226 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



movable comb hive, invented and patented by Rev. L. L. Lang- 

 stroth. In this hive all the comb is built in movable frames, 

 which are suspended from the upper part of the hive, and can 

 be taken out and replaced with the utmost facility. Every one 

 acquainted with bees knows that, if left to themselves, they 

 build their combs in a very irregular manner ; but in this hive 

 the combs are built with perfect regularity. We can have them 

 made of any thickness, but it is best to have them all of one 

 thickness, so that we may change them from one hive to another. 

 Thus, if we find in the month of November that one swarm 

 has not honey enough to carry them through the winter, we can 

 take two or three frames from a hive that has a surplus and put 

 them in the weak hive in place of their empty frames. If we 

 wish to make a swarm at the proper season, we take a few 

 frames containing brood comb with the bees adhering, and put 

 them in a new hive ; and if we wish for more bees, shake a few 

 from other frames, and we have a new swarm, as bees will never 

 leave brood comb. They immediately raise a queen and go on 

 with their work. To mention all the advantages of this hive 

 would require considerable space ; we think any bee-keeper 

 examining it will be convinced that it is the hive. Langstroth, 

 in his very valuable book, the " Hive and Honey Bee," gives 

 sixty-one reasons why he considers his hive an improvement on 

 the old-fashioned hive ; among them is his facility for getting rid 

 of the moth. All we have to do when we find indications of 

 this pest is to open the hive, take out the frames till we find the 

 interloper, cut out all the comb infected, return the comb to 

 the hive, and the work is done. But we need not enlarge our 

 remarks on this hive ; any intelligent person can see at once 

 the advantages of a perfect control of the combs. There are 

 other hives with movable frames, but they are all modifications 

 of Langstroth ; to him we believe belongs the invention of the 

 movable comb hive, although about the same time, a Prussian 

 clergyman of the name of Dzierzon invented a movable comb 

 hive, yet not as simple as Langstroth's ; neither had any knowl- 

 edge of the other. To show the estimation in which Dzierzon's 

 system is held in Germany, we give an extract from the 

 Leipsic Illustrated Almanac, Report on Agriculture, 1846 : — 

 " Bee culture is no longer regarded as of any importance in 

 rural economy." 



