The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-07-15
FATHER JAEGER OF ST. BONITA
Gus HAS 200 HIVES UNDER HIS
PERSONAL SUPERVISION - AN
AUTHORITY ON BEE CULTURE
PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL
BEE KEEPERS ASSOCIATION OF
AMERICA.

Under the head of "Visitin' Round
in Minnesota" Caryl B. Storrs is con-
tributing a series of articles to the
Minneapolis Tribune on places and
personages in Minnesota. He does
not follow the ordinary beaten path
ways of travel through the state but
visits country towns and hamlets
which are little known to the general
public and writes in chatty and very
interesting manner of what he sees
and hears.
In the course of his tramps through
the State he stopped at st. Bonifacius,
a village some distance from Mime
apolis, where one of the biggest
apiaries in the country is located. 1t
contains two hundred hives and "al-
lowing $4,000 bees to hive, which is
not out out of the unusual in the
height of the honey flow, the grand to-
tai would be 100000" This "bee
farm" is under the personal direction
of the Rev. Francis jaeger, pastor of
the Church of st. Boniface. Referring
to Father jaeger and his work, Mr..
Storrs writes as follows:
"If only the mistaken souls who can
not reckon work as a part of happi-
ness instead of a laborious necessity
could spend a day in Father Jager's
bee yard at st. Bonifacius, they would
return to the city helped by as lovely a
lesson as any that the good father
breaches from his pulpit in the little
church across the fields yonder; and
he is a notably good preacher, too.
REV. Francis JAEGER is the lovable
owner and proprietor of the bee
metropolis; a man who is happy in all
his work, though his industries are
three-fold and all of them exacting.
HE is truly the father of his popu-
lous German parish at st. Bonifacius;
a parish that includes not only the in
habitants of the village, but of the en-
tire countryside, and even takes in a
little auxiliary church at Mound, five
miles away on the shore of Lake Min
netonka.
"He is the occupant of the chair of
bee cultureAin the Minnesota Agricul-
tural school at Hamline and has re-
Gently been honored with the Office of
president of the National Bee Keepers
Association of America
"He is practical bee keeper with
200 hives under his personal super.
vision, supervision which commonly
takes the form of active, personal
labor.
These are his three principal tasks,
but he carries a number of what may
be called side lines or merely Incl
dental occupations. He is a gardener,
a writer, a philosopher, a naturalist,
an agriculturist, a book collector, an
arbiculturalist and a rarely gifted con.
versationalist-tho the last may be
said to be inevitable outgrowth of
all the rest, and rather more of a
recreation than labor.
Here he is, then, in his bee yard;
busy, happy and radiating humor and
good comradeship AS he moves quiet
ly among the hives, knowing the con-
dition and disposition of every one by
merely glancing at the few visible bees
who are tanning in fresh air with their
Vibrant wings, driving out thieves with
angry buzz or flying in laden with
honey. He tells you not to fear a
sting, for bees have learned better
than men the beautiful lesson of mind
ing their own business, and will gladly
leave you alone if you will leave them
alone
Perhaps he will open hive for
you. lifting out the frames swarming
with crawling masses of workers feed
ling the brood, or building cells, and
Ipersisting until he finds the queen who
| is hurrying busily from cell to cell at