Vol. LVll.— No. 1 



HAMILTON, ILL., JANUARY, 1917, 



MONTHLY, $1.00 A YEAR 



SEVENTY YEARS OF BEEKEEPING 



The First of a Series of Articles By the Editor, Reviewing the 

 Development of Beekeeping Since 1845 



To go back 70 years and view the 

 scientific and physical world 

 progress accomplished since then 

 means probably more than any of us 

 can realize at first thought. But it is 

 only necessary to open any printed 

 book, even a novel, dating back 70 

 years or more to appreciate the extra- 

 ordinary physical change of conditions. 

 Most of Dickens' stories, for instance, 

 were written less than 80 years ago, but 

 his characters traveled only in such 

 conveyances as the post-chaise and the 

 coach. Railroads came later. He knew 

 nothing of telegrams, telephones, elec- 

 tric lights, bicycles, automobiles or 

 aeroplanes. The sea traffic was so slow 

 that it took from one to three months 

 to carry the news of a battle from one 

 hemisphere to the other. Kerosene oil 

 was unknown, and house lights de- 

 pended upon wax, lard oil or tallow 

 dips. The postal systems were crude 

 and clumsy until postal stamps were 

 used, and this did not happen in Eng- 

 land until 1840, and in this country 

 until 1847, less than 70 years ago. In 

 addition to the delay to get news from 

 Europe, a letter crossing the ocean re- 

 quired 64 cents of postage. The Inter- 

 national Postal Union was not created 

 until 1874. The first successful trans- 

 atlantic cable was not laid until 186(5. 



Seventy years ago we had no steam 

 plows, no steam engines in fact, ex- 

 cept very crude ones, no harvesting 

 machines, no sewing machines, no 

 type-writers. Steam-heated houses did 

 not exist and bath tubs were luxuries 

 found only in palaces or special houses. 

 No automobiles ran on the then muddv 

 roads of Europe. Tha inventors of fly- 

 ing machines were laughed to scorn in 

 their unsuccessful attempts and threat- 

 ened with the insane asylum for reward 

 of their genius. One of the rare indus- 

 tries in which the conditions are still 

 today very similar to those of 500 years 

 ago is the shoeing of horses. 



Is it any wonder then that beekeep- 

 ing should follow the trend of all ma- 

 terial progress ? It is for a record of 



this progress and of the men who 

 brought it about that this series of 

 articles is now begun. We hope to 

 entertain the reader while giving the 

 student easy references to the work of 

 the past. 



It would be a mistake for us to im- 

 agine that books on beekeeping were 

 rare before that time. Bastian, an 

 Alsatian minister, in his book " Les 

 Abeilles," published in 1868, gives a list 

 of 664 publications, 24 of which were 

 printed between the years 1568 and 

 1700. Of the others, 237 were published 

 during the 18th Century, and the re- 

 mainder during the first 65 years of the 

 19th Century. Four hundred and 

 twenty-five of these publications were 

 in German, 181 in French, 24 in Eng- 

 lish, 9 in Italian, 8 in Latin, and the 

 balance in 6 or 7 other tongues. But 

 even his list is not complete, for the 

 writer of this owns several works 

 which received no mention in it, being 

 evidently unknown to Bastian. His 



DZIERZON 



largest lists are of German and French 

 works, perhaps because he read and 

 wrote those languages himself. 



The first periodical on beekeeping of 

 which we find any record was published 

 in Landshut, Bavaria, from 1838 to 1843, 

 then discontinued. In 1845, the famous 

 " Bienenzeitung " was founded in 

 Nordlingen, Bavaria, and continued 

 many years, though it is now out of ex- 

 istence, but replaced by many others. 



In 1845, Dzierzon, a Polish Catholic 

 priest, of Karlsmarkt,SiIesia, discovered 

 parthenogenesis in queenbees, the fac- 

 ulty which they possess, in common 

 with some other insects, of laying eggs 

 that will hatch into male bees or 

 drones, even though they have not 

 mated. This discovery was the first 

 real step forward since the time of 

 Huber, and it was not accepted readily. 

 The publication of Dzierzon's views by 

 Schmidt, then editor of the Bienenzei- 

 tung, almost threatened the existence 

 of this journal. But Siebold, Leuckart 

 and Leidy, all microscopists and scien- 

 tific beekeepers, studied it and con- 

 firmed it. The discovery was made 

 under great difficulties, for the hive 

 used by Dzierzon was just a " bar-hive," 

 that is, its combs were hung on a plain 

 top-bar without end-bars, so that at 

 each visit the combs had to be cut 

 away from each end of the hive-body 

 before they could be taken out. To 

 add to the inconvenience, as the hives 

 were always placed in tiers, whether 

 in doors or out-of-doors, probably to 

 save space, they were made to open on 

 the side and each comb had to be 

 drawn out with pincers. If the third 

 or fourth comb was wanted, the first 

 two or three had to be first detached 

 and drawn out. Yet Dzierzon became 

 so accustomed to the handling of these 

 hives that he used no other, even after 

 movable frames were invented. The 

 bar-hive is a very ancient invention. 



Berlepsch, a German, after having 

 doubted or denied the possibility of 

 parthenogenesis, became one of its 

 'warmest adherents, after thorough 



