INVENTIONS RELATING TO BEE CULTURE 
545 
end-bars of the original, and not the Hoff¬ 
man top-bar. 
Another improvement was suggested by 
Francis Danzenbaker—namely, the lock 
cornering on hives. This feature has now 
come to be adopted by all modern hive- 
makers thruout the United States, and, to 
a great extent, thruout the world. 
The invention of the sectional honey-box 
is not attributable to any one person; how¬ 
ever, A. I. Root was the first to make one 
holding one pound. His first pound sec¬ 
tions were dovetailed all around. Later on 
came the invention of the one-piece section, 
on which J. H. Forncrook secured a pat¬ 
ent; but after long litigation from one 
court to another, the Supreme Court finally 
declared it “null and void for want of 
novelty.” It. was shown that one J. Fiddes 
and a number of others had made and used 
sections of this kind; so in the matter of 
one-piece sections the honor will have to be 
divided among four or five different people. 
The late James G. Gray of Medina made 
the first practical machine for making one- 
piece sections in quantity. Later, machines 
for turning out section honey-boxei in lots 
of one hundred thousand a day were the 
invention of George L. Howk. 
The Porter bee-escape is one of the best 
little inventions that have been brought 
out. It is one of the few patented inven¬ 
tions that survived and is now used very 
largely. 
Queen-excluders in the form of perfor¬ 
ated zinc and spaced wires are inventions 
of merit. In connection with these will be 
found entrance-guards and Alley ' traps 
that are useful. The Alley trap is another 
patented invention that survived. 
T. F. Bingham and Mr. Hetherington 
were really the inventors of the modern un¬ 
capping-knife popularly known as the 
Bingham. The Bingham-Hetherington shape 
is now used in all uncapping-knives, wheth¬ 
er steam-heated or plain. 
The steam uncapping-knife (see Ex¬ 
tracting) is an invention that is coming 
more and more into use. The capping- 
melter for melting cappings as fast as they 
come from the knife gives promise of being 
one of the inventions that will last. It en¬ 
ables a competent man who follows direc¬ 
tions to melt his cappings and separate the 
honey from the cappings immediately, so 
18 
that when the day’s work is done he will 
have his honey free from cappings, and the 
cappings converted into wax ready for use. 
Arthur C. Miller was the discoverer or 
inventor of the principle that is now used 
in all modern foundation-fasteners using a 
hot plate; yet, strangely enough, not one 
of these fasteners bears his name. Mr. 
Miller was also the inventor of two or three 
different uncapping-machines, and of the 
steam-heated uncapping-knife. If he had 
applied for letters-patent on this kind of 
knife it would have been granted him, and 
he would be today considered the inventor, 
as he really is, of the steam-heated uncap¬ 
ping-knife. 
No one seems to have invented the 
double-walled packed hive for outdoor win¬ 
tering ; but A. I. Root was, perhaps, in con¬ 
nection with J. H. Townley, the first to 
apply the principle of chaff packing in 
double walls. As chaff is not now obtain¬ 
able, other packing material is used. Lang- 
stroth in the early ’50’s used double hives 
but not packed. 
In the early ’80’s there was a score of 
inventions relating to feeders, foundation- 
fasteners, and reversing attachments for 
movable frames, nearly all of which died a 
natural death because they were imprac¬ 
ticable and only increased the cost of man¬ 
agement. 
Among the later hive inventions that 
have merit is the Aspinwall hive, based on 
the principle designed to prevent swarm¬ 
ing. (See Swarming.) But its cost of 
construction and the large number of extra 
parts that must be manipulated at inter¬ 
vals have prevented this hive from dis¬ 
placing the present standard hives to any 
great extent. The swarming problem is 
not a serious one in the production of ex¬ 
tracted honey; and while probably three- 
fourths if not four-fifths of all the honey 
produced in the world is extracted, it will 
be seen that there will be a very limited 
demand at best for non-swarming hives. 
In the way of minor inventions or im¬ 
provements mention should be made of the 
omission of porticos on hives, and of bevel 
edges between the parts of the hives. A 
hive plain and simple, with a detachable 
bottom-board and a plain simple cover, is 
much more workable than some of the com- 
