1917 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



89 



for some time to come. 



It is too soon as yet to prophecy as 

 to sugar prices. Part of the beet crop 

 will be lost, but part of the demand 

 will also be cut off. Cuba, Java, San 

 Domingo and other tropical 1 inds can 

 readily increase their output of cane 

 sugar, and the beet crop being largely 

 a woman's crop will not decline so 

 quickly as some suppose. 



[We have many readers in Europe. 

 We would like to ask them about their 

 experience in this matter of cane sugar 

 vs. beet sugar. We are under the im- 

 pression that the difference in results 

 is light. 



As to flour and meal for artificial 

 pollen, our bees have accepted all 

 kinds, in times of shortage. Can our 

 readers find any difference in results ? 

 — Editor.] 



No. 3.— Seventy Years of Bee- 

 keeping 



BY THE EDITOR. 



THE third discovery which brought 

 about a revolution in beekeeping 

 was that of the extractor. It had 

 long been realized by practical bee- 

 keepers that the excessive cost of comb 

 to the bees made desirable a method by 

 which the honey might be emptied out 

 of the comb and the latter returned to 

 the hive to be filled again. 



It was in 1865 that Major Hruschka, 

 of Dolo, near Venice, in a part of Italy 

 formerly under Austrian rule, made the 

 accidental discovery of the possibility 

 of throwing the honey out of the combs 

 by centrifugal force. The manner in 

 which this discovery was made is well 

 known. He had given his little son a 

 comb of unsealed honey in a dish to be 

 carried home. The boy put the dish in 

 a basket and playfully swung the basket 

 around him, forcing a part of the honey 

 out of the comb into the dish. The 

 first extractor made contained only one 

 comb at a time. But about the year 

 1867, the invention was sufficiently de- 

 veloped to become of general use in 

 this country. The first description of 

 this useful machine, given in the United 

 States, was by Father Langstroth, un- 

 der the name of " Honey-emptying 

 machine," in the American Bee Jour- 

 nal, April, 1868, page 189. In Novem- 

 ber of the same year, Chas. Dadant 

 suggested, in place of this clumsy ap- 

 pellation, the f)ame " Melextractor," 

 and it was not until March, 1870, that 

 the name " honey extractor " began to 

 be used. In that year the enthusiasm 

 of the beekeepers got the better of 

 their judgment, or else they had not 

 yet learned that honey must be ripened 

 before it is extracted, as from all sides 

 came reports of wonderful yields. A. 

 I. Root, under the nom-de-fhime of 

 " Novice," reported in the August num- 

 ber, page 32, having filled all the avail- 

 able jars, pans and wash boilers, and 

 seriously contemplating ' scouring out 

 the cistern and filling that, too, if the 

 Italian bees were willing." Within a 

 year or two. all the honey producers 

 learned that unripe honey will not keep 

 and that offering such a product on the 

 market will endanger the sale of good 

 ripe honey. 

 One of the first honey extractors to 



be manufactured for sale was the Pea- 

 body extractor, invented by J. L. Pea- 

 body, the can of which revolved in 

 sockets at both top and bottom of the 

 wooden frame, the baskets being im- 

 movable, on the same principle as the 

 original invention, like the Dubini ex- 

 tractor shown in cut. 



About that time, such queen breed- 

 ers as Langstroth, Alley, Gray, and 



Hamet Smoker 



others began to experiment on send- 

 ing queens by mail. But the food used 

 was honey soaked in a sponge and 

 fastened in reach of the bees by a piece 

 of wire-cloth. S. J. Parker, M. D., of 

 Ithaca, N. Y., gave the description of 

 this cage in the January, 1869, number 

 of the American Bee Journal, and 

 stated that he had received a queen in 

 such a package safely, from Henry 

 Alley, 450 miles from him. 

 At this point it is well for us to make 



mention of a writer, beekeeper and 

 manufacturer of bee supplies whose 

 work is contemporary with the past 60 

 years, and who is still at the head of a 

 thriving bee-business. We mean E. 

 Kretchmer, now of Council Bluflfs, 

 Iowa. His first article on bees, as far 

 as we can ascertain, appears in the 

 American Bee Journal of February, 

 1870, but he was then already a man of 

 extended experience. He had success- 

 fully sent a queen by mail to Stockton, 

 Calif , as early as 1806. 



Mr. Kretchmer was born in Germany, 

 not far from the home of Dzierzon, 

 and in 1856, when his father made him 

 a present of a colony of Italian bees, 

 he went to D.iierzon for information 

 on how to rear queens. 



Coming to the United States a little 

 later he served in the Civil War. He 



The First Honey E.xtractor 



The Pioneer Adam Grimm 



purchased Italian queens of the Par- 

 sons importation, and says that he was 

 the first man to rear Italian bees west 

 of the Mississippi. In a private letter 

 to us, he writes: 



"A little incident which happened at 

 the Iowa State Fair, in Burlington, 

 shortly after the Civil War, brought 

 me forward unexpectedly as a writer 

 on bees. A man from the East was 

 selling little vials of liquid as a so- 

 called 'bee charm' at $1.00 per bottle 

 and within his hearing I made the state- 

 ment that I could handle bees better 

 without the charm than with it. I was 

 promptly challenged and a crowd gath- 

 ered. In order to prove my assertion, 

 I obtained permission from another 

 exhibitor who had some bees, and by 

 using a little smoke quickly subdued 

 them in less time than it took the Pro- 

 fessor to do so with the charm that he 

 used on his lips. Newspaper reporters 

 were present who exaggerated the oc- 

 currence in the write-ups, and I was 

 shortly besieged by a number of parties 

 who asked me to explain my manage- 

 ment, and in the spring of 1865 I pub- 

 lished a little pamphlet in the German 

 language entitled, ' Winke Fur Bienen- 

 Zuchter,' which was followed by my 

 ' Beekeepers' Guide Book.' Soon the 

 question arose what hive I used and 

 where they could be obtained. This 

 made it necessary for me to start in 

 the manufacture of hives, and I have 

 been at it ever since." 



Mr. Kretchmer's first circular is dated 

 1865, and we have before us one of 1875, 

 his 10th annual circular, in which he 

 offers for sale hives, smokers, veils, ex- 

 tractors, etc. 



If any of our readers wonder why we 



