.',8 ft 



a I. R A N T N O S T N B K F. IT L TURK 



October l!)'2n 



Wlieii tlie Poi'ter liec-escape w:is first 

 put on the market, Dr. Miller was again 

 doubtful; but experience soon showed to 

 him that it was a great invention for clear- 

 ing bees from the supers. 



During the time that the divisible-brood- 

 chamber hives were being exploited in the 

 80 's, I remember that Dr. Miller Vas skep- 

 tical", saying he doubted if the principle 

 were correct. Mr. Heddon, Mr. Hutchin- 

 son, Mr. Taylor, and scores of other lead- 

 ing beekeepers at that time advocated the 

 principle of handling hives rather than 

 frames, and it certainly did look good; but 

 Dr. Miller said to me privately: "You will 

 do well, Ernest, not to push it, ' ' and we 

 never did. The years that have gone by 

 since then have proved that it was a step 

 backward. It is not surprising, in the 

 light of our present knowledge, that those 

 who advocated and used this divisible- 

 brood-chamber system of honey production 

 bad so many failures that they began to 

 think that the seasons were to blame. They 

 never seemed to think it could be the hive 

 with its little force of bees. 



Experience during the last 15 or 18 years 

 has shown that, instead of dividing up a 

 lirood-nest, we should double them up and 

 make strong, populous colonies. Dr. Miller, 

 some 20 years ago, supported my conten- 

 tion that a good queen needs at least two 

 eight-frame hive-bodies for breeding pur- 

 poses. I advocated at the time a double 

 brood-nest — not a brood-nest split in the 

 middle or in halves, as advocated by Mr. 

 Heddon. Just at the beginning of the 

 honey flow, when running for comb honcA', 

 the plan was to reduce the breeding room 

 to one-chamber, forcing all the bees into 

 the supers. Dr. Miller made this a practice 

 for years. He never had any trouble about 

 getting bees into the supers, for the reason 

 that he had the hive so "chock full," as 

 he said, that they simply had to go into the 

 sections. He was getting crops of honey 

 right along when the users of divisible- 

 Ijrood-chambers were complaining of poor 

 seasons one after another. Likewise, Dr. 

 Miller always supported the Dadants in 

 their advocacy of large brood-nests, or, as 

 he used them, a double brood-nest of nearly 

 the same capacity. 



i)r. Miller was almost the first one to 

 see that horizontal wiring, while it made 

 beautiful flat combs, as smooth as boards, 

 resulted in the foundation stretching near 

 the top-bar, thus making the cells, when 

 drawn out, too large for the queen to lay 

 in. "We therefore find him, some 20 years 

 ago, advocating wood splints. While, pos- 

 sibly, this is not the best means to prevent 

 stretching, it is a good one, and goes to 

 show how Dr. Miller was looking forward, 

 and how he was ahead of the times. 



The grand old man of beedom never 

 claimed to be an inventor. He never 

 claimed he had any secrets, for he had 

 none. His great service to the bee world 

 was ill discovering practical methods for 



producing more and better liouey with the 

 appliances that the beekeeper has. He 

 never was in favor of throwing away old 

 hives or apparatus as was Mr. Heddon; 

 and therefore one would never find any- 

 thing in the Doctor 's apiary but standard 

 hives, standard Ijangstroth frames, and 

 standard equipment sold b.y every supply 

 dealer in the country. While he did not 

 invent, he did pick out of the mass of 

 crudities inventions that he approved. 



I have just said that Dr. Miller did not 

 pretend to be an inventor; but there are 

 some things that bear his name — the Miller 

 feeder, for instance; but he was generous 

 enough to sa.v that Mr. Warner improved 

 it so that it was better than his own feed- 

 er. An introducing-cage also bears his 

 name. This was not exactly an invention, 

 but it was improved so that it is really a 

 practical introducing-cage, one that is used 

 \ cry largely b.v queen-breeders. 



There is hardly a standard article sold 

 by manufacturers, now accepted b.v the 

 beekeeping public toda.y, that was not pass 

 ed upon b.y Dr. Miller before it wen.t on 

 the market. For example, tlie eight and 

 ten frame dovetailed hive was submitted 

 to Dr. Miller at Medina before being intro- 

 ducecd to the public. In fact, neither A. 

 I. Root nor the other members of our organ- 

 ization thought it best to put anything on 

 the market unless it had Dr. Miller's ai>- 

 proval. In the same wa.y brood-frames, 

 self-spacing frames, bee-escapes, and iiitro- 

 ducing-cages were passed before the criti- 

 cal e.yes of Dr. Miller. If he pronounced 

 them good they went to the j)ublie. The 

 fact that these things have been in use for 

 20 and even 30 years by practical beekeep- 

 ers all over the United States shows how 

 nearly Dr. Miller was right. 



Let us now look a little further and see 

 what Dr. Miller did in making bee culture 

 saner and safer. Perhaps the biggest 

 thing he ever did was to show to the world 

 the real nature of European foul brood. 

 He blazed the way in perfecting a new cure 

 for that disease — a cure that is accepted 

 today. E. W. Alexander furnished the 

 basis for the treatment, and S. D. House, 

 Camillus, N. Y., showed that the period of 

 queenlessness could be reduced. He also 

 showed that a resistant stock of Italians 

 would go a long way in curing the disease 

 and keeping it out of the apiary. But the 

 ideas advanced above by Alexander and 

 House were so revolutionary that there 

 were but very few who took any stock in 

 them. Only too well do I remember how 

 I was criticised for publishing these 

 "false" doctrines. But it was not until 

 Dr. Miller had tried them out and had 

 proved that thev were along right lines 

 that the beekeeping world began to take 

 notice. The good Doctor went further than 

 either Alexander or House in showing tlic 

 true nature of the disease, and, possibly, 

 how it spreads. When, therefore. Dr. Mil- 

 ler introduced those new methods of treat- 



