Demaree - on which page is the original article?

[ugcheleuce]

G'day everyone

They say that George Demaree first described his system in the American Bee Journal of 1884, but... I can't find it.  The only swarm prevention method described by Demaree that I can see in the 1884 journal is a two-hive system (page 619-620), which is not what we currently see as the "demaree method".  Can anyone tell me in which year and on what page the one-hive swarm prevention system is described?

Thanks
Samuel

[BeeMaster2]

I take it you are referring to the below article. I am trying to find my ABZ of beekeeping book. It might have the volume in there.

Demaree method
Page issues
In beekeeping, the Demaree method is a swarming prevention method. It was first published by George Demaree (1832?1915) in an article in the American Bee Journal in 1884.

As with many swarm prevention methods, it involves separating of the queen and forager bees from the nurse bees. The theory is that forager bees will think that the hive has swarmed if there is a drastic reduction in nurse bees, and that nurse bees will think that the hive has swarmed if the queen appears to be missing and/or there is a drastic reduction in forager bees.

The Demaree method is a frame-exchange method, and as such it is more labour intensive than methods that do not involve rearranging individual frames. It requires no special equipment except for a queen excluder. In this method, the queen is confined to the bottom box below the queen excluder.

The method relies on the principle that nurse bees will prefer to stay with open brood, and that forager bees will move to frames with closed brood or with room for food.

In the modern Demaree method, the queen is placed in the bottom box, along with one or two frames of brood (but containing no open brood), as well as one or two frames of food stores, and empty combs or foundation. A queen excluder is placed above the bottom box, thereby restricting the queen to the bottom box but allowing bees to move freely between the bottom box and the rest of the hive. The original hive, along with all open brood, is placed above the queen excluder. The method works best if the nurse bees are remove far away from the queen. The distance between the queen and nurse bees can be increased by placing the brood nest at the very top of the hive, with the honey supers between the brood nest and the queen excluder. If any swarm cells are present, these must be destroyed by the beekeeper. The relative absence of queen pheromone in the top box usually prompts the nurse bees to create emergency cells. After 7-10 days, the beekeeper destroys the emergency cells, and then either removes the queen excluder (thereby ending the "demaree") or repeats the process a second or a third time until the swarming impulse is over.

The Demaree method makes it possible to retain the total colony population, thus maintaining good honey production. The technique has the advantage of allowing a new queen to be raised as well.

[AR Beekeeper]

Look at the 1892 ABJ, page 545.  You may want to read the 1918 Gleanings in Bee Culture, page 338, article by Iona Fowles in which she discusses the history of Demaree's plan.

[little john]

What is described on pages 619-20 is THE system.  Make of it what you will ...

You may find Heddon's critique of the Demaree 'system' to be of interest.  Pages 661-2.
LJ

[ugcheleuce]

I take it you are referring to the below article.

You just quoted the current Wikipedia article verbatim :-) which I wrote.  Or, rather, which I updated yesterday (the original article was rather short, confusing, and referred to the method as "requires a great deal of labor and time", which I thought was an odd thing to say).

[ugcheleuce]

Look at the 1892 ABJ, page 545.  You may want to read the 1918 Gleanings in Bee Culture, page 338, article by Iona Fowles in which she discusses the history of Demaree's plan.

Thanks, Iona's article was interesting, although I disagree with many of her conclusions.  Be that as it may, from what I can see, then, all these books and web sites proclaiming that the Demaree method was published in 1884 are all *wrong*.  The method that he published in 1884 was nothing like demareeing as it was practiced by 1910.

In my own little beek library, demareeing is mentioned three times pre-1925, namely:
* 1911, CC Miller, 364 pages - Fifty Years Among the Bees
* 1916, Frank C Pellett, 329 pages - Productive Bee-Keeping, Modern methods of production and marketing of honey
* 1921, HJ Baker, 16 pages - Spring Management of Bees

Even in Miller's and Pellet's books, the descriptions of demareeing are pretty close to what most modern books refer to as demareeing (apart from the twist of adding supers between the brood nest and the queen excluder, to remove the nurse bees even further from the queen):





If I understand correctly, Iona's article precedes the proliferation of separator-based methods (e.g. Snelgrove's), which explains her comment that "If every plan in which brood is raised to an upper story has the right to [the name 'Demaree method'], then almost every plan except swarming, dividing, or dequeening should be so designated."

Demaree's 1892 post (or: article?) comes close enough to modern demareeing for me to consider it the origin:



The only difference is that most modern books describing the method do not mention placing the brood frames in the middle of the box, with pollen/honey frames on the outside edges.

Iona's article mentions a post by Demaree in 1895, but I could not find it.  The only mention in 1895's American Bee Journal that I could find is this one (page 633), which doesn't say anything new:



(and unfortunately one needs a subscription to search the Canadian Bee Journals of the 1890s).

[ugcheleuce]

What is described on pages 619-20 is THE system.  ... You may find Heddon's critique of the Demaree 'system' to be of interest.  Pages 661-2.

Thanks, but IMO the term "demareeing" in modern times usually refers to a single-hive system, and Demaree's 1884 post relates to a two-hive system.  Heddon's reply is interesting for Heddon fans, but since it refers to a post that precedes the post describing the single-hive system, it is not really relevant for me right now.

[little john]

What is described on pages 619-20 is THE system.  ... You may find Heddon's critique of the Demaree 'system' to be of interest.  Pages 661-2.

Thanks, but IMO the term "demareeing" in modern times usually refers to a single-hive system, and Demaree's 1884 post relates to a two-hive system.  Heddon's reply is interesting for Heddon fans, but since it refers to a post that precedes the post describing the single-hive system, it is not really relevant for me right now.

Something doesn't add up here ...

Your post is headed "Demaree - on which page is the original article?"

The original article is - as you have yourself indicated -  described on pages 619-20. That IS the original article - i.e. when Demaree first published his 'system' (which he believed - incorrectly - to be an original idea).  The fact that it isn't about a one-hive system is neither here nor there.  Original means just that - original - having an origin, a start, or a beginning.  That was IT.

Anything published at a later date cannot thus be described as 'original'.  Subsequent perhaps, or Amended, or Modified, or Specific, or whatever-you-like - but it ain't Original.

Heddon's critique addressed that original article, and pours scorn on the basic principle (a point-of-view I happen to share) - a valid criticism (imo) which has nothing to do with how many boxes are involved.
LJ

[ugcheleuce]

Something doesn't add up here ...
Your post is headed "Demaree - on which page is the original article?"

1. I apologise for the confusion, but please understand that I can't put the entire post into the subject line.  The subject line of a post is part eye-catcher part summary.  The body of my post makes it perfectly clear what I was after -- particularly if you read the closing sentence, "Can anyone tell me in which year and on what page the one-hive swarm prevention system is described?".

If you have only read the subject line and responded only to that, then my thanks, but I actually wanted a response to the question in the body of my post.  In case you're confused with what I mean by "demareeing" in that sense, it is the method described on the Wikipedia page.


2. Although Iona Fowles in Bee Gleanings considers Demaree's subsequent posts to be "improvements" or "modifications" of his original idea (she says that his plan "underwent changes"), I don't regard it so.  The method described in 1884 is utterly different from the method described in 1892, so the 1892 method is neither an improvement nor a modification of the 1884 method, but rather an entirely different method.

For one, the 1884 method is not "swarm prevention" but "artificial swarming" (followed by a combine at the end of the flow).

For another, the principle of the 1884 method is to separate the foragers from the queen, whereas the principle of the 1892 method is to separate the nurse bees from the queen, which in my book is an entirely different approach.

One must mention, for clarity, that the 1884 article actually attempts to describe two methods, not just one.  The second method is a proposed improvement of the first method, which explains Demaree's comment at the start of his article that this he is asking for "aid in perfecting the new system".  By "new system" he simply means the improvements described second.  However, as far as I can see, the only improvements were to use cheaper materials for the second hive... so in the end, the 1884 article describes just one method. :-)

Heddon's critique addressed that original article, and pours scorn on the basic principle (a point-of-view I happen to share) - a valid criticism (imo) which has nothing to do with how many boxes are involved.

What do you consider the "basic principle" of Demaree's 1884 method (i.e the principle that Heddon had poured scorn on)?  I have read Heddon's article, but he doesn't seem to address any basic principles.  His main objection is that removing the queen from the foragers will result in less than adequate sections harvest, if sections are what the beekeeper is trying to harvest (he seems to assume that Demaree is, which may be correct -- sections were quite popular in those days).

[Fusion_power]

Demaree's method was first presented to the Ohio Beekeepers Convention apparently in 1891.  The paper in its entirety was then published in ABJ April 21sth 1892.  The previous method he published was a method of artificially splitting a colony to prevent swarming.

Of more importance than just the Demaree method, what he did is pushed beekeepers to use a double Langstroth as a brood chamber.  This dramatically increased space for the queen to lay and as a result swarming was also reduced and honey production significantly increased.  At the time, small brood chambers and small hives of bees were in vogue.