Father of the Fashionable Hive
By means of: John Gordon Sennett
“Assigning myself to at least one department of agriculture—beekeeping, I faithful my complete lifestyles, all my ideas, all my consideration to it.” —Petro Ivanovych Prokopovych
Ukraine is a beekeeping country and so it’s apt that the Father of the Hive hails from there. Petro Prokopovych is identified international because the founder of business beekeeping and inventor of the primary portable hive body (Prokopovych known as those frames sleeves). The large adoption and commercialization of the Langstroth Hive by the use of U.S. Patent Quantity 9300 on October 5, 1852 drove Prokopovych’s Hive into obscurity, or did it? A temporary historical past comic strip is had to know how lengthy beekeeping has been practiced right here.
Ukraine started as a country underneath the title Kyivan Rus whose lands stretched from the Baltic Sea all the way down to the Black Sea. Kyivan Rus used to be a regional energy from the 9th to the twelfth century and its affect rose basically because of its strategic location for business and protection at the banks of the Dnipro River. Two of Kyivan Rus’s best commodities for business have been honey and beeswax. Kyiv’s whole historical past is aligned with that of honey and beeswax. In Ukrainian, the phrase for honey is “Med” and it’s assumed that the drink that the Vikings and lots of others liked such a lot, mead, is derived from that Previous Slavonic phrase. Yaroslav the Smart (eleventh century) evolved a gadget of regulation and codes which become referred to as Pravda of Yaroslav (Fact of Yaroslav) (The overall textual content of the code in English can also be learn right here: https://internet.archive.org/internet/20220217103027/, http://internet.grinnell.edu/people/kaiser/exrp.html). Bees are discussed in a minimum of seven chapters of this historic code of regulation. Many monasteries in Kyivan Rus together with the Kyiv Pecehersk Lavra (based 1051 A.D.) even have their very own apiaries. Beekeeping has persistently been practiced at the grounds of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra for 9 hundred and seventy-two years. In reality, Ukraine is a country in part based on beekeeping.
Petro Prokopovych used to be born in Mytchenky, a small village in Northern Ukraine (a area that now immediately borders Russia) on June 29, 1775 concerning the time that U.S. colonies have been making ready for the Progressive Conflict. His father used to be an Orthodox priest of Cossack foundation. One should remember that the Cossacks regarded as themselves loose males and weren’t a part of the serf gadget underneath the ruling Russian Empire. Serfs in Russia have been similar to slaves within the U.S. in that they may well be purchased, offered and traded. Cossacks have been army males for essentially the most section and continuously served within the armies of Russia because of their distinctive combating and organizational talents. Petro Prokopovych first attended the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (established 1615 as an Orthodox Christian College of Theology). Scholars from all over the place Japanese Europe and Greece attended the academy. Right here, Petro realized French, German, Greek, Latin and Russian. Upon commencement, there weren’t many alternatives for the graduates because of a rampant marketing campaign of Russification underneath Empress Catherine.
Cossacks nearly at all times became to army accountability when different alternatives didn’t exist and thus that is what Petro did underneath the steering of his oldsters. Petro entered the Pereyslav Regiment (initially shaped via Ukrainian Hetman however now underneath Russian rule) and graduated inside of two years from their army faculty. He participated within the development of Odesa and its port earlier than his regiment used to be despatched to quell the Warsaw Rebellion (1794) underneath Depend (Normal) Alexander Suvorov. Normal Suvorov had allowed his troops to plunder and loot Warsaw upon their luck. Petro used to be a peace and nature loving particular person so this brutality needed to have affected him, however he used to be promoted to the rank of lieutenant. In 1798, Petro resigned from the army and attempted to go back house. His father used to be no longer keen to permit him to stick as a result of he regarded as it a humiliation that his son had resigned from the sort of a success army profession. That is the development that led Petro to beekeeping.
Petro went to stick with his more youthful brother who had a small apiary in 1799, no longer a long way from his local house. He spent that yr finding out the bees and their conduct. The next yr, he bought a small plot of land with 37 beehives. His first yr began neatly however led to tragedy when his farm burned down destroying one of the most beehives. Discouraged however no longer deterred, he spent the next yr digging log dugouts for the bees. Log hives have been the commonest manner of preserving bees in the ones occasions and in some puts in Ukraine and Belarus, this tradition remains to be adhered to. In every other 8 years, his apiary totaled 580 beehives. No literature on beekeeping glad Petro, particularly when it got here to queens. His wisdom used to be already gaining admire as in his 9th yr the Moscow Zemledelchesskaya Gazette wrote, “Mr. Prokopovych, we will say, is the one gourmet of bees in our time, no longer most effective in our nation, however even in the entire of Europe, whose remarks and sayings about those bugs haven’t any equivalent with regards to completeness, simplicity and truthfulness. But, within the West, Prokopovych is only even referred to in spite of having written over 70 articles in quite a lot of Ecu languages.
For seven years, Petro Prokopovych labored on designs for beehives that have been extra pleasant to the bees as he used to be inside of his soul with having to wreck the bees for his or her honey. In spite of everything, in 1814, his design used to be entire, and thus the Prokopovych Hive used to be presented. This used to be the primary portable body hive designed and used international. Petro known as his frames “sleeves” when he presented the discovery. Concurrently, Petro additionally designed the primary Queen Excluder which used to be positioned in his new invention. A. I. Root himself praised Prokopvych’s hive pointing out, “His store body has a lot in commonplace with the fashionable sectional body with cutouts for the passage of bees, the partitions of his hive are tied in a lock. He used strategies that have been a long way forward of his time. Some beekeepers believed that Jeron invented the movable body (Germany) in 1845, however, indubitably, the latter had no proper to this glory.”
Petro Prokopovych, beneficiant soul that he used to be, opened the primary beekeeping faculty in Ukraine (then underneath the Russian Empire) in 1827 in his local village of Mytchenko. College lasted for 2 years with sensible wisdom within the first yr to incorporate gear, carpentry, studying, writing and the honey bee lifestyles cycle. In the second one yr, scholars practiced hands-on beekeeping. Many of the pupils have been serfs from Ukraine, Belarus, Bashkiria and Georgia in addition to international scholars from Germany, Poland, Italy and Czechoslavkia. Scholars studied in teams in their very own local language. Prokopovych insisted on religious training and scholars have been held to a Christian ethical code via taking an oath. He sought to make excellent other folks out of his scholars to incorporate admire for nature, guy and God. Petro used the Joseph Lancaster Way of Schooling (Monitorial Machine) with its motto being, “He who teaches, learns.” Most sensible scholars have been answerable for instructing their fellow scholars. The varsity operated effectively for 53 years and graduated over 700 scholars.
Petro’s scholars obviously disseminated the guidelines they realized from him as they returned to their house nations. John S. Harbison’s cutting edge “California Hive” inbuilt 1857-1858 mainly resembles Prokopovych’s Hive except the highest frames constructed for honeycomb. Lorenzo Langstroth no doubt should were acquainted with the Prokopovych Hive even if he’s credited with “bee area”, possibly he’s simply credited with the naming of it. Prokopovych no doubt understood bee area in keeping with the spacing of the sleeves (frames) in his hive. An intensive exam of Prokopovych’s writings that also exist would need to be explored. Each Harbison and Langstroth have been from Philadelphia which had a big German talking inhabitants. Thus, it’s imaginable that Prokopovych’s scholars or wisdom traveled the Atlantic and his experience discovered its strategy to them.
Translation
a – Board with slats
b – frames on board with slats
B – Prokopovych frames
Prokopovych died at 75 years of age in 1850, simply as American beekeeping used to be changing into extra industrialized. In Ukraine, they name Prokopvych the daddy of “rational beekeeping”. He’s neatly respected with a number of museums, institutes and memorials devoted to his legacy. Petro’s son named Stepan Velykdan larger Prokopovych’s apiary to be the biggest in Europe with allegedly over 12,000 beehives. Petro had married a peasant lady (Borovyk) and used to be no longer allowed to cross his surname to Stepan on account of Russian Imperial rules. Stepan used to be happy with the Ukrainian heritage his father had handed to him together with preserving and keeping up the Ukrainian language. The nice poet of Ukraine, Taras Shevchenko, is alleged to have visited Petro and may also have primarily based characters in his tale “The Twins” on that assembly. Right here in Ukraine, his legacy lives on as does the beekeeping business that helps to keep this country’s rural and concrete financial system rolling whilst at conflict. In Slovenia, the beehives within the bee homes appear to be a changed Prokopovych Hive. So, now while you bring to mind Ukraine, don’t suppose such a lot about conflict however what this country’s other folks and its affect at the interest and industry of beekeeping. Please bear in mind this humble and sort guy, Petro Prokopovych, and his contribution to an historic type of husbandry that such a lot of people know and love.
“…In order that essentially the most clever other folks via nature, who range from others in kindness, intelligence, diligence, perseverance and herbal inclination to bees, have been selected for the manager of bee farms. The collection of such human qualities may be very tough, but it surely will depend on God all additional luck.” —Petro Prokopovych
References:
В.Г КОРЧЕМНИЙ: До 220 – річчя з дня народження П.І. прокоповича ПРОКОПОВИЧ ПЕТРО ІВАНОВИЧ Тернопіль, “Поліграфіст”, 1995 (V. G. KORCHEMNY To the 220th anniversary of the delivery of P.I. Prokopovich PETRO IVANOVYCH PROKOPOVYCH Ternopil, “Polygraphist”, 1995)
https://nashi.engineeringweek.org.ua/english/tale/prokopovich.php
https://we.org.ua/kultura/narodni-remesla/istoriya-vynajdennya-vulyka-ukrayintsem-petrom-prokopovychem/#imageclose-4498 (In Ukrainian)
https://beeprofessor.com/petro-prokopovych/