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40th YEAR, 



CHICAGO, ILL, FEBRUARY 22, 1900. 



No, 8, 



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Mp. D. H. Coggshall, His Home and Apiary. 



DAyiD H. COGGSHALL was born Dec. 1, 1847, in Tomp- 

 kins Co., N. Y., and was one of a family of 4 children. 

 His early years were spent in the routine of farm life, 

 where he early formed the habits of industry and self- 

 reliance. 



February 24, 1869, 

 Mr. Cogg'shall was 

 married to Clarinda F. 

 Smith. Three chil- 

 dren have been born 

 to them, of whom two 

 .survive — a son and 

 daughter. 



In 1861 Mr. Cogg-- 

 shall's ' grandfather, 

 Wm. Green, gave him 

 a swarm of bees and 

 he began a series of 

 experiments in their 

 management. He first 

 tried wintering them 

 in the house-cellar, 

 but this was not suc- 

 cessful. Up to I8611 

 his bees were kept in 

 box-hives, when he 

 bought the D. P. Kid- 

 d e r movable - frame 

 hive and transferred 

 his bees to them. Ex- 

 perience proved this 

 to be a step in the 

 right direction. The 

 Kidder hive being 

 double-walled he now 

 began wintering bees 

 outdoors, with fair 



success. During all this time he read all the books and 

 papers on bee-culture which he could get, and among them 

 was " Langstroth on the Honey-Bee. " 



In 1867 he made 13 Langstroth hives and put 13 new 

 swarms into them. He now built a bee-house 12x16 feet, 

 with a packing of sawdust in the wall one foot thick, and 

 tried wintering bees in it, but with this he was disappointed, 

 as the bees wintered no better tlian in the house cellar. The 

 wintering problem was finally solved by use of the chaff 



Home of Mr. D. H. Coggshall, Tompkins Co., N. Y. 



hive in which the bees are packt in dry sawdust and left 

 outdoors. 



In 1868 he made a honey-extractor with an apple-paring 

 machine for gearing; this was a crudfe affair, and did not 

 work to suit his ideas, so he built a heavier one, using 

 clover-huller bevel-gears, geared one to three, which workt 

 very satisfactorily, and is the one shown in the cut stand- 

 ing on hive No. 160 in the picture. This machine is non- 

 reversible, taking 4 Langstroth frames, the frames hanging 

 exactly as they do in the hive. Instead of being placed in 

 the 4 sides of the basket, in the ordinary fashion, thej' are 

 set down in the machine, two on a side. A strip of tin sep- 

 arates the two combs so that the honey from the inner one, 

 instead of striking the outside comb, flies against the tin, 

 draining down in the extractor. The cross arm and bear- 

 ings are made of wood. 



Mr. Coggshall says it is a great advantage to set the 



combs in the extractor 

 in the same way they 

 are taken from the 

 hive, as they can be 

 pickt out of the hive 

 and set down in this 

 extractor more rapidly 

 than the same number 

 of combs could be 

 pickt out and inserted 

 in a Cowan extractor, 

 as in the case of the 

 latter the frame is 

 lifted out with one 

 h^id, and with the 

 other turned at right 

 angles so that it can 

 be set down endwise 

 in the machine. 



Previous t o 1866 

 Mr. C. practiced nat- 

 ural swarming, but 

 after procuring the 

 Kidder movable-frame 

 hives h e began in- 

 creasing artificially, 

 with alternate success 

 and failure ; but the 

 artificial, or dividing, 

 method appearing to 

 have so many advan- 

 tages was persisted in 

 and perfected until 

 has been the only 



now, and for many years past it 

 method used. 



Soon after queen-excluders were put on the market he 

 began using them with great success, and says that with- 

 out them he could not manage all his out-apiaries. Since 

 using them he has had no trouble in controlling the in- 

 crease, and the end of the season finds the bees with plenty 

 of honey in the lower story for winter use. 



About 1870 Mr. Coggshall's brother, W. Lamar, entered 



