John Mahaffie

This entry is post 4 of 24 in the ongoing series Landing Board beekeeping history posts

When I first trained for beekeeping and learned about the smoker, I thought: ‘Look at this quaint antique thing. Might as well get a butter churn while I am at it.’

Moses Quinby, of New York, invented the first modern smoker, one looking much like those we use today, in 1873. So our common present-day design is over 150 years old. (The Langstroth hive is even older, at about 150 years.)

Moses Quinby’s bellows smoker late 1870s. He did not patent it, and let anyone build their own versions¹⁾Source: Lyman C. Root, Quinby’s new bee-keeping. The mysteries of bee-keeping explained. Combining the results of fifty years’ experience, with the latest discoveries and inventions, and presenting the most approved methods, forming a complete guide to successful bee-culture, New York: Orange Judd Company, 1879, p. 91.

Other intriguing smoking and “stupefying” devices are scattered through the long history of beekeeping. Designs like Quinby’s have dominated beekeeping, but over the past 200 years, smoker designers tried variations on the still-standard form.

This bellows and chamber smoker has the delighted named purpose to “stupefy bees”²⁾Louis Figuier, The Insect World: Being a Popular Account of the Orders of Insects; Together with a Description of the Habits and Economy of Some of the Most Interesting Species, New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1872.

While this elegant pipe looks fun, it was no doubt cumbersome and perhaps didn’t have one-handed operation as our bellows smokers do³⁾Phillips, Everett Franklin. Beekeeping: A Discussion of the Life of the Honeybee and of the Production of Honey. United Kingdom, Macmillan, 1915, p. 30.

References[+]

References
↑1	Source: Lyman C. Root, Quinby’s new bee-keeping. The mysteries of bee-keeping explained. Combining the results of fifty years’ experience, with the latest discoveries and inventions, and presenting the most approved methods, forming a complete guide to successful bee-culture, New York: Orange Judd Company, 1879, p. 91.
↑2	Louis Figuier, The Insect World: Being a Popular Account of the Orders of Insects; Together with a Description of the Habits and Economy of Some of the Most Interesting Species, New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1872.
↑3	Phillips, Everett Franklin. Beekeeping: A Discussion of the Life of the Honeybee and of the Production of Honey. United Kingdom, Macmillan, 1915, p. 30.