Apiary: The apiary kept bees for wax and honey. In one of his personal letters, John Fox wrote about his apiary claiming that the bees knew him and therefore would not sting him. The 1850 agricultural census does not report any beeswax or honey produced on John Fox's farm that year, but some of his neighbors produced as much as 70 pounds of beeswax and honey. Why do you suppose John Fox did not report honey production for the 1850 census? Visit the Agricultural Census Challenge to learn if John Fox reported honey production for the 1860, 1870, and 1880 census.

Photo courtesy of Lexington County Museum