Burton N. (Burton Noble) Gates

Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, Burton Noble Gates (1881–1972) was an American beekeeper, teacher, and researcher whose work centered on apiculture. Archival and biographical records describe him as educated at Clark University, where he earned his Ph.D., and as a lecturer on apiculture at the Massachusetts Agricultural College before becoming an associate professor there.

Gates also played an important public role in Massachusetts beekeeping. Cornell’s biographical record notes that he was appointed the state’s first apiary inspector in 1911, linking his academic work with efforts to improve bee health and beekeeping practice more broadly.

He wrote practical and scientific works on bees and beekeeping, including The Temperature of the Bee Colony and Some of the Essentials of Beekeeping. A surviving archival collection at the University of Guelph—containing correspondence, photographs, pamphlets, journals, and other apiculture material—suggests the depth of his long engagement with the study and teaching of honey bees.