Dadant and Sons

For over 150 years, Dadant and Sons has produced and sold the best beekeeping supplies & equipment available to beekeepers throughout the world. Whether you’re an experienced beekeeper or a new hobbyist, we can provide you with the proper equipment and information you need to be a successful beekeeper.

The Dadant family has been interested in beekeeping for over 180 years. The founder, Charles Dadant, was born in 1817 in Vaux-Sous-Aubigny, a small village in eastern France, the second of seven children born to a small village doctor. He became interested in bees as he helped a neighboring priest remove honey from straw skeps at the early age of 12. Disillusioned with the business possibilities in France, he decided to accept an invitation of an old friend Mr. Marlot, then of Basco, IL, to come grow Champagne grapes and raise bees. In 1863, at the age of 46, he emigrated from France to America and settled in Hamilton, Illinois. The growing of grapes here did not prove to be lucrative, so he abandoned them in favor of honey bees. By the end of the Civil War, Charles had nine colonies of honeybees, and traveled with his young son, C.P. Dadant across the Mississippi River to sell honey and beeswax in a neighboring town. His interest in making quality candles grew from his love and knowledge of beekeeping.

Charles was once the largest producer of extracted honey in America as well as one of the first to import queen bees from Italy on a large scale as he was unhappy with the common black or German bees he found here. He began a series of experiments on the size of hives and wrote a great deal on the large hive that appeared in both American and European journals. In 1872, he was offered the editorship of The American Bee Journal, but refused because of his unfamiliarity with the English language. He learned to read the New York Tribune by digging at the words one at a time with a pocket dictionary so that he could then translate it back into French for his wife.

Charles was a dreamer, a man with ideas and determination. He was the experimenter who became more widely known abroad than in his adopted country.

With the recent addition of Gabe Dadant (6th generation) and Matt Ross (7th generation) to the company, the family tradition will continue well into the future. Both of these young men are learning the different aspects of running the business. The company continues to remain the largest manufacturer of beekeeping supplies and is still a believer that “it pays to furnish good goods.”

  • Listing ID: 2836
Contact details

51 South 2nd Street, Hamilton, IL, 62341, United StatesNorth America,Global,62341 Show phone number ***** https://www.dadant.com/

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