Charles Dadant (20 May 1817–26 July 1902) was a French-American
beekeeperA beekeeper is a person who keeps honey bees for the purposes of securing commodities such as honey, beeswax, pollen; pollinating fruits and vegetables; raising queens and bees for sale to other farmers; and/or for purposes satisfying natural scientific curiosity...
. Dadant is considered one of the founding fathers of modern
beekeepingBeekeeping is the maintenance of honey bee colonies, commonly in hives, by humans. A beekeeper keeps bees in order to collect honey and beeswax, to pollinate crops, or to produce bees for sale to other beekeepers. A location where bees are kept is called an apiary.-Origins:There are more than...
.
Dadant was born in
Vaux-sous-AubignyVaux-sous-Aubigny is a commune in the Haute-Marne department in north-eastern France. It is the natal village of beekeeper Charles Dadant.-See also:*Communes of the Haute-Marne department...
, in
Haute-MarneHaute-Marne is a department in the northeast of France named after the Marne River.-History:Haute-Marne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Champagne, Burgundy, Lorraine and Franche-ComtéIn...
, in the
Champagne-ArdenneChampagne-Ardenne is one of the 26 regions of France. It is located in the northeast of the country, bordering Belgium, and consists of four departments: Aube, Ardennes, Haute-Marne, and Marne. The region is famous for its sparkling white wine ....
region of
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
.
In 1863, at age forty-six, he moved to America, with dreams of starting a vineyard. Dadant purchased land on the rolling tallgrass
prairiePrairies are considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type...
in
HamiltonHamilton is a city in Hancock County, Illinois, United States. The population was 3,029 at the 2000 census. The city is located directly across the Mississippi River from Keokuk, Iowa. Hamilton is the largest city in Hancock County.-About Hamilton:...
, western Illinois, where he built a simple log house.
After paying for his family to come to America from France and buying a farm, he was penniless.
Charles Dadant (20 May 1817–26 July 1902) was a French-American
beekeeperA beekeeper is a person who keeps honey bees for the purposes of securing commodities such as honey, beeswax, pollen; pollinating fruits and vegetables; raising queens and bees for sale to other farmers; and/or for purposes satisfying natural scientific curiosity...
. Dadant is considered one of the founding fathers of modern
beekeepingBeekeeping is the maintenance of honey bee colonies, commonly in hives, by humans. A beekeeper keeps bees in order to collect honey and beeswax, to pollinate crops, or to produce bees for sale to other beekeepers. A location where bees are kept is called an apiary.-Origins:There are more than...
.
Biography
Dadant was born in
Vaux-sous-AubignyVaux-sous-Aubigny is a commune in the Haute-Marne department in north-eastern France. It is the natal village of beekeeper Charles Dadant.-See also:*Communes of the Haute-Marne department...
, in
Haute-MarneHaute-Marne is a department in the northeast of France named after the Marne River.-History:Haute-Marne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Champagne, Burgundy, Lorraine and Franche-ComtéIn...
, in the
Champagne-ArdenneChampagne-Ardenne is one of the 26 regions of France. It is located in the northeast of the country, bordering Belgium, and consists of four departments: Aube, Ardennes, Haute-Marne, and Marne. The region is famous for its sparkling white wine ....
region of
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
.
In 1863, at age forty-six, he moved to America, with dreams of starting a vineyard. Dadant purchased land on the rolling tallgrass
prairiePrairies are considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type...
in
HamiltonHamilton is a city in Hancock County, Illinois, United States. The population was 3,029 at the 2000 census. The city is located directly across the Mississippi River from Keokuk, Iowa. Hamilton is the largest city in Hancock County.-About Hamilton:...
, western Illinois, where he built a simple log house.
After paying for his family to come to America from France and buying a farm, he was penniless. He did not know a word of English, but he was determined to succeed in his new country. When his dreams of being a vintner were not fulfilled, he turned to beekeeping, a hobby he had learned in France.
Dadant learned English by subscribing to the
New York TribuneThe New York Tribune was an American newspaper, first established by Horace Greeley in 1841, which was long considered one of the leading newspapers in the United States...
. While working as a traveling salesman in France he educated himself. As his horse would plod along, Dadant would read the works of the French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and the theories of the socialist
Charles FourierFrançois Marie Charles Fourier was a French utopian socialist and philosopher. Fourier is credited by modern scholars with having originated the word féminisme in 1837; as early as 1808, he had argued, in the Theory of the Four Movements, that the extension of the liberty of women was the general...
.
He renounced the Catholic Church and became a socialist. When he moved to America he modeled his beekeeping business on socialist principles by working alongside his employees.
By the end of the
American Civil WarThe American Civil War , also known as the War Between the States and several other names, was a civil war in the United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America...
he had nine colonies of honeybees, and traveled with his young son across the
Mississippi RiverThe Mississippi River is the second longest river in the United States, with a length of from its source in Lake Itasca in Minnesota to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico....
to sell
honeyHoney is a sweet food made by some insects using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans...
and
beeswaxBeeswax is a natural wax produced in the bee hive of honey bees of the genus Apis. Worker bees have eight wax-producing mirror glands on the inner sides of the sternites on abdominal segments 4 to 7...
in a neighboring town. His interest in making quality candles grew from his love and knowledge of beekeeping.
He invented the Dadant bee-hive, which has a 42 × 26.6 cm frame and founded in Hamilton one of the first factory of bee-keeping tools. The Dadant factory is still owned by the Dadant family.
He contributed articles on beekeeping to numerous bee journals, both American and European. Dadant acquired
The American Bee Journal and Dadant and Sons have published it since. He translated
LangstrothRev. Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth , apiarist, clergyman and teacher, is considered the "Father of American Beekeeping."L. L. Langstroth was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
's
The Hive and the Honey-Bee into French so the rest of the world would learn of Langstroth's contributions to beekeeping.
He strived to import Italian bees into the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and, according to
ABC in Bee Culture 1890, he succeeded by shipping 250
queen beeThe term queen bee is typically used to refer to an adult, mated female that lives in a honey bee colony or hive; she is usually the mother of all the bees in the hive. The queens are developed from larvae selected by worker bees and specially fed in order to become sexually mature...
s to the United States in 1874. He was not the first to bring Italian queens into the United States, selling for up to half the price ($12) asked by his competitors.
He was always seeking a better way to keep bees. Just as he had begun with the old European "eke" he quickly abandoned that kind of beekeeping for the modern
Langstroth hiveThe Langstroth bee hive is the standard beehive used in many parts of the world for bee keeping. The advantage of the Langstroth hive over hives previous to its invention on October 30, 1851, is that the bees build honeycomb into frames, which can be moved with little trouble because the frames are...
concept. Bee hives have often been designed and built without regard for the needs and habits of the honey bee colony. Probably the best design for a colony was the large hive developed by Charles Dadant. It provided a large, deep brood chamber with plenty of room in which the queen could lay, and shallower supers for honey storage. However, the price and promotion of smaller hives offered for sale during the period from about 1885 to 1900 made them more popular.
Charles Dadant died in
HamiltonHamilton is a city in Hancock County, Illinois, United States. The population was 3,029 at the 2000 census. The city is located directly across the Mississippi River from Keokuk, Iowa. Hamilton is the largest city in Hancock County.-About Hamilton:...
in 1902.
He had one son, Camille Pierre Dadant (1851-1938).
In 1978, The Center for Icarian Studies (
Western Illinois UniversityWestern Illinois University is a public university founded in 1899 as Western Illinois State Normal School. Like many similar institutions of the time, Western Illinois State Normal School focused on teacher training for its relatively small body of students. As the normal school grew, it became...
) received from the Dadant family a collection of papers consisting of biographical information,
Life and Writings of Charles Dadant by C.P. Dadant and
The Life of C.P. Dadant, by M.G. Dadant.
External links