Leopold Gombocz

Leopold Gombocz (1898)

Leopold Gombocz (different spelling Gombotz ; * 1875 in Károlyfa , then Hungary; † 1943 in Laafeld , Styria ) was an Austro-Hungarian large beekeeper . He is considered to be the pioneer of bee migration by rail and one of the pioneers of the "artificial reproduction" of bee colonies .

Life

School time, training, military service, start of beekeeping

Leopold Gombocz was born in the then Hungarian village of Károlyfa, which today belongs to Slovenia and, under the current place name Korovci, is part of the Slovenian border community of Cankova . He attended the elementary school in Vashidegkút (today the village of Cankova in the municipality of the same name) and the monastery school in Wernsee (today Veržej , Slovenia). He then attended the seminary in Steinamanger (Hungarian Szombathely , Hungary), but broke off the training there after a short time. He then did an apprenticeship as a carpenter at the Kurahs carpenter's workshop in Pridahof near Radkersburg , completed two years of military service in Steinamanger ( Szombathely ) and Raab ( Győr in Hungarian , Hungary), then worked again as a carpenter and became a master carpenter.

In 1903 Gombocz acquired a small farm in the village of Laafeld, which is located near Radkersburg and at that time belonged to Cisleithanien . He worked there as a beekeeper ; the operation of his beekeeping and the sale of honey can be proven from 1904. The Radkersburg district  - which at that time already had " the greatest density of bees after Graz " and also "had the largest proportion of large beekeepers " - is still considered to be the "bee land" of Styria ".

The farm and beekeeping were located on the Laafeld 21 property . A new residential building built by Gombocz on the same property in 1924 was given the house number Laafeld 77 , which the municipality has continuously assigned . Building No. 21 was demolished in 1976 and replaced by a new residential building, which was given No. 76. Today the property has the location name Laafeld 76-77 and belongs to the Austrian municipality of Radkersburg Umgebung , which encloses the area of ​​the municipality of Bad Radkersburg ( 46 ° 41 ′ 19.94 ″  N , 16 ° 0 ′ 19.13 ″  E ).

Large apiary Leopold Gombocz

Advertising postcard of the "Large apiary Leopold Gombotz, Laafeld near Radkersburg" (1909)

Bee migration by train with the beehives developed by Leopold Gombocz (1921)

Gombocz quickly expanded his business in Laafeld into a large apiary. He built on his own farm several bee huts and houses , such as, among others, a large apiary in half-timbered and part solid construction that can accommodate a total of about 170  bee colonies offered. There were three by 24 beehives on the ground floor of the elongated building  and around 100 hives on the upper floor. These were the back- treatment hives that were common at the time and were served inside the building from the rear.

However, Gombocz mainly operated large-scale bee migration by railroad. After he initially for the purpose of yield increase its traditional hives or hives even as other beekeepers by horse and cart to new pastures with just blooming bee honey plants had transported, he soon developed special transport dwellings made of wood. He benefited from his knowledge as a master carpenter. For example, he built so-called beehives , in which around 50 colonies of bees could be housed and transported in the form of beehives closed during transport . As one of the first beekeepers and bee wagon manufacturers, Gombocz developed and manufactured mobile dwellings based on the construction principle of swap bodies , which could be pulled on special chassis by horses or loaded onto freight cars separately from the chassis and thus transported by rail.

For loading, the superstructures were lifted with levers and pushed onto the freight wagons by hand with the help of rollers. The chassis, which now have no body, could be transported separately. The rail transport made it possible to migrate to a new area with the complete apiary , even over longer distances , in which the bees were offered a more affordable costume . During the hiking periods, the dwellings were partly on the chassis and could be easily moved. The dwellings were equipped with back-treatment hives on both long sides, so that several colonies could be stacked on top of each other. All floors of the floor were accessible directly from behind via an inner central aisle.

Since the advent of freight transport with the rapidly developing railway in the 19th century, it has also been used for transporting bees in various European countries and in Russia . Until the beginning of the 20th century, however, mostly only individual beehives or a few bee colonies were transported "by rail" and not "by axle" (horse-drawn cart). Gombocz was one of the first beekeepers to use the new means of transport for bee migration with a large part of their bee colonies or even their entire population.

So within a short time he used a total of four of the beehives he had developed, with which he could transport around 200 bee colonies to another location by rail. The transports were mainly to the town of Pernegg an der Mur , around 140 kilometers away , which is located in the northern, mountainous and wooded part of Styria and near Bruck an der Mur in Upper Styria . In Pernegg he had bought a piece of land near the train station. From then on, after the local spring costume and the hurling out of honey, the bee colonies were taken by train to Pernegg, where the spring costume that began later and then the forest honey costume was obtained. From August on, they went back to their home district of Radkersburg to get buckwheat honey there.

In addition, Gombocz promoted the production of acacia honey , which is harvested from black locust trees and forests (false acacias, Robinia pseudoacacia L. ) by promoting the planting of black locusts to the farmers in the area and giving away black locust plants and honey in return. In addition, he planted almost only robinia in his own forest area of around 1.5  hectares . Acacia honey - which is light in color, remains liquid for a long time and has a weak but sweet aroma - was very popular then as now, so that Gombocz wanted to win as much pseudo acacia costume as possible. In 1914, for example, he offered his honey harvest as “guaranteed real acacia honey this year, very light”, the 5 kg can for “8.50  crowns ”.

When the First World War broke out in 1914, Gombocz had a total of 400 peoples. He was drafted and took part in the war as a soldier. As a result of the war-related shortage of labor and sugar , which was needed to feed the bees before winter, almost all of the bee colonies of his beekeeping perished during the war. On his return he found only four living races. However, he managed to rebuild his bee population without buying anything. He used a special method, which he helped to develop, for "artificial population reproduction":

"The colonies, powerfully strengthened in the rapeseed costume , had to give up all the brood with the bees sitting on it and only kept the old mother and the flying bees with at most a little open brood between the middle walls ."

- Maryan Alber : Styrian memories , in: Bienenwelt No. 1, 1959

The other removed honeycombs with attached bees were divided so that at least four to five small offshoots were created, each of which received a queen cell that was ready to hatch . With the peoples thus divided, Gombocz then migrated from Laafeld to Upper Styria, where they already grew into good peoples in June and were mostly divided up again in the same way by him. If it was necessary, he helped with feeding, but usually these second offshoots became so strong on their own that they brought in at least a large part of the winter fodder themselves in August after they returned to their home apiary . This "violent [...] reconstruction" brought him hardly a honey harvest, but "the increase in value through the new colonies [...] [exceeded] by far the profit from the usual beekeeping". In 1921 Gombocz already had a population of 250 bee colonies again, which he subsequently expanded.

Company size, products

Advertisement for buckwheat honey (1925)

Advertising signs for awards at the autumn fair in Graz in 1913

With a population of mostly 400 bee colonies, at peak times of up to 500, Gombocz was one of the largest commercial beekeepers in both Styria and Austria at the time . Today, the average number of full-time beekeepers in Austria and Germany is around 200 to 400 colonies, and of the only a few dozen full-time beekeepers in today's Austria with more than 200 colonies, only individual farms have a population of more than 1,000 colonies.

Gombocz not only sold honey to the trade and by post to end consumers, but also beeswax , self-made dividing walls , queen cells and even entire bee colonies to other beekeepers. Because of his bee migrations, he was able to offer a wide range of honey, which mainly included acacia , buckwheat , linden and forest honey (dark "Alpine forest honey").

He attached great importance to the purity of the variety , aroma and quality of his honey and regularly took part in performance shows and trade fairs . For example, at the Styrian Honey Show, which was held in 1910 as part of a beekeeping exhibition to celebrate the 80th birthday of Emperor Franz Joseph I at the time of the Graz Autumn Fair , Gombocz was awarded a gold medal and a diploma for the by the Styrian Beekeeping Association The honey presented to him (for special quality) was awarded. The original certificate of the diploma was restored in 2008 and is now in the Regional Museum Museum in the old armory in Bad Radkersburg .

Among other things, Gombocz took part in the 1st Alpine Agricultural Exhibition at the Graz Autumn Fair in 1913, where he also won awards for his honeys. In this context he made advertising with so-called special occasion brands ; small seals or signets made of metal foil paper with embossed printing on both sides, which were replicas of the awarded gold, silver and bronze medals in miniature versions and were used in a similar way to advertising stamps .

Memberships, profession

Beekeeping meeting in Leopold Gombocz's large apiary in Laafeld (1930)

Gombocz was a member of beekeeping and beekeeping associations, such as the Styrian Beekeeping Association based in Graz , and was committed to his profession and beekeeping. Almost every year he organized beekeeping meetings, including a farm tour, on his farm in Laafeld. In addition, his large apiary was often visited and inspected by colleagues because of its innovative operation; after the so-called " annexation " of Austria to the German Reich in 1938 also by beekeepers from Germany .

family

Leopold Gombocz married Theresia Gabor (* 1884) in 1903, who came from Bogojina (Hungarian: Bagonya ) in the Prekmurje region in what was then Hungary. The couple had ten children; his wife died in 1929. After a serious illness, Gombocz died in 1943. His son Ferdinand Gombocz (1919–2010) worked in his father's beekeeping and continued it after his father's death. His son, the second of five children - and grandson of Leopold Gombocz - is a scholar of religion and philosophy as well as a university professor. R. ( University of Graz ) Wolfgang Leopold Gombocz (* 1946).

Awards and honors

Gold Medal Diploma - Styrian Honey Show at the Graz Autumn Fair 1910

• 1910: Gold medal and diploma for issued honey (for special quality) in the Styrian honey show the bees economic exhibition , the celebration of the 80th birthday of Emperor Franz Joseph I. on the Graz Autumn Fair 1910 held
• 1913: Awards for honeys on display at the 1st Alpine Agricultural Exhibition at the Graz Autumn Fair in 1913

literature

• Maryan Alber : Styrian memories. In: World of bees. The specialist journal for the contemporary beekeeper , published by Leopold Stocker Verlag , Graz, 1959, issue No. 1, ISSN  0006-2146 , p. 151 ff.
• Recommended literature including an excerpt from the specialist article Styrian memories (by Maryan Alber in the Bienenwelt , No. 1, p. 151); contained in the section: Beekeeping including bee (care) textbooks , in: Ludwig Armbruster u. Hugo von Buttel-Reepen (Hrsg.): Archive for apiculture. Journal for bee knowledge and bee management (AfB) , Volume 36. Verlag Deutscher Imkerbund, Bad Godesberg 1959, ISSN  0003-8954 , p. 89 ( excerpt from Google Books ).

Web links

Commons : Leopold Gombocz  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Cf. information on an "Inquiry [from Leopold Gombotz] of October 5, 1904, regarding the regulations for setting up a beehive " as well as an advertisement for the sale of honey in the specialist journal Der Steirische Bienenvater , published by the Steiermärkischer Bienenzuchtverein , Graz, booklet No. 1, 1904, ZDB -ID 512356-2 , p. 88 ( excerpt from Google Books ).
2. ↑ See report Die Steirische Bienenzucht in the specialist journal Der Österreichische Beekeeper , published by the Austrian Beekeeping Association , Vienna, Issue No. 1, 1953, ISSN  0471-0592 , pp. 7 ff.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} See images of the earlier advertising postcards from the former "Large apiary Leopold Gombotz, LAAFELD near Radkersburg" , from 1909 and 1921.
4. ↑ ^{a b c} See information on the beehive museum exhibit from Ohmden on the website of the Beuren Open-Air Museum (Baden-Württemberg, Germany); accessed on January 13, 2014.
5. ↑ Cf.: Alois Alfonsus: General textbook of beekeeping. Moritz Perles Verlag, Vienna 1905, p. 438 ff.
6. ↑ See specialist article by Maryan Alber: Styrian memories (about beekeeping in Styria ) in the specialist journal Bienenwelt. The specialist journal for the contemporary beekeeper , published by Leopold Stocker Verlag , Graz, 1959, issue No. 1, ISSN  0006-2146 , p. 151 ff.
7. ↑ ^{a b} See honey sales advertisements in the specialist journal Bienenvater , published by the Austrian Beekeeping Association , Vienna, issue No. 46–47, 1914, ISSN  0006-2146 , pp. 46, 186, 212 ( excerpt from Google Books ).
8. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} See technical article by Maryan Alber: Styrian memories (about beekeeping in Styria ) in the specialist journal Bienenwelt. The specialist journal for contemporary beekeepers , published by Leopold Stocker Verlag, Graz, 1959, issue No. 1–3, ISSN  0006-2146 , p. 152 ff. ( Excerpt from Google Books );
   (Excerpted quote: “In Laafeld near Radkersburg, Gombotz lived with hundreds of colonies of bees, a true grand master in artificial population reproduction. During the First World War he had to go far as a soldier; his wife was too weak for the 400 colonies and so everything went miserably to the ground When the poor man came back he found only four living peoples. But when I visited him for the first time in 1921, he had come back to 250 without any additional purchases. He did it like this: The peoples, who had become very strong in their rapeseed costume, had to go with all the brood to give away to the bees sitting there and only kept the old mother and the flying bees with at most a little open brood between the middle walls. [...] To this day I have not been able to learn much from anyone about artificial reproduction. If I found similar art elsewhere, then almost always did it exactly like Gombotz. " ).
9. ↑ See: Chamber of Agriculture Westphalia-Lippe : Diversity from the farm. Earnings and income combinations in agriculture. Chamber of Agriculture Westphalia-Lippe, Münster 2005, pp. 176–181 / Section: 4.6.7 Beekeeping ( freely available online on the website of the North Rhine-Westphalia Chamber of Agriculture ; PDF, 24 kB).
10. ↑ See Kurt Russmann: Beekeeping as a job - the dream of a "sweet life". In: Natural history station of the city of Linz (ed.): ÖKO.L magazine for ecology, nature and environmental protection. Year 8, Issue 2–3, Linz 1986, ISSN  0003-6528 , pp. 28–40 ( PDF on ZOBODAT , accessed on January 16, 2014).
11. ↑ ^{a b} See honey sales advertisement in the specialist journal Bienenvater , published by the Austrian Beekeeping Association , Vienna, issue No. 63, 1931, ISSN  0006-2146 , p. 112 ( excerpt from Google Books ).
12. ↑ . See details and illustrations in virtual Reklamemarke archive ( Memento of the original August 29, 2012 at the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link is automatically inserted and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. by Prof. Dr. Günter Schweiger at the Vienna University of Economics and Business ; Search help: on the linked website, go to the search menu , enter the following alternative entries in the full-text search: "Alpine-Ländische Landwirtschaftliche Ausstellung" (= search result: "Miniature version of the silver medal") or "Alpenländische Landwirtschaftliche Ausstellung" (= search results: miniature versions of the " Bronze "and" gold medal "); accessed on January 22, 2014. 
13. ↑ ^{a b} See information on Gombocz, Wolfgang L. at the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SAZU), as of October 2012; Slovenian / German, accessed on January 13, 2014.
14. ↑ See honey sales advertisement in the trade journal Bienenvater , published by the Austrian Beekeeping Association , Vienna, issue No. 100-101, 1979, ISSN  0006-2146 , p. 53 ( excerpt from Google Books ).
15. ↑ Obituary for Ferdinand Gombocz ( Memento of the original from January 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the part of the Styrian Regional Association in the Austrian Beekeeping Association , published in Verbandsnachrichten , edition 9/2010, column 15; PDF, accessed January 13, 2014. 
16. ↑ Quotation from: Archiv für Bienenkunde , Volume 36, 1959, p. 89: “We are shown several capable beekeepers, especially GOMBOTZ, Radkersburg. He lost 400 peoples due to his absence in the war. 4 peoples survived. He brought it back to 250 surprisingly quickly through small offshoots (queen cells ready to hatch). "