 

 faint recollection that the hired girl 

 was sent to meet me and assist me 

 home after I had failed to return in 

 proper time. 



From the time I left school until 

 187S nothing of a beekeeping nature, 

 nor anything of great importance 

 transpired in my life's career, except 

 that in 1862, rather than waste three 

 years' service in the German army, I 

 landed on the shores of this great 

 and glorious republic. At that time 

 I had not the slightest idea that 

 keeping bees and producing honey 

 should ever become the means of 

 earning my daily bread and butter. 

 In fact, I had never heard that the 

 beekeeping industry could assume 

 such paying proportions. 



Having had several years of prac- 

 tical experience on one of those large 

 sugar beet farms in Germany, I in- 

 tended to follow agricultural pur- 

 suits for my main dependence in this 

 country. At first this proved a pay- 

 ing investment. During the civil war 

 all farm products had risen to un- 

 heard of high prices, which reached 

 their highest pitch just before and 

 after peace had been declared. But 

 things changed quite materially when 

 the discharged armies came home. 

 The large armies of consumers 

 turned into armies of producers, and 

 in a short time a reaction in the 

 prices of all farm products took 

 place. They dropped from year to 

 year; lower and lower they went, un- 

 til they reached the lowest ever 

 known, and consequently farming did 

 not pay any longer. 



About that time I began to look 

 for an opening of a better paying oc- 

 cupation, and an opportunity pre- 

 sented itself in the following way: 

 In 1875 it happened that a neighbor- 

 ing farmer had purchased from a 

 traveling agent, a town and county 

 right for a certain beehive, similar to 

 the jumbo pattern, and intended to 

 engage in its manufacture for his 

 own use as well as for the trade. As 

 I was at leisure during that winter, 

 and somewhat mechanically inclined, 

 this neighbor engaged me to manu- 

 facture his hives. This work suited 

 me so well that by spring, in partner- 

 ship with my younger brother, F. 



Greiner, we secured by mutual con- 

 sent the interest in the manufacture 

 and sale of the above mentioned bee- 

 hive and prepared to conduct that 

 business as our exclusive occupation. 

 It also happened that my brother, 

 who had come to this country a few 

 years previously for the same reason 

 I did, was a natural born beekeeper, 

 and as part of our season's work 

 consisted of transferring bees for our 

 customers, his natural inclination in 

 that direction proved a valuable ac- 

 quisition to our business career. 



In spite of the fact that we were 

 entirely destitute of any beekeeper's 

 experience, we succeeded from the 

 very first beyond our expectations. 

 Our hives found ready sale and the 

 following seasons favored us with 

 bountiful honey crops. Thus things 

 went along to our complete satisfac- 

 tion until the disastrous winter of 

 1880-81, which swept most of the bees 

 in our territory out of existence and 

 blasted all our hopes. It wound up 

 our hive trade, as it seemed, for all 

 future time. But, fortunately, the 



F. Greiner, of New York State 



honey crop of the following summer 

 from our own bees that we had left, 

 was an unusually heavy one, which 

 induced us to continue the produc- 

 tion of honey as a livelihood for the 

 future. 



A little later family conditions 

 made it desirable to change my home 

 from Naples to La Salle, which made 

 it necessary to sever our business 

 connections, each one of us continu- 

 ing our business on private lines at 

 our own homes. Since then, my 

 brother has followed up Mr. Hutch- 

 inson's theory of "more bees," while 

 my ambition has taken for its aim 



