author
John Ready Lockard
b. 1858
A practical outdoorsman from Pennsylvania, he turned decades of firsthand experience into a lively guide to the old skill of bee lining. His best-known book, Bee Hunting, blends country knowledge, patience, and close observation of nature.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in 1858, John Ready Lockard was an American writer remembered for Bee Hunting, a handbook on finding wild honeybee colonies. Library and catalog records connect him with Fulton County, Pennsylvania, and list him as the author of the 1908 book published by A. R. Harding.
In the book's own introduction, he describes drawing on roughly forty years of experience. That helps explain the tone of his writing: direct, practical, and aimed at beginners who wanted usable advice rather than theory. His subject was the traditional craft of "bee lining," following bees back to their tree hollows and wild homes.
Very little biographical detail appears in the readily available sources, but records commonly identify him as living from 1858 to 1925. What remains clear is that his work preserved a specialized piece of rural knowledge and made it accessible to later readers interested in nature, beekeeping, and older outdoor traditions.