. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. 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
. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. 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
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectbees, bookyear1861
