282 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Mr. Q. a'.id oilier makers the privilege ol' 

 using the patent, he oonimeneed the manu- 

 facture of the unpatented Quinby smoker, 

 but with tliis slight omission. Because tliis 

 small change made the Quinby smoker more 

 efficient in holding fire the cut-off became a 

 necessity; and because the principal or 

 basic ideas of the invention had not been 

 patented by- Mr. Quinby it became compar- 

 atively easy to appropriate these ideas be- 

 long-ing to the public, and establish a mo- 

 nopoly. He attached his own name to the 

 smoker, and for many years advertised it 

 as the " original bee-smoker." But all 

 attempts to deprive Mr. Quinby of the cred- 

 it of being the originator of the bellows 

 smoker have failed to impress well-posted 

 beekeeper's; and we read on page 263 of 

 the A B C of Bee Culture, 1895, these 

 words: " It is to the credit of Moses Quinby 

 for first giving us a bellows bee-smoker." 



Taking the Hubei- liive as a basis he in- 

 vented a closed-end standing-frame hive 

 unequaled for wintering, springing, and 

 moving bees; and some of us tliink it un- 

 surpassed for other purposes. 



As. an inventor, however, his fame will 

 rest on his invention of the bellows smok- 

 er, undeniably the most useful implement 

 in the apiary. 



A full account of Mr. Quinby's experi- 

 ments, and many of them were difficult and 

 expensive, would fill a volume. Forty odd 

 years ago the writer Avas at liis place when 

 he was attempting to induce early brood- 

 rearing before placing the bees on their 

 summer stands. He had twenty colonies in 

 a special repository kept at a summer tem- 

 perature by artificial heat. This was before 

 the invention of thermostats or heat-con- 

 trolling devices; and one night a warm high 

 wind arose that so increased the draft of 

 the fire and the temperature of the room 

 that the whole twenty colonies were lulled. 

 .Yet so possessed was he of the investigatin.e 

 spirit that, to get definite results, he would 

 have repeated the experiment had not his 

 friends dissuaded him from attempting it 

 with the means at his command. He was 

 a careful obsei'A-er, and lids conclusions 

 could usually be depended upon. 



It is not too much to say that Mr. Quinby 

 knew more about American foul brood and 

 its treatment and cure than any other bee- 

 keeper who e\er lived. Moi-e than half a 

 century ago, while yet using box hives, he 

 met this deadly disease, and, unaided, he 

 vanquished it by the method that in recent 

 years has strangelv been known as the Mc- 



I'lvoy i)laii. American foul brood, so far as 

 now known, is a disease of the brood only, 

 and was rightly called foul brood by Mr. 

 Quinby. 



We are able to give a picture of the 

 Quinby family taken in front of their St. 

 Johns vi lie home — Mr. and Mrs. Quinby, 

 their son John W., their daughter Eliza- 

 beth, and their son-in-law, L. C. Root. Mr. 

 Quinby died May 27, 1875, aged 65. Mrs. 

 Quinby, known and highly esteemed by 

 many beekeepers, outlived her husband 26 

 years, and died at the Root home in Stam- 

 ford, Ct., in 1901. The son, Rev. John W. 

 Quinby, was educated at Fairfield Semi- 

 nary, Amherst College, and Harvard Divin- 

 ity School, his education havin.g been brok- 

 en into by his service in the Civil War. Im- 

 mediately after his graduation from the 

 Divinity School he was installed as pastor 

 of the Unitarian Church at Eastbridgewa- 

 ter, Mass., where he remained thirty years. 

 He resigned while still in his prime, and 

 while still doing most efficient work, because 

 he was afraid he might stay until hLs use- 

 fulness was passed. He remained in the 

 same town until he died, in 1911, in his 

 78th year. The daughter, Elizabeth Quinby, 

 was manned to Lyman C. Root in 1869, 

 and they had two daughters — Dr. Stella 

 Quinby Root, who, for the past eighteen 

 years, has been in general i^ractice in Stam- 

 ford, Ct., and Kathiyn Hildreth Root, who 

 holds the responsible position of Supeiwisor 

 of Home Economics in the Stamford pub- 

 lic schools. Dr. Root is quite successful as 

 a practitioner, and stands high in her pro- 

 fession as a skillful administrator of an- 

 ajsthetics. Mrs. L. C. Root died in 1896 at 

 the age of 59. She was a remarkable woman 

 in many ways, and assisted her father and 

 liusband very materially in illusti'ating and 

 rewriting their books. She was very skillful 

 with lier pencil, and many of the illustra- 

 tions draAvn directly from the object to be 

 illustrated are from her hand. One in par- 

 ticular made in this way, the cut of bees 

 and comb (see page 270), is regarded as 

 one of the most accurate representations 

 ever made, and has been widely copied in 

 this and foreign countries. 



Of the son-in-law, L. C. Root, notliing 

 need be said to introduce him to the readere 

 of (U;KANiXGS. As might be expected, both 

 he and his daughters are widely identified 

 with church and philanthropic work in 

 Stamford. Mr. Root is well itresened, and 

 now l)i(ls fair In I'ival Dr. Miller in longev- 



it.V- 



Starkville, N. Y. 



