FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 23 



could hold that frame up to the light and looking through 

 the comb see the writing that was on the paper. Then 

 when foundation came upon the market, what a boon 

 it was ! 



VISITS A. I. ROOT. 



In 1870 I made my first visit to ^Medina, then several 

 miles from a railroad station. ]\Ir. Root was then a jew- 

 eler : his shop had been burned up, and his house (not a 

 large one at that time) was doing duty as both shop and 

 dwelling. Just then he was full of the idea of having 

 maple sap run directly from the trees to the hives. I 

 showed him how to use rotten wobd for smoking bees, 

 and he thought it a great improvement over the^ plan he 

 had been using. I do not now remember what his plan, 

 had been, but hardly a tobacco-pipe, for I have heard that 

 he has some objections to the use of tobacco. Pleased 

 with his newly acquired accomplishment, I had hardly 

 left town when he tried its use, and succeeded in setting 

 fire to a hive by means of the sawdust on the ground. 

 \Mi ether it was burned up or merely put in jeopardy I 

 do not now remember. He did not send me the bill 

 for it. 



At that time he knew nothing of a bee-smoker, and 

 neither of us then thought that in the next third of a 

 century he would send out into the world three hundred 

 thousand of them. 



ADOPTS 18x9 FRAME. 



In 1870 I made a change in hives. I cannot now tell. 

 the size of frames I had been using, but I think the frames 

 were considerably deeper than the regular Langstroth. 

 I say ''the regular Langstroth," for in reality all movable 

 frames are Langstroths, but the regular size is I79/8 x 9^. 

 J. \"andervort, a man well known among the older bee- 

 keepers as a manufacturer of foundation-mills, had at 

 that time a machine shop in ]\Iarengo, and upon his 



