60 FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 



A DIGRESSION. 



Perhaps I ought to digress a little, and tell you about my 

 help. Years ago, my wife, her sister Emma, and sometimes my 

 boy Charlie (I have no other children), all worked with me at 

 the bees. Those were delightful days. I think Charlie would 

 have made a very bright beekeeper, but somehow he did not 

 take kindly to the business, and has spent his later years in 

 the army and government service. My wife is one of the sort 

 who is never happy unless she is doing something for some one 

 else, so for years she has been confined to the house so as to 

 help make a pleasant home for others, sometimes of my rela- 

 tives, sometimes of hers. Ever since the year of our Lord 

 eighteen hundred and ninety-eight there has dwelt with us my 

 wife's mother, Mrs. Margaret Wilson, a blessed old Scotch 

 saint, whose presence in the home I feel to be much like the 

 presence of the ark in the house of Obed-edom, when "it was 

 told King David, saying, The Lord hath blessed the house of 

 Obed-edom, and all that pertaineth unto him, because of the 

 ark of God." She is a great consumer of honey, and her tem- 

 per is correspondingly sweet. 



ASSISTANT BEEKEEPER. 



So for a number of years Miss Emma M. Wilson has given 

 me the only assistance I have had in the apiary. Hired help 

 does some such work as carrying out and hauling bees, putting 

 together hives, etc., unloading honey brought from the out- 

 apiaries, taking sections out of supers, etc. Sometimes it has 

 been a convenience that I could call on the hired help in the 

 employ of my good brother-in-law, Ghordis StuU. Ghordis has 

 the place pretty well filled with raspberries and strawberries, 

 and he is 'way up in such matters. Previous to his occupancy 

 of the place it was chiefly in grass, for I could give no attention 

 to cultivated crops. The only thing I pretend to oversee of the 

 farm work is the cultivation of the rose-beds. I could hardly 

 live without roses, and my wife is an expert in chrysanthe- 

 mums. With the fruit crop I have nothing whatever to do 

 except with the finished product, and only so much of that as 

 we can finish in the house — by no means a small quantity. 



