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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
Dick Marron <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 7 Jan 2010 23:05:44 -0500
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Hello Joe and all.

Frederick Grabbe was born in Germany (Kingdom of Hanover) on October 16,
1842 and migrated to the United States with his parents when he was three
years old. His father died while Frederick was quite young; his mother
remarried. Frederick grew up on a farm in Fremont Township, Lake County,
Illinois.
Keeping Bees: Grabbe was no ordinary beekeeper. His bees were imported
Italian bees and hybrid bees.The bees and the honey were sold in Chicago (on
Kinzie Street, opposite the Chicago Northwestern depot)and directly from the
apiaries at Libertyville, Illinois and in St. Charles County, Missouri. C.
E. Carroll wrote, in a sketch of Grabbe's entrepreneurial ventures, "He
could see opportunities that no one else recognized and was never afraid to
try new things." One of his ventures consisted of, as Carroll put
it, "persuading bees to make honey in the winter." Grabbe and a Civil War
comrade, Charlie McDaniel, equipped a large flat boat with beehives (photo
shown here). In late fall, when bees ceased their honeymaking endeavor in
the upper Midwest, the partners drifted down the Mississippi, floating by
night and tying up by day. The bees continued their work in the continuing
warm weather-as the boat slipped further south-and returned to the boat's
hives before nightfall. The bee-keeping and honey-making proceeded
beautifully-until the boat drifted into the lower south where wharves were
stocked with
barrels of sugar and molasses. The bees, fickle, forsook their boat-home for
the sweeter pastures of the sweets on the wharves. Grabbe and McDaniel,
nearly beeless, sold their
beehive boat and went home to Libertyville. This was not the end of Grabbe's
beekeeping business- only the closing of its floating branch office in the
Deep South.
Circa 1870/1880/

Follow the link for the picture.
http://www.51illinois.org/grabbe.html



      

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