Oxford Democrat., 1921-12-27
History of Bees.

George W. Adams of Byfleld, Mass,
is beekeeper, aud in addition to this 10
interested in the history Of bees, espe-
cially In Essex County In which he lives,
and in the early records has come across
cerning them. He has found that bees
were fairly plentiful in the county % far
back as 1850, as the Essex Registry, In
the inventory OF an estate in what is
row Danvers, gives the appraisal Of .
stand of bees at pounds.
He has also found that the town Of
Newbury itself in Its early days carried
on an interesting experiment In ,munic-
ipal bee-keeping. 1t appears that the
expert who was put In charge Of the
enterprise became the towns first
pauper. 1t Is because Of the controversy
which arose over his support that the
record of this apiarian experiment went
on public record.
According to Mr.. Adams, the town of
New bury received its first settlers in
1885, and five years later the "Seven
Men''-or, az we would say now, the
seiectmen-established town apiary on
the farm of one Davis, who is described
as renter. The town bee yard was put
in charge of q man from Hingbsm,
named Eels, which didn't seem especial
iy appropriate for bee-keeper..
So far Mr.. Adams has not been able
to find out where the bees themselves
came from. There were no bees in this
country when America was discovered.
They were brought over by the early
settlers, and Mr.. Adams tells the story
of local Indian who observed the bees
at work in the Newbury colony.
He had seen the settlers benefiting by
the toll of other creatures and other
people, and finally exclaimed: "Huh,
white man work; make horse work
make OK work; now make fly work; this
Ipjun 60 away"
1t seems that very severe winter fol-
lowed the establishment of the Newbury
apiary. II was winter In which B0s-
ton Harbor was closed with Ice from
Nov. 1S to Feb. 81. Naturally 1t was q
bad winter for bees. In any event, the
beekeeping gradually dwindled away,
and Eels set out for home, but for some
reason was jailed by constable and
controversy as to what to do with him
began. The case went to the General
Court and IL was finally declared that
John Eels must be placed In some con-
venient place In the town OF Newbury.
Apparently the superstition OF the
early days extended even to the bees,
for Mr.. Adams has found in the records
OF Ipswich that one Isabelle Roldred
came before the court to ask protection
from an "infernal bee." The date OF
this was 1859, 80 years before the WITCH
craft trials, which were held before the
same court.
According to the record, "Isabelle
testified she was tormented nights and
Holbred testified shee was tormented
night and day and several spiticions ap-
peared TO ye dsponent In the night, the
first night the Humble bee. The Depo-
nent was exceedingly affrightened and
skipped to Nathan Colds house, who
was in the opposite chimney corner, and
caught hold of ye hayrs of his bead, and
her speech was taken away for ye space
of bali an hour"
As Mr.. Adams pointed ont, the faded
and crumbling records of those early
days gave no light on several important
matters, as, for example, why Nathan
was in the opposite corner, and whether
or not Nathan also lost bis speech dur
ing the full half-hour that che grasped
his "bayre."
The records are also incomplete 10 the
matter of the bee, of which no more is
heard, but Isabelle appears again as be-
ing presented for unseemly character" :"
but 1t is pleasant to learn that the
"referees" to whom the case was pre-
sented found no censure in her, as her
own husband was present In the house.