14 I'ORTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES. 



Theodore Thomas. At the close of the festival I began 

 work for the Mason & Hamlin Organ Co. at their Chi- 

 cago house. 



FIRST BEES. 



To go back. July 5, 1861 — I was in Chicago at the 

 time — a swarm of bees passing over Marengo took in 

 their line of march the house where my wife was. She 

 was a woman of remarkable energy and executive ability, 

 generally accomplishing whatever she undertook, and 

 she undertook to stop that swarm. Whether the water 

 and dirt she threw among them had any effect on the 

 bees I do not know, but I know she got the bees, hiving 

 them in a full-sized sugar-barrel. 



In her eagerness to have the bees properly housed — 

 or barreled — she could not wait the slow motion of the 

 bees, but taking them up by double handfuls she threw 

 Ihem where she wanted them to go. In so doing she re- 

 ceived five or six stings on her hands, which swelled up 

 and were so painful as to make it a sick-abed affair. This 

 was a matter much to be regretted, for ever after a sting 

 was much the same as a case of erysipelas, preventing her 

 from having anything whatever to do with handling 

 bees except in case of extremity. 



Previous to that time I had not been interested to any 

 great extent in bees. When a small boy I had cap- 

 tured a bumble-bees' nest and put it in a little box, but I 

 do not recall that there was a remarkable drop in the 

 price of honey on account of there being thrown upon 

 the market a large amount of honev produced by those 

 bumble-bees. 



r,EE-PAI,.\CE. 



When I was a little older I remember helping my 

 stepfather carrv home, one night, a colony of bees in a 

 box -hive (movable-comb hives were not vet invented) the 

 colony being intended to stock a "bee-palace." This bee- 



