VOL. LVIII— NO. 5 



HAMILTON, ILL., MAY, 1918 



MONTHLY, $1.00 A YFAR 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE BEEHIVE 



The Second of a Series of Articles by the Editor Showing the Development of 

 Hive Construction Since the Earlier Days 



IN 1750 a man was born who had 

 great influence upon beekeeping, 

 F. Huber, a Swiss, of Geneva. In 

 his earl}' youth he lost his eyesight ; 

 his biographer, De Candolle, at- 

 tributes this to his too great eager- 

 ness to read. He spent days and 

 nights in reading and when his 

 parents deprived him of artificial 

 light at night to compel him to take 

 a rest, he even tried to read by the 

 light of the moon. At 17 he was al- 

 most completely blind. He was then 

 engaged to Aimee Marie Lullin, who 

 heroically remained true to him and 

 finally married him seven years after. 

 Through her eyes and those of a 

 faithful servant, F. Burnens. who was 

 also a great observer, he made 

 studies of natural history which 

 finally concentrated upon the inhab- 

 itants of the hive. The works of 

 Reaumur and Bonnet drew him to 

 this. He confirmed the discovery of 

 Schirach that the bees can transform 

 any worker egg into a queen by spe- 

 cial treatment. He showed that 

 worker bees who were supposed to 

 be neuters could, in most instances, 

 lay eggs that would hatch. He de- 

 scribed the combats of queens with 

 each other. He discovered that the 

 queen was fecundated in flight. He 

 studied the causes of swarming, the 

 use of the antenna, the production 

 of wax, the building of combs, etc. 



For these studies he devised what 

 he called "the leaf hive," which opens 

 like the leaves of a book, and on 

 each of which leaves a comb is 

 suspended. He also devised what we 

 now call observing hives, hives with 

 only one comb and glass on both 

 sides, which he called "ruches plates" 

 (flat hives), because of their shape. 

 It was with hives of both these 

 styles that he made the numerous re- 

 marks which he recorded in his "Let- 

 ters to Chas. Bonnet," published in 

 1792 and republished in 1796 and in 



1814 under the title of "Xouvelles Ob- 

 servations sur les Abeilles" (New Ob- 

 servations upon bees). He also pub- 

 lished a memoir of the origin of 

 beeswax, in 1804. 



The latter memoir was incor- 

 porated in the Nouvelles Observa- 

 tions, in the last edition, composed of 

 two volumes. 



Huber's leaf hive had a popularity 

 which lasted a number of years. The 

 greatest obstacle to iti use is the 

 difficulty of bringing together the 

 combs of a populous hive after hav- 

 ing taken them apart, for the}' touch 

 one another in their entire length 

 and depth, except in the spaces left 

 for openings for the passage of the 

 bees. It is difficult to open and close 



a hive of this kind without crushing 

 many bees, especially in the busy sea- 

 son. The elder Dadant tried them, 

 and it was after accidentally crush- 

 ing a queen while closing the hive 

 that he discarded them, for the hang- 

 ing-frame hive. 



D. L. Adair, of Hawesville, Ky., 

 patented a hive similar to that of 

 Huber, in 1867, and gave it publicity 

 in both the early years of the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal and in his "Annals 

 of Bee Culture" which appeared from 

 1869 to 1872. 



A little later, Moses Quinby aban- 

 doned his hanging-frame hive for a 

 hive with "standing frames" some- 

 what similar to those of the Huber 

 leaf hive. But his frames were 

 held in position by a clamp which 

 was slipped into a groove on the hive 

 bottom. His frames also differed 

 from those of Huber in having full 

 bee spaces at both top and bottom, 

 so that they touched one another 

 only at the perpendicular ends which 

 were made of lumber \]4 inches wide. 

 So the difficulty of manipulation was 

 lessened, since the points of contact 

 were less numerous. The advantage 

 claimed for these hives was that they 

 made a closed body, which was sur- 

 rounded with another hive body and 

 bees were said to winter in them bet- 

 ter than in hives with loose hanging 

 frames, in which the air can circulate 

 around the frames, at the top, bottom 

 and ends. 



The Huber leaf method was also 

 followed by Adair in his honey sec- 

 tions, with the only difference that he 

 made the top and bottom bars to 

 overlap on the end bars. The Adair 

 section was soon improved upon and 

 gave birth to our folding honey sec- 

 tion. So the Huber hive principle is 

 still in use in our suoers with comb- 

 honey production, the difference be- 

 ing that the sections are enclosed in 

 a case, while the Huber leaf hive was 



