306 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mak. 1 



price in fall, cellar them, and sell in spring? If 

 even half die, $1000 wouldn't be such bad pay 

 for hauling and wintering. 



Is THE SMELL in your cellar all right? If it 

 isn't, make it right. Get the bad air out and 

 good air in. somehow. Fire is a great sweeten- 

 er. Even when the cellar's too waim, a fire to 

 change the air will leave the bees quieter as 

 soon as it cools off. 



I don't like Hasty 's review in Revieiv—nt 

 least, not entirely. -To begin with, the type in 

 the headings is too lean and lank— looks as if 

 if needed to be fed up. In the next place— well, 

 in the next place every thing else is all right, 

 A 1, tip-top, just as I expected. 



Smokers, heretofore, have either had the cut- 

 off, or else sucked smoke into the bellows. The 

 Review illustrates Daggit's smoker with a dou- 

 ble bellows, like a blacksmith's, that throws a 

 continuous stream with no suck-back. Why 

 didn't .some one think of that before? 



The thermometer went up to 45° Feb. ;i7, 

 the highest for many weeks. If bees had been 

 out I think they would have flown a little, the 

 first time since the beginning of November, 

 and there was no really good flight after the 

 last week of October. But Feb. 38 it was down 

 again to 11°. 



LANGSTKOTH'S REMINISCENCES. 



GETTING THE MOVABLE FRAME INTRODUCED; 

 INVENTION OF THE HONEY -EXTRACTOR, ETC. 



In the spring of 1853, having disposed of the 

 good will of my school for young ladies, I gave 

 my whole attention to my apiary in West Phil- 

 adelphia. It was there that I gained the prac- 

 tical experience in the management of mova- 

 ble-frame hives which prepared me for writing 

 my first work on bees. Before the close of that 

 season I was so completely prostrated by an 

 unusually severe attack of my old head trouble 

 that I was not only unable to give any personal 

 attention to the bees, but could not even give 

 the necessary instructions to my assistant. This 

 compelled me to sell my bees, and abandon the 

 business for a season. As I glance back over 

 the past years, how often can I recall similar 

 experiences, when, in the heat of the race, and 

 sometimes with the goal of success apparently 

 almost gained. I have sunk down on the course, 

 unable to take another forward step I I write 

 these words with no disposition to murmur 

 against any of God's providential dealings with 

 me. I know that the Judge of all the earth 

 can not but do what is right. I look forward to 

 the time when all his dealings with us shall be 

 made plain, and desire humbly and lovingly to 

 use the words of the dear Savior, " Even so. 

 Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." 



The patent on my hive was issued Oct. 5, J853. 

 I then decided to leave my wife and our two 

 daughters in Philadelphia, the daughters to 

 attend a young ladies' school in which my wife 

 had accepted the position of assistant teacher, 

 while I made my residence in the family of my 

 brother-in-law, Mr. Almon Brainard. of (Jreen- 

 field, Mass. 



When I parted from my beloved wife, in No- 

 vember, 1853, the future was mercifully hidden 

 from me. I was to have no settled home for 

 nearly six years, and for more than three- 

 fourths of that time I was to be separated from 

 my dear ones! I had recovered from my head 

 trouble, and at once began to write mv book on 

 bees. The larger part of the manuscript was 

 sent, as fast as written, to my wife, to be copied 

 into a legible hand' for the printers; for in the 



ardor of composition I wrote a scrawl which 

 only she and I could decipher. 



With the pecuniary aid of my kind brother- 

 in-law, the sheets of a small edition of this 

 book were jirinted in Greenfield ; and in the 

 spring of 1853, " Ijangstroth on the Hive and 

 Honey-bee" was published by Hopkins, Bridg- 

 man it Co., of Northampton, Mass. What the 

 wife of Huber was to him in his blindness, my 

 dear wife was to me. Without her labors, out 

 of school hours, that winter, it would have been 

 impossible for me to prepare my work for the 

 press. Never once did she even intimate that 

 she was overtasked, and all her letters breathed 

 such an unselfish spirit as can be attained by 

 only the loftiest and purest characters. I shall 

 say no more, at this time, of this beloved com- 

 panion, than to put on record the fact that, in 

 our married life of over thirty-six years, I can 

 not recall a single experience in which I knew 

 her to seek her own happiness at the expense of 

 others. 



While residing in Philadelphia, although 

 without a pastoral charge, I preached probably 

 more than half of my Sabbaths; and when I 

 returned to New England I supplied the pulpit 

 of the Congregational Church in Colerain, near 

 Greenfield, the larger part of the time till the 

 fall of 1857. My wife and daughters spent their 

 school vacations in July and August with me 

 in Colerain, where our son was living very near 

 to us, working on a farm. Oh those happy re- 

 unions! Memory still loves todwell upon them. 

 Each one was a bright oasis in those long sepa- 

 rations ; for such a struggle was I compelled to 

 make to support my family, that I was seldom 

 able to make them more than one short visit a 

 year. 



When I determined to apply for a patent, as I 

 had neither the money nor the business qualifi- 

 cations needed for its profitable introduction, I 

 thought myself fortunate in being able to se- 

 cure the services of a firm which had been quite 

 successful in selling patents; but business re- 

 verses prevented them from carrying out our 

 agreement. While writing my book. Dr. Joseph 

 Beals, one of my former (Greenfield parishion- 

 ers, offered, for an interest in the invention, to 

 furnish means for the manufacture of the hives, 

 and for establishing an apiary. Dr. Beals was 

 a very able dentist, but without any experience 

 in patent matters or in bee-keeping,'while I was 

 frequently prostrated by the old head trouble. 

 Although much was done to introduce the mov- 

 able-comb hive to the public, we met with no 

 adequate pecuniary success ; and after some 

 years we closed up our business, without any 

 abatement of the old friendship, the doctor hav- 

 ing lost much time but no money by his venture. 



Having given, by a quotation from my private 

 journal, my belief of the results which would 

 flow from the invention of movable frames. I 

 shall now give an extract from the advertise- 

 ment inserted in my book, published in May, 

 1853: 



"l. l. langstroth's movable -comb hive, 

 patented oct. 5. 18.53. 



" Each comb in this hive is attached to a sep- 

 arate movable frame, and in less than five min- 

 utes they may all be taken out without cutting 

 or injuring, or at all enraging the bees. Weak 

 stocks may be quickly strengthened by helping 

 them to honey and maturing brood from strong- 

 er ones. Queenless colonies may be rescued 

 from certain ruin by supplying them with the 

 means of obtaining another queen, and the rav- 

 ages of the moth effectually prevented, as. at 

 any time, the hive may be readily examined, 

 and all the worms, etc., removed from the 

 combs. New colonies may be formed in less 

 time than is usually required to hive a natural 

 swarm ; or the hive may be used as a non- 



