Cathérine Elisabeth Vicat (née de Curtas 1712 Lausanne - 3 May 1772) was a Swiss naturalist. She made crucial contributions to the development of modern beekeeping in the 1760s. As one of the few beekeepers of the Enlightenment, she left written records, and articles and correspondence. Her work was quoted in numerous publications from the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Life
Cathérine Vicat's lived during the occupation of the Vaud by the city of Bern. Catherine Vicat's father, Jean-Pierre de Curtas, worked as a notary and was governor of Montheron , a town a few kilometers north of Lausanne on Lake Geneva. In 1741, she married Béat-Philippe Vicat (1715–1770), who became professor of law, and rector, at the Académie de Lausanne. The couple lived in a house with their own garden in Lausanne. Their son Philippe-Rodolphe (1742–1783) later became a doctor in Lausanne and Payerne and worked for several years as a scientific assistant for the polymath Albrecht von Haller.
On 9 June 1761, Cathérine Vicat acquired her first beehive , which she placed in her garden. In the following years she acquired additional bee colonies. She began to study them in detail, carried out experiments and worked on better construction of the hives . Vicat's approach was scientific by the standards of the time: in addition to the beehives in her garden, she had a bee house in Aigle, southeast of Lake Geneva. She kept strict notes of her observations and experiments. During the times when she couldn't be there herself, she commissioned a young farmer to observe. She called in a carpenter to construct hives and was in regular discussions with other beekeepers in the Lausanne region to exchange experiences.
Vicat published her results in 1764 and 1769 in the form of three articles in the treatises of the Economic Society of Bern (OGG) . She corresponded with the priest Jacques Antoine Henri Deleuze, who served as secretary of the OGG in Lausanne. In her research, she relied primarily on the fifth volume of René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur's Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire naturelle des insectes , which she frequently cited, as well as on the works of Guillaume Louis Formanoir de Palteau (1712 –1785) and Giacomo F. Maraldi.
Vicat is considered a pioneer of the Langstroth hive. Although this had already been developed in 1677 by the Englishman John Gedde (1647–1697), it was not until Vicat's improvements that this method attracted the attention of European, especially German, beekeepers. She developed horizontally extendable beehives that could be expanded laterally in the summer months. She also placed the beehives on wooden frames with a side flight opening, with a single module with two cross ribs each measuring 28 × 13 centimeters. In order to better observe the swarms, she also had beehives partially glazed. When it came to constructing the hives, Vicat experimented with different types of wood. She preferred softer and therefore warmer types of wood to make it easier for the bees to overwinter. She therefore used fir wood instead of oak .
Vicat also dealt intensively with pests in the beehive, such as lice and waxworms, and how to combat them . She recommended sprinkling the bees with fine Moroccan tobacco ash as an effective remedy against lice infestation . She also experimented with different construction methods for beehives in order to prevent pest infestation.
In July 1763 she reported to the OGG about her discovery of a sand pit with particularly high-quality clay, rich in smectite.
The British beekeeper Thomas Wildman (1734–1781) from Plymouth recognized her in his treatise A treatise on the management of bees, published in 1768. He initially characterized Vicat as a “very ingenious lady”, and later in the text noted that she was “already so justly commended" .