ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



103 



father had bees in box hives; in the 

 neighborhood there were some straw 

 and some' log hives then in use. 



With the advent of Mr. Quinby's ex- 

 perience, with Father Langstroth's 

 wonderful invention, bee-keeping, 

 which was then without any head or 

 tail, became, as it were, a nucleus 

 from which the present high standard 

 of bee culture has attained. Beauti- 

 ful to think of. 



I can recollect when I looked into 

 the hive from below and saw such a 

 wonderful structure — I became so tn- 

 thusiastic over it I never yet lost that 

 enthusiasm, and, notwithstanding my 

 love for invention, bee-keeping and its 

 wonders cling to me still. 



Mr. Quinby had his contemporaries, 

 J. M. Weeks and T. B. Minor, who had 

 been in the business a number of 

 years, but their success never 

 amounted to more than their losses. 



Mr. Minor lost his entire apiary at 

 one time from foul brood. Mr. Quinby 

 was the pioneer in the discovery of a 

 remedy for the cure of foul brood and 

 he entirely eradicated it from his 

 yards. Mr. Quinby furthermore was 

 the first one to lay down the success- 

 ful elementary principles of bee-keep- 

 ing; I will not exclude Father Lang- 

 stroth. Mr. Quinby was a prolific 

 writer for Apicultural Journals. He 

 wrote at one time for the Country 

 Gentleman and the Rural New Yorker. 

 His hive with his movable cap and his 

 low stands, with simple board with 

 cleat across each end, and glass honey 

 boxes — gave bee-keeping an impetus 

 from which it has never receded. 



Father Langstroth's invention pre- 

 ceded the introduction of this hive of 

 Mr. Quinby's, and the writing of his 

 Mysteries of Bee-Keeping is a wonder- 

 ful book and very practical. I have 

 the old volume in my possession yet. 



Father Langstroth's invention added 

 more strength to the impetus given 

 apiculture than could possibly have 

 been obtained otherwise. His work 

 was one of the most beautiful works 

 on Bee Culture that has ever been 

 published, and it has been fully kept 

 up in its reputation by the present 

 authors, Dadant & Sons, Mr. L. C. 

 Dadant being present with us today. 



It is a beautiful work. I cannot say 

 too much in its praise. 



Mr. Quinby's method of the cure for 

 Foul Brood is known today as the Mc- 

 Evoy method, w-ith the exception of 

 shaking the bees over the comb foun- 



dation after two or three days. There 

 was no foundation used or invented 

 up to the time of Mr. Quinby's dis- 

 covery 



Furthermore, Mr. Quinby's humani- 

 tarianism never allowed him to burn a 

 colony of bees; and this burning of 

 colonies I seriously ob.iect to, yet: I 

 do not think it ever should be done. 



The Langstroth hive, as I said be- 

 fore, gave bee-keeping an impetus that 

 has been lasting; with that came the 

 possibility of numerous advances in 

 apiculture — probably queen rearing, 

 which could not have been accom- 

 plished successfully without the mov- 

 able frame, and it aids in the detect- 

 ing and the removal of foul brood 

 wdthin the hive. 



The honey sections were invented 

 by J. S. Harbison, in 1S57, althnugh 

 there was but little known of the 

 honey section in the '70s. 



Mr. James Forncrook of Watertown, 

 Wis., made them in one piece in 1876. 

 The Roots followed the work up 

 rapidly from that time on. 



The methods whereby American bee- 

 keeping has progressed rapidly, many 

 of them, had their foundation in 

 Europe; noticeably, the honey extrac- 

 tor, by Frances De Hurechke, near 

 Venice, Italy, in 1865. 



Mr. Root lost no time in following 

 that invention up, and in 1869 gave 

 another impetus to apiculture. 



While comb foundation was invented 

 previous to the extractor — this was in 

 1867 by Johannes Mehring, — A I. Root 

 followed that up and brought its in- 

 troduction into this country, and the 

 production of the press for bringing it 

 out. He followed that up in 1867, and 

 made a great success of it, selling 

 many mills for the purpose. He spent 

 a great deal of money. I know what 

 it is. I built a mill this last year 

 which cost me nearly a thousand dol- 

 lars. In place of the cells following 

 the whole length there is within a 

 space so that I can put the two half- 

 sections together. 



As you all know, the bane of comb 

 honey production is the putting in the 

 starters or the foundation in the sec- 

 tions — so I have devised this, and 

 spent a lot of money to overcome that 

 delay. 



Mr. Dadant — Tou said you made a 

 machine with big rolls to make founda- 

 tion? 



