D 





>c^ 





Vol. LVIl.— No. 5 



HAMILTON, ILL, MAY, 1917, 



MONTHLY, $1.00 A YEAR 



SEVENTY YEARS OF BEEKEEPING 



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

 Development of Beekeeping Since 1845 



WE have already mentioned, in 

 our second number of these 

 reminiscences, that in 1867 sug- 

 gestions were made for the use of 



artificial foundation for combs. The 

 original idea of comb foundation 

 dated back to 1857, when Mehring, a 

 German, manufactured "wax wafers" 

 cast in a mold, with the imprint of the 

 cell base upon them. A Swiss, Peter 

 Jacob, in 1865 manufactured a similar 

 article. These were very crude prod- 

 ucts. 



In his "Beekeepers' Guide," already 

 mentioned, Mr. Kretchmer explained 

 how, as early as 1843, his father de- 

 vised a comb guide, made by dipping 

 a narrow strip of linen in wax and 

 starch, upon which the base of the 

 cells was impressed, by passing it 

 through a pair of engraved rollers. 

 So his father would appear to have 

 been even ahead of Mehring in the 

 idea of comb foundation. 



In 1861 Mr. Wagner secured a pat- 

 ent upon "artificial honey-comb foun- 

 dation by whatever process made." 

 In 1876, C. O. Perrine, a honey dealer 

 of Chicago, bought the patent, which 

 had never been put to use. Fred- 

 erick Weiss, of New York, manufac- 

 tured a few hundred pounds of print- 

 ed wax in 1875. A. I. Root secured a 

 pair of cylinders, made under his di- 

 rection by a skilled workman, Wash- 

 burne, but when Perrine claimed the 

 ownership of the patent Root sold 

 him his machine. However, shortly 

 afterwards, Root and others con- 

 cluded that the patent was worthless 

 ■ and the manufacture of foundation 

 began, with dififerent mills and dies. 

 On the whole, A. I. Root is to be 

 credited with the popularizing of the 

 process. As with the movable frame 

 hive, the time had evidently come 

 for this. 



To show how clumsy were the tirst 

 attempts at making comb foundation, 



wc will quote what A. I. Root wrote 

 in "Gleanings," February, 1876, page 

 29: "We have at pre cut none for 

 sale, except some that we purchased 

 of Mr. Long (Weiss' agent in N. Y.) 

 The thinnest measures 5 1-3 square 

 feet to the pound and the thickest 

 about three square feet." For some 

 years very little was made as thin 

 as 8 square feet to the pound, and 

 the complaint of "fishbone" in comb 

 honey became an objection to its use. 

 Other objections were raised. It was 



The Vandervort Foundation Mill 

 (From an old wood cut) 



said to sag in the frames. Binghani, 

 at the Michigan convention of April, 

 1878, strongly opposed the use of it, 

 contending that natural comb gave 

 the honey a good flavor which comb 

 foundation did not impart. But the 

 great majority were enthused over 

 its use, since it saved the bees the 

 trouble of making so much comb, 

 the cost of which was, and is still, 

 estimated variously at from 8 to 20 

 pounls of honey, or more, for each 

 pound of comb. It also secures ab- 

 solutely straight combs, all worker 

 combs, a very uncommon occurrence 

 formerly in any apiary, notwith- 



standing all the attention given by 

 the careful apiarist to this require- 

 ment. 



The Dunham niachine, the Pelham 

 mill, the Given press and later the 

 Vandervort mills making foundation 

 of different weights, up to 14 square 

 feet to the pound, competed with the 

 Root C}-linders. But the press, as 

 well as the plaster casts made in imi- 

 tation of the European "gaufriers," 

 lasted but a short time, the founda- 

 tion made from these instruments 

 being very inferior in quality and 

 of heavy weight, besides being brit- 

 tle and unfit for shipment. Yet many 

 Europeans still confine themselves to 

 the use of the metal "gaufrier" or of 

 a plaster cast, for private use. Its 

 inefficiency is plain when we read of 

 apiarists well pleased with their own 

 make, of a weight of 100 to 110 deci- 

 meters to the kilo (4.88 to 5.37 square 

 feet per pound;) while on the cylin- 

 ders it is readily made of more than 

 twice as many feet, doing away with 

 "fishbone" entirely. 



It was during the year 1878 that 

 C. O. Perrine, already mentioned in 

 this article, made an attempt to re- 

 vive the ancient Egyptian custom of 

 floating apiaries, using the Missis- 

 sippi River, as the Nile was used, to 

 transport the bees following the 

 crop. He bought a small steamboat, 

 and bought also several hundred 

 colonies of bees, starting from New 

 Orleans in early spring and steaming 

 up stream. But his attempt was a 

 dead failure, in which he sunk a 

 large sum of money. 



About 1879, other races than the 

 Italian bees were sought after for 

 trial in America. We had ourselve = 

 imported Caniolans in 1876, but ha 1 

 rejected them because of the resem- 

 blance of their workers to the com- 

 mon bee in color. Hybrids of these 



