AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



723 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



Twenly-Fiftli Annual meeting 



OF THE 



NORTH \mum 

 BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION. 



BY FRANK BENTON, SEC. 



(Continued from page 697.) 



Apiculture in Germany. 



Frank Benton — There is just one little 

 point in Mr. Gravenhorst's essay tliat I 

 would not like to have pass unnoticed. 

 It has appeared from time to time in 

 the German newspapers, and now and 

 then in those printed in English. I re- 

 fer to the statement that Dzierzon in- 

 vented the movable-comb hive. It is 

 nearly always put, as Mr. Gravenhorst 

 has it, absolutely, as though Dzierzon 

 were the original inventor of the first 

 movable-comb hive, and it has been re- 

 peated so many times that every German 

 bee-keeper seems to believe it — even 

 many Americans credit it. Yet any one 

 who takes the trouble to hunt up the 

 records will find out that Dzierzon did 

 not invent the first movable-comb hive, 

 if, indeed, his boxes, with bars only, 

 could be called movable-comb hives. The 

 fact is, that movable-comb hives similar 

 in principle were used in other parts of 

 Europe long before Dzierzon was born, 

 and we have authentic records, with il- 

 lustrations of these hives, which were 

 published in Paris more than 150 years 

 ago. Among others who have left rec- 

 ords of these hives, it is suEBcient to 

 mention Contardi, in 1768, and Abbe 

 della Rocca in 1790. The latter had 

 kept bees on the Greek island Syra, and 

 both of these authors describe the 

 wicker-work basket-hives " used by the 

 ancient Greeks," and according to della 

 Eocca, still in use in 1790 in Candia. 

 Traveling in Greece, in 1883, I saw just 

 such hives in use among the peasants 

 living away back in the mountain re- 

 gions — in fact, on Mt. Hymettus I pur- 

 chased and manipulated some of these 

 hives stocked with the native Greek 

 bees. The same system has been fol- 

 lowed there for many centuries. The 

 peasants from whom I obtained these 

 hives knew nothing of the bee-keeping 

 of other countries, nor for that matter 

 much of anything about the outside 

 world. Many of them could neither 



read nor write. Their hives were sup- 

 plied with bars across the top. a comb 

 being attached to each bar. Some of 

 these bee-keepers knew how to make 

 artificial swarms by removing part of 

 the combs and bees to a new hive, cut- 

 ting the side-attachments loose just as 

 Dzierzon does with his hive to this day. 

 Huber's leaf hive— essentially a movable- 

 comb hive — appeared a half century be- 

 fore Dzierzon's hive. And in Russia, 

 Propokovitsch, early in this century, in- 

 vented and used a hive with frames in 

 three stories, which was described and 

 illustrated in Paris in 1841, thus seven 

 years before the year assigned by Grav- 

 enhorst to Dzierzon's invention. Whether 

 the latter knew of these inventions or 

 not, I cannot say, but being a priest he 

 knows Latin, of course, and might easily 

 have gotten hold of these works in the 

 French language, and acquainted him- 

 self with their contents. Dzierzon surely 

 would not venture to claim the invention 

 of frame hives, although others have 

 done this for him. Nor do I know that 

 he claims to have invented movable- 

 combs. But others repeat the claim, 

 and he says nothing regarding it, so that 

 at last almost every bee-keeper in Ger- 

 many, and even some over here, believe 

 that such things did not exist until he 

 invented them, much less that they were 

 known centuries before he was born. 

 He deserves a great deal of credit for 

 making movable-comb hives more popu- 

 lar, and introducing more rational meth- 

 ods of keeping bees in Germany ; and in 

 referring to this matter let us have the 

 thing correct, and give credit to whom 

 credit is due. 



Dr. Miller — The Germans swear by 

 Dzierzon. They believe in that, and, as 

 a matter of courtesy to them, and in the 

 same spirit as we have acted toward 

 them so far, I do not think it is our part 

 to sit as censors on their views. They 

 want to believe in Dzierzon, and it does 

 not matter. It is none of our family 

 quarrel at all ; but as they want to be- 

 lieve in that thing, we ought to be cour- 

 teous to them and let them live in hap- 

 piness. 



Mr. Benton — I do not agree with Dr. 

 Miller at all. History is history, and 

 when we quote it the truth must be told, 

 no matter who is cut by it. I only offer 

 this statement as a matter of fact. It is 

 a record that cannot be disputed, and I 

 stated it as a fact which I know, but 

 without asking the Association to sub- 

 scribe to it. 



Dr. Miller — I don't see what the dis- 

 cussion of this essay will bring about. 

 I want to know how to make enough 



