1878 - "Commodore" Perinne Rubs Root the Wrong Way

Amos Ives Root

A. I. Root had something to say about Perrine's floating apiary project at the end of this letter from Perrine describing his bee barges in more detail than previously posted.  

Perrine's penchant for blowing his own horn about future success continues to a problem for many people in the bee business! 

PERRINE'S FLOATING APIARY.

THE FIRST FLOATING APIARY ON THE AMERICAN CONTINENT.

I PROMISED to give you some description of my bee boats. &c., &c., and will now do so, but pardon me if it is not full enough, as I have only a few hours each evening to attend to my correspondence, having to look to my apiarian interests through the day. 

I bought two gunwale barges, each about 110 x 34 ft. and decked them over 7 ft. from each side inwardly leaving 10 ft. open space, deck about 5 ft. from bottom, roof over open space about 7 ft. high forming a cabin, thus making roof 2 ft. above deck. I first have a space at each side of boat, on deck, of 2 ft. for outer gallery, to pass before the bee hives, then 2 ft. space for the hives, then 3 ft. space behind the hives for inner gallery; this takes up the 7 ft. There are 6 tiers of bee hives, one above the other. I have an upper outer and inner gallery 7 ft. above the deck, from which we are to work the upper 3 tiers of hives. 

This describes the outer tiers of hives; the inner, start from the top of the cabin roof and are 5 tiers high. The back end of the hives are flush with the cabin roof, or say the eaves, so that the inner gallery of 3 ft., spoken of, is between the backs of the outer and inner hives allowing both tiers to be worked conveniently between the fronts of the inner tiers of hives. There is 6 ft. space all the way up to the top of the boat, 12 1/2 ft. high, and this space is not roofed, allowing the bees to fly freely up and down through this space to and from their hives. The outer tiers of hives allow of free horizontal flight of bees. There is a roof 14 ft. high at the eaves, over the whole boat, except the 8 ft, space running through the middle. The arrangement at the ends is the same as at sides with trifling variation. 

The whole structure is supported by over 200 stanchions running from the bottom of boat to roof firmly secured by spikes, bolts and braces through stringer and carling. The hives are placed, as it were, on shelves firmly secured and easily removed. 

The hives are not perfectly shielded from sun and rain on the outside tiers, but rain will not hurt them and the sun can only strike the fronts; and as I have nailed on upper half of the space of the porticoes wire cloth and door to confine the bees below this, which when opened covers over the wire cloth and shields the front from the rays of sun, I have little to fear from the sun. 

Each boat will hold over 900 swarms under cover, and if I choose, I can put a few on the roof, making it over 1000.

I have now between 400 and 500, I will buy a few hundred swarms here and a little further up the river, which in all, with my own swarms, will give me by the middle of April—the time I propose to start up the river—about 1200 hives, or 600 on each boat. I expect to have, at least, fifty per cent increase going up the river. I am not counting on too big things. 

I hope to reach St. Louis early in June, and will continue my trip, arriving at St. Paul, Minn., about the last of July.

Bees are now and have been working on the different varieties of willow, so abundant in swamps in the South, ever since early in February, and will continue to do so, with some other tree bloom for a month yet, say 8 to 10 weeks on willow, and working hard every day they can get to work. 

Willows on  Mississippi. source

 Bees are all in good order in my apiary and have just begun to swarm. Of course some are stronger than others, the strongest have gathered within the past 10 or 12 days, 30 to 50 lbs. of honey, some in sections and some in large frames for extracting, and this before swarming time, with hives not full of bees. 

Four to 6 lbs. of honey per day is pretty good I think, and such beautiful honey too, not strictly white nor of a high bouquet, but a smooth pleasant honey somewhat like peach bloom honey.  Now and then some one objects to a slightly bitter after taste that is noticed when the honey is eaten by itself, but at table it is not noticed. It wears better than any honey I ever ate or gave to friends. 

I am going to insert here there are multiple reports that Perrine, as a dealer,  adulterated his honey with glucose...so maybe a slightly bitter taste would  be adjusted later?

I expect to work on willow for the first 600 or 800 miles, and perhaps get some white clover for a short  time about the last of May or first of June, and to  wait for basswood which I expect to follow from below Cairo to St. Paul, nearly 1000 miles and nearly two months. Those who know what basswood yields, can perhaps imagine my expectations as to quantity to be gathered by my then 2000 hives of bees. 

Cairo, Illinois -  Located at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers

My intention is to return from St. Paul to some point above St. Louis and stay during Aug. and Sept., returning south in October, when I think I have a reasonable expectation of having 3000 to 4000 hives of bees, probably more than were ever managed by one person. 

I will have a good tow boat of my own so as to control its movements. I will do my moving at night, stopping every day, probably, as it would not do to lose a day of work. 

In my experiments, labor and purchases, I have spent money liberally—nearly $15,000 since I first came down here—and if I succeed in demonstrating  the practicability of a floating apiary will you feel badly because I have made some money in the honey business in years past so as to be able to take a little money from my business to do this? But suppose I fail, will you say "foolish man. I could have told him so?" or will you give me credit for the 18 months of unremitting toil of brain and muscle, and try to encourage me to try another season to make a success of it? 

Towing boat by steam—up stream, is expensive: one party proposes to tow me up to St. Paul and back to New Orleans for $1000.00 but I can do it much cheaper owning a steam boat myself, perhaps for half that sum. 

Typical small paddle wheeler.  History of...

There will be a crew of 15 or 16. or perhaps 20 persons on the fleet, and as I expect to accompany the enterprise, "Commodore Perrine" as some of my friends here insist on calling me, will have his hands full. 

We are extracting from nearly 100 hives, and shall ship to Chicago, in a few days, between 2 and 3 tons of extracted and section box honey, and soon afterward, a shipment to Europe where my customers are awaiting new honey with their mouths open. 

Mr. Fred Grabbe (post about Grabbe to follow this) formerly of Kansas and Illinois, has been with me over a year, and has the immediate management of the bees, a man of large experience, practical, energetic and an untiring worker. 

I can not close without a word about the pleasant winters here -no snow—a few frosts, a little show of ice once or twice during the season, not too much rain, and in February flowers: and now all in full bloom, and to crown all, the air is now full of condensed orange bloom: some 20 trees about my house fill all space with their fragrance. 

Well, I have written more than I thought I would.  If your readers don't understand my description, or have curiosity to see, I hope to see all who will take the pains to come to see us any where along the river. 

Will try to keep them posted where to find the boats as we go along.

C. O. Perrine.

New Orleans, La.,

March 20th, 1878.

Many thanks, friend P., but have you not "mixed" something somewhere, when you intimate that I might feel badly if you should succeed, and say, "I told you so, if you should fail'?

 I fear you did not read what I said about floating apiaries a couple of years ago, when I asked who would first volunteer the money for the experiment. If anybody attempts to say "I told you so," Gleanings will be the very first one to square off for a fight—a friendly one—for whether you make a success of it or not, I am sure some one will. 

We certainly are as smart as the ancient Egyptians on bees, even if we never did build any pyramids, and now friend Perrine I want you to get just the very best photo of your floating apiary, that ever you can, and we will get the best engraver in the country to engrave it for May Gleanings. I do not believe in saying very much about what great things we are going to do, for it is much better to do them first and then tell about it; but I hope we may both be excused a little this time.

1878 - The Unsinkable Mr. Perrine and His Floating Apiary

The editor of The Bee-Keepers Magazine in 1878 announced the new obsession of Mr. Perrine...a floating apiary.  People still were astounded by Perrine's rudeness to his British hosts the previous year.

"We understand that since the return of Mr. P. to our shores he is reviving the ancient practice of floating apiaries and that he will have a barge of sufficient capacity for one thousand hives to ply up and down the Mississippi the coming season.
 Starting probably from New Orleans about February, coasting along by night and casting anchor by day to afford his "Cyprian and Egyptian pets'' a chance to explore the new world and gather in its luscious nectar, he will finally arrive at the mouth (end) of the Big Horn River at the close of the honey season. "

Neither trustworthy beekeeper nor businessman, Mr. Perrine seems to have lived in a dream world. The incredibly seductive idea of floating apiaries grabbed him hard, and, to his credit, he got the barges fitted out.  If you know bees at all, this tale will have you shaking your head!  

This article is from the British Bee Journal, February 1879.

THE AMERICAN FLOATING APIARY. 

At the West Illinois and East Iowa Convention, held in October last, Mr. Perrine was requested to give a word-picture of his floating apiary, which he did as follows:—

'What first induced me to go into it, was the want of white comb honey. I can got all I want of coloured honey, but want hundreds of tons of white honey for my house. I began the honey business at Cincinnati in 1865, removed to Chicago in 1869, where I continued the business, keeping my hands at work, peddling direct to the consumer. I wanted to extend my business and did so in the Eastern States, afterward in Europe.

 I received some lots of very nice honey from California, and depended on them greatly for my supply of white honey, but it did not come. I got a big order from Europe, had a great deal of trouble to fill it, and could not do it entirely. Could not get such honey as we wanted to ship there.

'We packed comb and extracted honey in jars and had great difficulty from its candying. Boiling honey hurts its flavour. I went into the country to see bee-keepers about getting nice honey by migratory bee-keeping. Going from place to place could get no encouragement.

 I went South and found lots of white clover, have travelled in the South considerably.

I thought I could make a good thing by planting some seed of good honey plants, so I got $60 worth of melilot clover seed, and I have it yet.    I tried to get land to plant it on, but could not get it.

Then I resolved to try the floating apiary, and began to build two barges.

While not with a honeybee this photo is of Melilot,
Yellow Sweet Clover. It was an introduced species
 in the US but became famous for the amount
 of honey a pasture would yield.

I was kept from starting as early as I wanted to, fully six weeks, by a variety of causes beyond my control. I did not get as many bees as I wanted. Our machinery broke down twice, which threw us back eight days. We were getting behind all the time, so we closed up the hive, with wire cloth. Our colonies were strong, and we lost about fifty by smothering. Owing to lateness of the season, I concluded not to go far North and put my bees on shore about sixty miles above St. Louis. My bees are in good condition for wintering.

The floating apiary is an experiment yet. I put about $12,000 in the venture, and I shall keep trying till I know whether it will succeed or not. I invite any of you who wish, to come down and see us. I expect to take my bees to New Orleans this winter. I may not bring all my bees North, but keep some down there for experiment. I propose to try the house-apiary principle on the boats. 

I would like to ask some one who knows, if bees notice colour more than form. A great many bees get into the river, possibly 2o per cent. The rivers in the South run on ridges, and when the river rises, it runs over into bayous and deposits soil, slanting off into the swamps. The little streams all run swiftly. There are many peculiar things about working barges: have to keep the same side of the barge to the shore all the time. 

I propose to put the bees on the boats this time in cold weather, then they will come out and fly a few at a time. I think bees return to their hives more by form than by colour. I have tried different colours. We got but few new swarms, the honey did not come in fast enough. I had a little steamer that cost me $2900, and sold it at a loss of $900. I thought of going up as far as St. Paul, but owing to difficulties could not do it. I propose to tow my bees only by night next year.  My boats are near 120 feet long. I shall wait till the weather is quite cold before I go South.'