Uncle Moody's Honey

David Nolan French invited me to attend the 2005 French reunion. I told him that I would bring a quart and a pint of honey for the silent auction. He suggested that I label it, "UNCLE MOODY'S HONEY".

The 10 French kids were the children of Will and Laura (McCuan) French. Laura was a sister to my grandfather, Moody McCuan. All of her children and grandchildren were knowledgeable of their Uncle Moody's love of the outdoors. Will French and Moody McCuan were best of buddies long before Will married Laura. In Lottie Durham's famous diary she made mention of two good old boys, Moody McCuan and Will French, stopping by Tishomingo for a visit.

Moody was well known for his ability to find be trees. To show that a "bee tree" had been found, a person would carve an "X" in the bark of the tree, usually on the back side from where to bees were going in the hole. It was taboo to cut a tree with an X made by someone else. Moody always put "XX" and then under that he would carve his initials "MM". Every bee hunter in Marshall County knew and respected that mark.

My brother Wendyl retired as a cable television technician after 40+ years of service and moved to Kingston. It wasn't long before he had several bee hives. Early in the spring of 2005, he had to have two stints placed in blocked arteries. This restricted his activities, so I offered to help harvest to honey crop. Eventually, I took it over all together and asked David French if he would like to help me. I'll never forget his answer, "Why sure! It's in my genes too."

For the two jars of honey that I took to the reunion, I typed out labels which read:

UNCLE MOODY'S HONEY

Harvested by: David Nolan French

& Willis Moody McWilliams

I think the quart brought $20.00 and the pint went for $9.00. William French and his two sisters, Aline Dillow and Trevlyn McElheny are the last of the ten French kids. William made mention of the XX over MM mark that his Uncle Moody used. He and I and maybe Sandy Dillow were probably the only ones at the reunion who knew of that mark.

Around the turn of the century (1900), railroads were crisscrossing the nation. Oak crossties were much in demand and many men made a living by "hacking ties". Large oak trees were cut down, cut to length and split to make ties. Moody hacked many ties, but before cutting a big oak tree he would first sound it, testing to see if it was hollow by hitting on it with the back side of a single blade axe. If they were hollow they gave off a different sound, different from a solid tree. Most tie hackers would just move on to the next big oak. Not Moody, he would chop into the tree until he barely reached the hollow, thereby making an entrance for a swarm of bees. Later he found bees in three of those trees. One was on Fox Ridge, just east of his house. Phillip Lindsay and I were there when that tree was cut down. I think George French may have also been in on robbing that bee tree. We carried the fifty two pounds of honey home in a washtub.

Moody taught succeeding generations of us how to fund bee trees. If he saw a bee getting water on a creek, he would put out his bee bait and it wouldn't take long for the bees to find it. He had a galvanized half bushel bucket with old honeycomb taken from the most recent bee tree that had been cut. In addition to the honey residue on the old comb, he would add sugar water. He would dissolve some sugar in a small jar of spring water, then get a mouth full and blow it out in a spray on the comb. He also had a small bottle of the very aromatic oil of anise, and he would put a few drops of that on the bait.

When the bees first found the bail bucket, they would fly around it for some time before they loaded up on the sweet bounty that they would take to their hive. Once a bee returned to the bait it would light without hesitation.

He would take out his old "Hamilton" pocket watch and note the time that the first bee left the bait. Once a bee came to the bait without hesitation, he would note the time: that was the first bee to return. Years of experience had taught him to judge the distance to the tree according to the elapse of time of the bee's flight.

The next step was to watch the direction of flight the bees were taking as they left the bait. This was known as "getting the course".

Every fall as long as anyone could remember, the McCuan and French families would trek to eastern Oklahoma after the crops were harvested. (The Old Woodville Banner newspaper, on microfilm at the Historical Society in Madill tells of some of these trips.) In horse and wagon days it would take about a week to make the trip. They would stay for a week and then spend almost another week returning to Dark Corner. One of the main activities on these trips was finding bee trees and harvesting the honey. Permission to cut a bee tree was usually granted by the property owner, who was rewarded with a jar of the honey.

Most of the trips that I was privileged to make was in the 1950's era. At that time it was no longer acceptable to cut trees in that area and we spent many nights in Beaver Bend State Park. We still hunter for and found the bee trees, we just didn't cut them. We also went during the summer months while we were out of school instead of going in the fall. I guess that Beaver's Bend made a lasting impression on me, because Mary Loyce and I spent a day or two there on our honeymoon in July of 1964.