Nina Bagley
Twenty years ago, I became a beekeeper and my mentor passed his beekeeping books on to me when he moved. I have always been a collector and am fascinated with history and anything to do with the 1800s. I was very excited and honored to have these books so that I could share the beekeeping stories and the history of beekeepers. I found myself reading the ABC of Bee Culture: Cyclopedia of Everything Pertaining to the care of Honey-Bee published in Medina, Ohio by A.I. Root 1891. Under the ABC Picture Gallery, Apiaries and Bee-Exhibits, I came across a picture of Frank Benton and his beekeeping friends, which excited my curiosity. This took me on a research mission to find out more about this picture of our friend Frank Benton and his beekeeping comrades in Beirut, Syria.
If you don’t know who Frank Benton was, he was an American entomologist who invented the Benton queen cage for mailing queens. For eleven years Benton worked as a researcher for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. His mission was to collect the most effective bee species, which required him and his family to travel to many European and Asian countries. As I looked at the picture, I immediately recognized him. Benton was seated in the middle holding the ABC of Bee Culture by A. I. Root. Sitting on the cylinder below him to the left is Benton’s son Ralph. Over time, I became more curious about the other people in the picture, who were they? One rainy afternoon, I was reading an 1884 copy of Gleanings in Bee Culture. I came across this story by Lucinda Harrison from Peoria, Illinois. She is one of my favorite women beekeepers during her time. Harrison wrote stories for women and juveniles on beekeeping for Gleanings in Bee Culture in the 1800s. She raised queens and traveled throughout the world attending the bee conventions and writing about her accounts and adventures. You can only imagine my excitement when I came across this account by Lucinda Harrison on what happened at the 1885 Syrian Convention.
Conventions
“And Especially The One Over The Water, Where Frank Benton Resides.”
“I was laid up for repairs and while indisposed I enjoy nothing more than “Migratory Shadows” of the members of the New Orleans and Syrian convention who are all strange, yet peculiarly interesting, from the fact that the eleven composing the group represents eight different languages. The peasant’s daughter, according to the custom of the country, allows us to see a small part of her face, and as we gaze upon her we fervently hope that her labors for beekeeping may be remunerative, and be the means to elevating her mentally and socially. I pity the poor bees that have to live in jugs and cylinders. I don’t believe the bees of our country would stay in them: they would desert and I’m thankful for Mr. Benton in introducing a controllable hive into their country. The frame may be all right but it has a wonderfully long name. I’ve guessed, and I’ve guessed, again how it is held in place, put on my specs, and peered down into the hive to discover something, but failed. Mr. Root, don’t you think the ends of the hive have bent wires of tin or zinc, like this ?
And the hive is reversed when turning it over, is it not?”
Peoria, Ill. Mrs. L. Harrison
Mr. Root replies, “I am as much at a loss as your self, my good friend. In determining how friend Benton holds those frames, all alike all around, just like a slate-frame. Friend Benedict at the Ohio State Fair had some hives with similar frames, they were held by bent wires like you mentioned. But the strangest part of it all was that although friend B. has hives 20 or 40 of them in use, in which the frames could be used just as well one side up as the other; he never reverses them at all. He says he does not believe in it. Aren’t we human beings “funny” any way?”
Mrs. Harrison gives a vivid account of the convention in Syria; which put my curiosity at ease, until much to my surprise when I was just putting it all to rest one February day, I was going through some 1885 American Bee Journals, and found a story written by Frank Benton, “A Bee Convention in Beirut, Syria”. The story appeared in the September Issue of The Weekly American Bee Journal 1885…
A Bee-Convention in Syria
Frank Benton
“We had a bee-convention in Syria; or, rather, we have been having a series of them here recently. This may seem rather surprising news to people of the Western World, who suppose Syria is beyond the pale of civilization. But though the country is in many respects behind Europe and America, modern methods of bee culture have now taken permanent root here. Of the seven or eight different languages represented by the members of the convention, four had to be employed in the talks on bees: namely English, French, German and Arabic. Perhaps some of the friends in other countries, who find but with one official language in their conventions, it is still difficult to get on harmoniously, will wonder what we could do with such a babble of tongues. Nevertheless we got along quite well, and interchange of ideas will, no doubt, prove of great value to many of the participants.
The most important work done by the convention was the adoption of a standard frame for Syria, to be known as the “Syrian Standard Reversible Frame.” All beekeepers in countries where several sizes of frames have come into use, will comprehend at once the wisdom of such a step while moveable comb beekeeping is yet in its infancy in these parts. Among other topics, which were discussed at our meetings, migratory bee keeping (already largely practiced here) and hives adapted to it, received much attention; also the various bee-ranges of the country were discussed. Orange blossom furnishes the chief Spring harvest, though almond, apricot, cactus plants and other fruit blossoms are of importance. The late harvest comes in mid-Summer from wild thyme, which is abundant in most of the hilly and mountainous portions of the country. It was agreed that where orange, cactus and thyme blossoms were abundant, with the usual minor yield, nothing would be gained by transporting bees to other pastures. The wintering problem did not get much attention, since there is no difficulty on that score here; nor did we devote very much time to a discussion of the relative merits of the different races of bees, as none but Syrians are kept in Syria. Altogether, a bee-convention in Syria may be considered an interesting and important event- interesting to the outside world as showing the progress already made. Our eyes are turned to America for light in bee-keeping matters.”
– Beirut, Syria, May, 1885.
I have two stories now to go with the picture, of Frank Benton and his Comrades at the Syrian convention in 1885. Unless I come across more information, I can say I’m finished at this point with my research. My next search is to identify the men in the picture. I think I found three of them, but I’m still not 100% sure. It’s a daunting task and one that might be impossible, but what a great pasttime!
Nina Bagley
Columbus, Ohio
