Hive tool design history

[cj.bravo]

hey beekeepers!

I'm a design student who's looking into the history of the american hive tool.

I'd love to hear some of it's history if anybody knows something about it, where and when was it invented and how come the design stuck until now.

I know there's more designs for the hive tool, such as the J shape but from my understanding the american one is more accepted..

It would be awesome if someone has any suggestions for improvement for the tool and just summarizing all the bad stuff about it.


Thanks a bunch,

CJ.

[mikecva]

Try :  http://www.google.com/patents/US2593304

[Michael Bush]

Try a google search on:
hive tool beekeeping
hive tool bee journal
hive tool patent

You should find some of the various designs in the old bee journals.

[deknow]

The somewhat standard hook style is (I believe) a maxant design.

I know from touring the shop (they are nearby) that they are extremely proud of the innovation (I would be if I came up with it).

I bet Jake (Maxant here on beesource) could offer some history (or at least his story).

Deknow

[little john]

As this is a design-related thread, I'll just chuck in a couple of comments in case they're of use to anyone planning a new design.

I don't use a 'hive tool' - never have, although I did make one a few years ago and played with it for half an hour, before going back to my 'tried and tested' kit.

When performing an inspection, I require tools to perform the following 3 tasks:
1) break the propolis seal between box and crown board (inner cover), or between 2 boxes - without damaging the woodwork.
2) enable frames to be moved apart and/or lifted.
3) enable frames to be closed-up together, without squashing bees whilst doing so.

So - this is what I use instead of a 'hive tool':




The blade of the paint scraper is 0.5mm thick spring steel, and bevelled at the leading edge giving knife-sharpness. I have inserted this tool - in some cases many hundreds of times - without causing any visible damage to box edges. In my view this is the perfect tool for breaking propolis seals - bar none.

When conducting the inspection itself, the screwdriver can be inserted between frames at an angle of 15-20 degrees to the horizontal in order to move frames apart, and inserted vertically to lift one frame using it's neighbour as a fulcrum.

Then, when the time comes to close-up frames, the screwdriver blade can be momentarily held between the side walls of Hoffman frames, thus preventing the bees from being squashed between them as the frame walls meet.

LJ

[Michael Bush]

>The somewhat standard hook style is (I believe) a maxant design.

I'm pretty sure I have a photo at home of one made by C.C. Miller that looks a lot like it...  I will try to find it.  I think it was in one of the bee journals (not in "50 years...").

[ugcheleuce]

I'm a design student who's looking into the history of the american hive tool.

I have a whole lot of beekeeping books in TXT format, and the earliest reference to "hive tool" is from 1900 (Morley Pettit).  Several authors from that date mention a hive tool, e.g. White (1906), Root (1910), Miller (1911), Hopkins (1911) and Newman (1911), and I get the impression that they're talking about a specialised tool.

Miller (1911) shows a picture of a hive tool called the "Muench Hive-Tool":



The hive tool called the "Ideal hive tool" (capital I, so I guess it's the name) by Newman (1911) looks about the same:



On the opposite side of the planet from these two Americans, the Australian Hopkins (1911) shows this hive tool:



A nearly identical picture is used by Rowe (1922) but he simply refers to it as "the useful hive tool".

The books prior to 1900 speak of using a screw driver or a flat piece of iron or a stout instrument.  However, I know that skep beekeepers used a skep knife in the 19th century (topbar beekeepers think they're invented something new with their topbar hive tool but it's the same thing).

W.r.t. the Muench tool, I'm not sure what the purpose of those holes were, but I imagine it may simply have been there to save iron and make the tool lighter.

Samuel