Gleanings in Bee Culture 



trouble, and I would not use the Danzen- 

 baker hive if I could get them free of charge; 

 and I am firmly of the opinion that those 

 who adojU them are making a serious mis- 

 take. The bees also have to be fed in the 

 fall or spring, as the hives do not hold as 

 much honey as the standard hive, and this 

 makes more trouble. 

 Stonecoal, W. V., Nov. 25. 



JAMES HEDDON— BEE-KEEPER, INVENTOR, 

 JOURNALIST, AND BUSINESS MAN. 



Some Unwritten History. 



BY E. R. BOOT. 



Little did I think, when I recorded the 

 death of four prominent men whose names 

 began with H, in our Christmas issue, page 

 743 that there was still one more whose 

 name also began with H. The last men- 

 tioned was James Heddon, who died Dec, 7 

 last First there was Hutchinson, then 

 Hilton, Herlong, Hall, and now we add to 

 the list Heddon. Besides the fact that all 

 of their names began with H, it is also sig- 

 nificant that three of them lived in Michi- 

 "■an We hope the year 1912 will not take 

 away so many of our leading lights. 



Twenty years ago Mr. James Heddon, of 

 Dowagiac, Mich., was one of the most bril- 

 liant lights in all beedom. Sometimes er- 

 ratic, he often surprised us by his genius. 

 He certainly was a man of many parts and 

 varied ability. 



At one time he had between 700 and 800 

 colonies of bees, and he made them pay, as 

 he did every thing he undertook. He was a 

 practical bee-keeper, and from the year 1875 

 up to 1890 he was a more or less frequent 

 contributor to the bee-journals. His style 

 w^as clear and clean-cut, forceful, and, on oc- 

 casions, caustic. Many of his sayings were 

 epigrammatic. He was not a man to follow- 

 in the beaten tracks of others, and we there- 

 fore fintl hira striking out into new fields in 

 practical apiculture. In short, he was 

 original if he was any thing. This very in- 

 dependence of action often led him to differ 

 radically with his brother bee-keepers in re- 

 gard to methods and appliances. 



As I look back over those old days of 25 

 and ^0 years ago I see him as if it were yes- 

 terday. I see him telling of a short way of 

 transferring from box hives to modern hives 



a method that has come to be known as 



the " Heddon short way of transferring" in 

 our text-books, for indeed it is now the meth- 

 od most used by iiractical bee-keepers. I 

 see him exploiting his pollen theory — a the- 

 ory that has not been vindicated these later 

 years. I see him explaining a method for 

 controlling after-swarms — a method that 

 has also been accei)ted in our text-books. 

 Again, I see him recommending tiat covers, 

 and hives without iwrticos, eight- frame 

 rather than ten-frame. Closely identified 

 with this hive was his slatted break-joint 

 honey-board— a device that entirely elimin- 

 ated the brace-comb nuisance. Westill (ii'd 



it in the form of the wood-zinc honey-board; 

 but without the zinc it gave way to the 

 thick top-bar in brood-frames. When rever- 

 sible frames were the fad in 1884 Mr. Heddon 

 brought out one of the best reversible frames 

 invented, and paved the way for the alter- 

 nating of shallow frames, and now we see 

 him in 1885 bringing out his divisible-brood- 

 chamber hive, around which centered so 

 much (I might say bitter) controversy be- 

 tween 1885 and 1890. If ever a hive was 

 praised and smashed all into smithereens by 

 friends and enemies it was the Heddon di- 

 visible-brood-chamber hive. The discus- 

 sions in those days regarding this hive 

 would fill a good-sized volume. Part of it 

 related to the practicability of the inven- 

 tion, but more of it had to do with its pri- 

 ority and the validity of the patent covering 

 it. While it looked at one time as if the 

 hive would sweep every thing before it, be- 

 cause the idea of " handling hives " instead 

 of frames, and alternating whole brood-sec- 

 tions of frames instead of reversing frames 

 individually looked particularly attractive, 

 the divisible-brood-chamber principle, while 

 still favored by a few who still use it, like- 

 wise reversible frames, has all but disap- 

 peared from the apicultural horizon. Re- 

 quiescat in pace. I hope the apicultural 

 world will never again see such an "irre- 

 pressible conflict" as followed the introduc- 

 tion of the divisible brood-chamber and re- 

 versible frames. It is so fresh in my mind 

 because it was at the very beginning of my 

 editorial management of this journal. 



On p. 645 I referred to his early idea of ex- 

 tracting honey from combs without opening 

 hives. 



In later years I see Mr. Heddon advocat- 

 ing the slip -gear for honey -extractors. 

 Whether he was the first to see the advan- 

 tage of an arrangement that would allow 

 the propelling part of the extractor to be- 

 come disengaged from the reel, I do not 

 know; but I do know that the principle has 

 been applied to all modern honey-extractors 

 except the cheapest. 



During the latter part of the '80's Mr. Hed- 

 don was editor of a bee-journal which was a 

 supplement to his paper, the Dowagiac 

 Times. In this Mr. Heddon thrashed his 

 opponents to a finish. During the early 

 part of the '80's he brought out his book, 

 "Success in Bee-keeping." This attracted 

 considerable attention at the time, ])rinci- 

 jmlly because of its advocacy of new i)rinci- 

 I)les in hive construction. The book is 

 now out of print. 



Later on we find Mr. Heddon entering the 

 field of civic affairs, during which he became 

 mayor of Dowagiac, and editor and projirie- 

 torof the chief organ of his party, the Dow- 

 cu/iac Timts. During all this time his in- 

 terest in bees continued to be unabated un- 

 til the latter part of the '90's, when he seem- 

 ed to drop out of apicultural matters entire- 

 ly. A little later on he became the inventor 

 of a new kind of minnow bait that seems to 

 have been a great success. The Heddon 

 Buit Co is still doing a big business. 



