Freiderich August Bechly | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 13 August 1835 |
| Died | 21 January 1916 (aged 80) Searsboro, Iowa, U.S |
| Nationality | German American |
| Other names | Fred Bechly |
| Occupation(s) | beekeeper and researcher |
| Known for | Apiology |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 7 |
Freiderich August Bechly (13 August 1835 – 21 January 1916) was a Kingdom of Prussia-born American bee researcher, apiologist, and farmer.
Freiderich (Fred) Bechly was born in Prenzlau, Brandenburg, Kingdom of Prussia to Friedrich Johann Bechly (1807-1892) and Charlotte Beutel (1812-1876). [1] He emigrated to America with his parents and siblings in 1852. [1] Freiderich had two children with his first wife, Hephzibah Dumville, who died in 1869. [2] [1] He had five children with his second wife, Lydia Marie Weesner (1850–1899), but two died from scarlet fever as children. [1]
Bechly died January 21, 1916, while visiting his children on the family farm in Searsboro, Iowa. [1] At Bechly's funeral, Iowa Judge William Robinson Lewis read a tribute for Fred Bechly that was published in the Poweshiek County Palladium. [1] The tribute describes the family's arrival in New York City, learning to cope with the challenges of immigration, and settlement with a German-speaking community in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. [1] The father, Freiderick John Bechly, purchased land at a crossroads outside of Sheboygan which became known as Bechly's Corners where he owned and operated a blacksmiths shop. [1] At age 21 Fred Bechly set out on his own to Chicago, but was unable to find employment there so he traveled further south to Jacksonville, Illinois, where he found work as a farm hand. [1] It was there in 1864 that he married Hephzibah Dumville and they moved to Searsboro, Iowa where he purchased a farm of 80 acres. [1]
Fred Bechly owned a farm in Searsboro, Iowa, was a noted Apiologist, [3] [4] and a correspondent for the American Bee Journal. [5]
His technique for introducing new queen bees to an existing hive was published in 1874. [6] New queens are usually rejected by an existing hive. In his technique, Mr. Bechly removes a comb from the hive, places the comb and hive bees into an empty hive, and closes them in with the new queen. The bees being stressed by foreign imprisonment are unconcerned about the new queen. The old hive is left queenless and is also closed. Over the next several days, as the hives are reopened, the bees return to the old hive along with their new queen.
Selections from the E. F. Phillips Beekeeping Collection at Mann Library, Cornell University: [7]
"How I Introduce a New Queen", American Bee Journal, Vol. 10, No. 10, October 1874
"Introducing Queens, etc.", American Bee Journal, Vol. 22, No. 7, February 17, 1886
"Laying Workers. My Experience with Laying Workers, etc.", American Bee Journal, Vol. 25, No. 3, January 19, 1889
"Hearing of Bees. Worker in a Queen Cell", American Bee Journal, Vol. 30, No. 24, December 8, 1892
"Bee Paralysis. Laying Queens Fighting, etc.", American Bee Journal, Vol. 37, No. 43, October 28, 1897
"Wintered on Honey-Dew, etc.", American Bee Journal, Vol. 30, No. 22, November 24, 1892
"Queen-Mating Attempted in a Small Cage", Gleanings in Bee Culture, Vol. 31, page 677, August 1, 1903
"Extra Good Report for Iowa", American Bee Journal, Vol. 52, page 378, December 1912
A beekeeper is a person who keeps honey bees, a profession known as beekeeping.
Beekeeping is the maintenance of bee colonies, commonly in man-made beehives. Honey bees in the genus Apis are the most commonly kept species but other honey producing bees such as Melipona stingless bees are also kept. Beekeepers keep bees to collect honey and other products of the hive: beeswax, propolis, bee pollen, and royal jelly. Other sources of beekeeping income include pollination of crops, raising queens, and production of package bees for sale. Bee hives are kept in an apiary or "bee yard".
In beekeeping, bee brood or brood refers to the eggs, larvae and pupae of honeybees. The brood of Western honey bees develops within a bee hive. In man-made, removable frame hives, such as Langstroth hives, each frame which is mainly occupied by brood is called a brood frame. Brood frames usually have some pollen and nectar or honey in the upper corners of the frame. The rest of the brood frame cells may be empty or occupied by brood in various developmental stages. During the brood raising season, the bees may reuse the cells from which brood has emerged for additional brood or convert it to honey or pollen storage. Bees show remarkable flexibility in adapting cells to a use best suited for the hive's survival.
A queen bee is typically an adult, mated female (gyne) that lives in a colony or hive of honey bees. With fully developed reproductive organs, the queen is usually the mother of most, if not all, of the bees in the beehive. Queens are developed from larvae selected by worker bees and specially fed in order to become sexually mature. There is normally only one adult, mated queen in a hive, in which case the bees will usually follow and fiercely protect her.
In modern American beekeeping, a Langstroth hive is any vertically modular beehive that has the key features of vertically hung frames, a bottom board with entrance for the bees, boxes containing frames for brood and honey and an inner cover and top cap to provide weather protection. In a Langstroth hive, the bees build honeycomb into frames, which can be moved with ease. The frames are designed to prevent bees from attaching honeycombs where they would either connect adjacent frames, or connect frames to the walls of the hive. The movable frames allow the beekeeper to manage the bees in a way which was formerly impossible.
In beekeeping, a queen excluder is a selective barrier inside the beehive that allows worker bees but not the larger queens and drones to traverse the barrier. Queen excluders are also used with some queen breeding methods. Some beekeepers believe that excluders lead to less efficient hives as often worker bees, not used to travelling through the excluder, are intimidated and stay in the lower brood box. This can lead to rapid filling of the brood box and overcrowding resulting eventually in the hive swarming.
A hive frame or honey frame is a structural element in a beehive that holds the honeycomb or brood comb within the hive enclosure or box. The hive frame is a key part of the modern movable-comb hive. It can be removed in order to inspect the bees for disease or to extract the excess honey.
This page is a glossary of beekeeping.
Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth was an American apiarist, clergyman, and teacher, and considered to be the father of American beekeeping. He recognized the concept of bee-space, a minimum distance that bees avoid sealing up. Although not his own discovery, the use of this principle allowed for the use of frames that the bees leave separate and this allowed the use of rectangular frames within the design of what is now called the Langstroth hive.
Petro Prokopovych was a Ukrainian revolutionary, beekeeper, the founder of commercial beekeeping and the inventor of the first movable frame hive. He introduced novelties in traditional beekeeping that allowed great progress in the practice. Among his most important inventions was a hive frame in a separate honey chamber of his beehive. He also invented a crude queen excluder between brood and honey chambers. Petro Prokopovych was also the first to ever model a 'bee beard' after delineating and calculating 'bee swarm behaviour", inspiring students for generations.
A Cloake board is a piece of equipment used in beekeeping to facilitate raising queen bees. Invented by New Zealander Henry Cloake, the Cloake board consists of a queen excluder mounted to a wooden frame. The wooden frame contains a slot which allows a "temporary" floor to be inserted.
Charles Dadant was a French-American beekeeper. Along with Petro Prokopovych, Dadant is considered one of the founding fathers of modern beekeeping.
Ormond R. Aebi was an American beekeeper who was reported to have set the world's record for honey obtained from a single hive in one year, 1974, when 404 pounds of honey were harvested, breaking an unofficial 80-year-old record of 303 pounds held by A. I. Root. Together with his father Harry, the Aebi's wrote two books on beekeeping: The Art and Adventure of Beekeeping (1975) and Mastering the Art of Beekeeping (1979).
Langstroth Cottage is a historic building on the Western College campus of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. It was designated a National Historic Landmark on June 22, 1976. The cottage, built in 1856, is now the home for the Oxford office of the Butler County Regional Transit Authority. It was purchased for Beekeeper L. L. Langstroth in 1859, and he lived there for the next 28 years, conducting research and breeding honey bees.
The western honey bee or European honey bee is the most common of the 7–12 species of honey bees worldwide. The genus name Apis is Latin for "bee", and mellifera is the Latin for "honey-bearing" or "honey carrying", referring to the species' production of honey.
Thomas White Woodbury (1818–1871) was an English journalist and beekeeper, devoting himself entirely to beekeeping from 1850 onwards after the death of his son. He was responsible for introducing Ligurian or Italian bees to Britain in 1859.
In 1859 Woodbury imported a yellow Ligurian queen from Mr Hermann in Switzerland. She arrived by train on 3 August in a rough deal box with about a thousand worker bees. Woodbury had prepared an 8-bar hive, including four frames of honey and pollen plus one empty comb, and he gently shook the newcomers into this. Then he took a skep of local black bees weighing 34.5 pounds and shook them out in clusters on four cloths spread out on the grass; helped by his friend Mr Fox. He found and took out the queen, before placing the hive with Ligurian queen and bees over the shaken bees. Alas they fought, and in the morning there were many dead bees, but he hoped for the best. By 17 August, great loads of pollen were going in, and he knew that the first queen from outside Britain had been introduced. When he wrote about this in the 'Cottage Gardener' he had letters from all over the country asking for stocks from this queen for next year, so at once he telegraphed for two more queens and they arrived on 27 August having been four days on the way. Although most of the bees were dead, each package had their queen still living, and each queen was successfully introduced to a colony. Ron Brown Great Masters of Beekeeping
A Honey Queen Program is a local, state, or national program which annually selects young women to become the spokespeople for the honey and beekeeping industries in the area, state, or region. The national program, the American Honey Queen Program, is facilitated through the sponsorship of the American Beekeeping Federation and involves a lengthy competition, the winners of which travel around the United States and beyond promoting the honey and beekeeping industries and educating the public on the importance of honey bees, beekeeping, and honey.
Bechly is a surname.
Hephzibah Dumville Bechly (1833–1869) was a writer about life for common women in the antebellum Midwest.
Friedrich Johann Bechly (1807–1892) was patriarch of the Bechly family in America.
