642 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 



letters on bee-keeping, having- then a solid ground 

 under my feet." 



The last phrase alludes to his discovery of the 

 movable-frame hive. In another part of his book, 

 Berlcpsch writes: "The frames were greeted with 

 g-reat demonstrations from every part of the coun- 

 try: Dzierzon and Kline were the only ones oppos- 

 ed to them, but for several futile reasons." 



Tn spite of all the arguments brought forward by 

 Bcrlepsch, in the Bienen Zcitung and in the meeting 

 of bee-keepf^rs, to convince him of the merits of 

 the frames, Dzierzon continued to be opposed to 

 them. In his " Rational Bee-Keeping" he writes: 

 "The distance between the side-pieces of the 

 frames and the walls, and especially the one at the 

 wall opposite the entrance, are unnatural, and thej' 

 carry off the necessary heat and moisture from the 

 brood-nest and winter quarters of the bees, so that 

 colonies generally winter rather badly in frame 

 hives." (See English edition, page 63.) 



Mr. Robinson advises us to speak with respect of 

 Munn. I can not see why we should respect this 

 man more than any other bee-keeper. In 1843 he 

 took a patent in Paris for a hive which proved so 

 valueles-^ that he modified it entirely to make it even 

 worse. (See the Manual of our friend Cook, in which 

 the Munn hives of 18f3 and 18.51 are represented.) 



THK PROKOPOVITSCH MOVABLE-COMB HIVE, USED 



IN 1807. 

 Debeauvoys did the same; for the hive of the 

 first edition of his book is quite different from the 

 ones described in the five subsequent editions. 

 Then both these bee-keepers worked, at the same 

 time as Langstroih, to find a practical hive, but 

 without success. Munn and Debeauvoys were 

 blamable in bringing out and exalting before the 

 public their worthless inver.lions before testing 

 them thoroughly. According to Mr. Hamet, editor 

 of the Journal cV Apicidteur.'Zy>'''0 French bee-keepers 

 tried the Debeauvoys hive, to turn their back on it 

 in disgust. [ was one of these victims. Enraptur- 

 ed by a splendid comb of nice honey, 18 inches high 

 by 13 wide, which was exhibited by Debeauvoys, 

 with his hive, at the Paris e.Yposition of 184!), I 

 bought his book and hastened to construct a hive 

 in which I hived a swarm immediately. You can 

 not Imagine how proud I was of ray hive. I opened 

 it to every visitor; I invited a nuniber of ladies, to 



show them its inside, and on the following spring I 

 transferred six colonies in six other similar hives. 

 After having tried it two seasons I would have 

 given to Debeauvoys the warmest certificate as to 

 the easy management of his hive. But I learned 

 soon after, that two or three years are not too 

 much, generally, to test the merits and defects of a 

 hive; for it takes sometimes longer to cool our en- 

 thusiasm and to open our eyes to the reality. 



Munn and Debeauvoys did moi"e harm than good 

 to the French l>ee-keepers; for most of those who 

 had been deluded by these poor inventions con- 

 demned, without hesitation, all movable - frame 

 hives, even refusing to listen to or to read what 

 was said or written in their support. I dare to as- 

 sert, that the early worthless inventions of these 

 men were the main cause which retarded the prog- 

 ress of bee culture in France. 



Unfortunately, men like both of these inventors 

 are not scarce. Moved by their pride, or by their 

 desire for raising money, they exalt their inventions 

 as soon as hatched from their brains, instead of im- 

 itating our friend Langstroth, who wrote : " I have 

 tested the merits of my hive by long and continued 

 experiments, made on a large scale, so that I might 

 not, by deceiving both myself and others, add an- 

 other to the useless contrivances which have delud- 

 ed and disgusted a too credulous public " (The Hive 

 and Honey-Bee, 4th ed., p. 106). I know of a great 

 number among the best bee-keepers, in this coun- 

 try as well as on the Old Continent, who say that 

 our friend forgot the above when he wrote his eu- 

 logy of the Heddon hive, after having seen it ma- 

 nipulated for about one week in the beginning 

 of April. Chas. Dadant. 



Hamilton, HI. 



Friend 1)., I want to emphasize that point 

 where you speali of waiting until our enthu- 

 siasm lias cooled off in regard to some new 

 invention. Over and over again we see in- 

 ventors getting wild over the imagined im- 

 portance of their discoveries. They predict 

 an entire revolution in regard to the whole 

 industry; but. how many revolutions really 

 come to passV Tlie reaper and the self- 

 binder made a revolution in harvesting 

 grain. In our neighborhood, we never see 

 anybody tying up bundles by hand nowa- 

 days. No one man, however, lias the credit 

 for this invention, and no one man, as a 

 rule, causes a revolution in any industry. I 

 myself feel like pleading guilty in the point 

 you bring out. The readers of Gleanings 

 well remember with how much enthusiasm 

 I have explained great inventions. Well, 

 some of them have come into actual use; 

 but how many of them are lost and forgot- 

 ten, perhaps to be brought up again when 

 somebody else invents the same thing ! The 

 transplanting-tube that I spoke of several 

 months ago, that I thought was going to 

 revolutionize niDving plants, we have used 

 quite thoroughly pretty much a whole sea- 

 son, and I believe that we shall hereafter 

 confine it mostly to strawberries (taking the 

 place of potted plants), and for very early 

 cabbages, moving melons, squashes, etc., 

 and things of that sot t. The one thing I 

 did not take into consideration is, that 

 transplanting— that is, t'retiuent transplant- 

 ing—is an advantage to most plants. The 

 use of these tubes sets the plant in the field 



