Jefferson County. 



nHE Rev. R. H. Rhodes, now of Fort Lopton, gives the 

 following interesting account of the beginning of the bee 

 industry in Jefferson County : 



' "The first colony of bees of which we have any 



authentic knowledge was brought to the county in 1864. 



"F. J. McQuiston of Ralston Crossing (post office address, 

 Golden, Jefferson County) bought a colony of bees in a log gum, on 

 Coon Creek, Iowa, and paid the sum of four dollars for it, and then 

 placed it with his household goods upon an ox wagon, in the fall of 

 1863, and migrated with others across the plains, arriving in Denver 

 the first day of January, J 864, safe and sound. From Denver he 

 moved with his effects to his present home, where he unloaded his 

 household goods including his bees. 



"During the time he kept the bees he was twice or thrice offered 

 the sum of $100 for his one colony. And for the first honey that 

 w^as taken from the hive to Central City he received one dollar a 

 pound for all that he had, and Mr. McQuiston says that if he had 

 known how to keep bees in modern style he could have made a 

 fortune with them." 



HARRY McCOMBS, Sterling. 



J. S. BRUCE, Montrose. 



