Adony Melathopoulos  wrote:

>- How Moses Quimby, a Quaker, became one of the first commercial
>beekeepers

[That would be Quinby]

Quinby's New Beekeeping: The Mysteries of Beekeeping Explained, by L. C.
Root, 1879, NYC

If L. L. Langstroth is recognized as the father of modern beekeeping, then
Moses Quinby (1810-1875) is the father of commercial honey production. The
two men were contemporaneous in life and publishing: born the same year,
they also published their first books the same year. The work of these two
men, whether disseminated in print or in person, would revolutionize
beekeeping in America.

Quinby, in his early 20's, established a beekeeping business, eventually
owning 1,200 hives in New York's Mohawk Valley. As a practical man, he
sought to make his business more efficient and created several beekeeping
aids: one of the first honey extractors in the country, the first useful
knife for preparing comb for honey extraction and the first practical
smoker, a hand-operated bellows that blew smoke through a tin fire pot. The
latter was a very popular improvement over the previous practice of using a
smoldering stick to subdue the bees during hive inspection or comb removal.

Quinby's original book, The Mysteries of Beekeeping Explained, came out in
1853. After his death in 1875, his son-in-law, L. C. Root revised the book
to bring it up to date and added more illustrations.

http://exhibits.mannlib.cornell.edu/beekeeping/atlantic/page3.html

The home page is

http://exhibits.mannlib.cornell.edu/beekeeping/

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