Amos Root

Amos Ives Root (1839–1923) developed innovative beekeeping techniques in the United States during the mid 1800s and founder of the A. I. Root Company; at the time, these played an important role in the local economies of many communities.

He began his career as a jewelry manufacturer and took up beekeeping in his twenties as a hobby. Among his major contributions was a method to harvest honey without destroying the beehive. He became a nationally- and internationally-known expert and a wealthy businessman. He lived and worked in Medina, Ohio.

Always enthusiastic about technology, he took great interest in the newly-invented automobile, purchasing an Oldsmobile Runabout in 1903. He held strong Christian beliefs, and wrote about his ideas and observations of contemporary society in his trade journal Gleanings in Bee Culture.

When he read sketchy newspaper reports about the Wright Brothers in early 1904, he decided to visit them and learn more. He drove his car nearly 200 miles on primitive roads to Dayton. On September 20, he witnessed Wilbur Wright fly the first complete circle by a heavier-than-air flying machine. He apparently also saw several other flights. Greatly enthusiastic about aviation, he delayed publishing an account of the flights in his magazine until the following January at the request of the Wrights. That article and followups he wrote were the only published eyewitness reports of Wright Brothers flights at Huffman Prairie, a pasture outside Dayton where the Wrights developed the first practical airplane. He offered his reports to Scientific American magazine, but was turned down.

In the late 1920s, his company transitioned to the manufacture of specialized candles for liturgical and other uses and continues in business to the present day.

External links

• Complete scan of "The ABC of bee culture" 1879 edition by A.I. Root