1917 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



153 



of original ideas. We can give an 

 instance of this with the drone and 

 queen excluders and queen traps. 



Drones were already caught, to 

 get rid of them, in Butler's time. He 

 described what he called "a drone 

 pot," and Langstrotli also quotes the 

 use of such an implement in Aristo- 

 tle's times. "Langstroth's Hive and 

 Honey Bee," second and third edi- 

 tions, mention the possibility of con- 

 fining the queen to the hive, in these 

 words : "As the queen cannot get 

 through an opening 5-32 of an inch 

 high, which will just pass a loaded 

 worker, if the entrance to the hive 

 be contracted to this dimensioh, she 

 will not be able to leave with a 

 swarm." In 1860, or thereabout, Col- 

 lin, a French priest, devised what he 

 called "grilles and tole perforce" 

 screens and perforated iron sheets, 

 having openings of the proper size 

 to allow the workers to pass, and 

 confining the queen and the drones. 

 In 1870, V. Leonard, of Springfield, 

 Pa., is mentioned as making a trap, 

 upon the idea enunciated by Mr. 

 Langstroth (A. B. J., 1870, p. 162) 

 built evidently of wood. In 1881, D. 

 A. Jones, (Gleanings, 1882, p. 200) 



He was succeeded in that office in 

 1902, by N. E. France, one of the 

 most sucessful and practical honey 

 producers, who remained at the helm 

 until the office was discontinued, in 

 1911. Mr. Secor has also been a 

 member of the Legislature of Iowa. 



Looking Backward 



BY EUGENE SECOR. 



YOU do me the honor to count me 

 among the old suljscribers to 

 the American Bee Journal. You 

 say you have found evidence of that 

 fact in articles contributed by me 37 

 years ago. Yes, I'm proud to say that 

 the Bee Journal has been coming to 

 me without interruption for a long 

 time. I have been looking the matter 

 up a little, and while I cannot say ex- 

 actly how long I have been on the list, 

 I find that I've been a correspondent 

 at least as long as your investigations 

 show. 



I began to keep bees in 1867, so you 

 see I will be fifty years old next sum- 

 mer, plus — . The first thing I did was 

 to buy Quinby's book, and I am pretty 

 sure it wasn't very much later that I 

 subscribed for the first bee journal pub- 



THE OLD DUNHAM FOUNDATION MILL 



first mentions perforated zinc for 

 this purpose. Then in 1884, Alley 

 patented his "drone and queen trap" 

 and queen excluders came into use. 



Will we add a little romance to our 

 account of beekeeping progress and 

 invention and speak of the poet of 

 American beekeeping, Eugene Se- 

 cor? He began writing on bees 

 about 1882 and composed some of 

 the prettiest short idyls and songs 

 for the enjoyment of the English- 

 speaking apiarists. The "Songs of 

 Beedom," published some 25 years 

 ago by Geo. W. York, are mainly 

 from him, while the music is the 

 work of good old Dr. Miller. Not 

 alone on bees does Secor write. A 

 little booklet, "The Calendar," con- 

 taining a poem for e .ch month of 

 the year, is one of his most delight- 

 ful productions. There are other 

 poets of the bee in our day, but none 

 to excel him. Mr. Secor has been 

 President of the National Associa- 

 tion (1892) and was General Man- 

 ager of that institution after the res- 

 ignation of Thos. G. Newman in 1897. 



lished in America. Its first appearance 

 was in 1861, if I mistake not. 

 ' The first edition of " Quinby's "Mys- 

 teries of Beekeeping Explained" was 

 published in 1866, and Langtroth's 

 classic had appeared earlier— 1852 ? I 

 hid all these helps before long. 



I am quite sure I was a subscriber to 

 the American Bee Journal a long time 

 before I dared to send anything for 

 publication that might come under the 

 eye of the veterans of those days. I was 

 a novice; they were experienced. I 

 was afraid of them. But under the 

 editorship of Thomas G. Newman, who 

 was always very kind to me and over- 

 looked the crudity of my efltusions, I 

 began to feel my way into print about 

 1880. 



This is a funny world isn't it? In my 

 younger days I was afraid of the old 

 men. Now I'm afraid of the young 

 men. 'Tis the young fellows who are 

 running things now. Young America 

 is- at the wheel today. The only rea- 

 son Dr. Miller isn't a back number is 

 because he refuses to grow old. It is 

 always springtime wheie he abides. I 

 wish that some of the rest of us white- 

 topt has-beens could live in the sunny 



clime of Perpetual Youth. They sav a 

 woman is just as old as she looks, but 

 that a man is just as young as he feels. 



Beekeepers oughttobe youngalways, 

 for with them hope is never dead. If a 

 frost kills the fruit-bloom they believe 

 dandelions will feed the girl babies in 

 the hive. If drouth sucks the nectar 

 from the white clover, they are sure 

 melilot will never fail. If linden re- 

 fuses to give down, buckwheat and a 

 lot of other late flowers are yet to fol- 

 low. And if the honey crop is light one 

 year we think that after a rest flowers 

 will be doubly sweet the next summer. 

 That is the philosophy of happiness — 

 never to give up, never to lose courage, 

 to forget the unhappy present and have 

 faith in the future. 



How many fads have come and gone 

 in my beekeeping day! Many a man 

 set out to revolutionize the industry by 

 some invention or idea that looked so 

 inviting to himself, and perhaps plau- 

 sible to others until actually tried out, 

 that the bee journals of the time would 

 make interesting reading to the younger 

 generation, if any one has the desire 

 for historical research. Some of the 

 things that occur to me now are: self- 

 hiving, non-swarming, and reversible 

 hives; deep-cell foundation, apis dor- 

 sata, red-clover queens, and the fertili- 

 zation of queens in confinement. All 

 had their advocates, but all have gone 

 to the scrapheap of impractical the- 

 ories. But in the evolution of all 

 things and the survival of the fit a few 

 improvements have come to stay. 



The experienced ones in the brother- 

 hood were never swept from their 

 moorings by the claims of enthusiastic 

 amateurs. Thus it is that conserva- 

 tism tempers the heat of radicalism, 

 and radicals warm the cold feet of con- 

 servatives. So the world is kept in 

 equilibrium, leaning just a little toward 

 the polestar of progress. 



Nothing is more evident than the 

 growth of beekeeping literature in the 

 past 50 years. As the editor is review- 

 ing that subject in a masterful way I 

 need not enlarge upon it. But the com- 

 parison is like a mule team to elec- 

 tricity. 



Forest City, Iowa. 



Iowa Field Meet.— A Beekeepers' Field 

 Meet will be held in the City Hall at 

 Fairfield, Iowa, on May 9th. 



Beekeeping in Guatemala. — A recent 

 consular report gives a summary of 

 beekeeping in Guatemala which is very 

 interesting. The production of honey 

 is in the neighborhood of 700,000 

 pounds annually, most of which has, in 

 the past, reached European markets. 



Although it is in this section of the 

 country that the stingless bees thrive, 

 the report places special prominence 

 on the fact that the honey entering the 

 markets is produced by the ordinary 

 honeybee, mostly blacks, though Ital- 

 ians are beginning to be imported. 



The season for honey is from Octo- 

 ber to April, which is known as the 

 " dry season." 



