E. F. Phillips

Who was E. F. Phillips?

Everett Franklin Phillips was a renowned American apiculturist, scholar, and innovator in the beekeeping field.

Phillips’ interest in honey bees began during his graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania in the early 1900s, after which he took on a position with the United States Department of Agriculture where he spearheaded efforts to bring the U.S. beekeeping industry to modern scientific standards. Not only did this work help beekeeping practitioners and scholars, it also played a part in the 400% increase in commercial honey production that Phillips oversaw during World War I.

In 1924, Phillips joined the faculty of Cornell University as professor of apiculture. There, together with long-time friend and major U.S. apiculturist E. R. Root, he worked to establish a world-class beekeeping library. An endowment fund started by the New York State Beekeepers’ Association, supplemented with proceeds from the Dyce Honey Patent—an innovation in the production of creamed honey patented by Elton J. Dyce, also of Cornell—made possible the purchase of new library acquisitions over the years. The E. F. Phillips Beekeeping Collection, housed at the A. R. Mann Library at Cornell University, is today one of the largest beekeeping libraries in the world, containing some of the oldest existing beekeeping treatises, complete collections of writings by famed apiculturists such as L. L. Langstroth and Moses Quinby, and an ever-growing number of new publications. Phillips and his wife Mary Geisler Phillips, continued to work at expanding the beekeeping library at Cornell until his death in 1951.