182 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. is 



perature remained liquid. As this is so 

 contrary to the teachings, I thought I would 

 mention it. J. F. Orishaw. 



Hastings, Ont., Jan. 25. 



[Whj-, friend O.. this is certainly con- 

 trary to all my experience. I should ha.ve 

 said what you kept in a warm room might 

 candy or it might not; but that exposed to 

 a zero temperature I should have felt sure 

 would cand\' hard and solid. Has anj'body 

 else had a similar experience? — A. I. R.] 



LANGSTROTH'S INVENTION OF THE BEE=SPACED 

 MOVABLE FRAME. 



His Claims of Priority Well Established ; the Cruel 



Persecution that was Waged Against him 



Years Ago. 



BY H. J. O. WALKER. 



Mr. Root: — I subscribe to Gleanings 

 through the British Bee Journal, and I am 

 now trjing to obtain a little information 

 from you. Kindly read the following ex- 

 tract, translated from "Nouveau Manuel 

 complet du Proprietaire d'Abeille, etc.," by 

 A. Martin. Paris, 1828. 



BLAKE'S HIVE. 



This hive is used with trmch success iu America It 

 consi ts of a square box, of whxh tlie upper T^art is a 

 hinged cover. At about two-thirds of the height of the 

 box is a horizontal partition formtdof small bars ouK' 

 three lines i/'j inth) apart. C)n this partition are 

 placed lectanculdr bottomless boses, shaped like a 

 drawer, in s^ifficient number to fill all the space above 

 it. The cover is tlien shut down. To take honey, the 

 boxes are removed by means of rings attached to their 

 upper face, when fresli boxes can be substituted. 



Buzairies, in his "Hives Ancient and 

 Modern," Par s, 1863, page 40, inserts the 

 above extract from Martin, introducing it 

 as follows: "To find the first example of 

 a frame hive with two stories, we must 

 seek it in the New World. Blake appears 

 to have been its inventor." He gives in 

 illustration a sketch of a hive , apparently 

 drawn to suit Martin's description. Mar- 

 tin gave no illustration. 



The substance of the above quotation 

 from Martin also appeared in Italian in 

 the Florence Journal of Science in 1825. 



I want you to be kind enough to inform 

 me from your own knowledge, or from those 

 who ought to know, whether there was any 

 published authority on your side of the At- 

 lantic ; and, if so, what, for this description 

 of Blake's partition super hive? You are 

 well aware how, when the validity of 

 Langstroth's patent was in question, any 

 thing previously in use in the nature of a 

 frame hive, such as those of Prokopovilsb, 

 Munn, etc., was freely discussed; but I 

 have sought in vain for any mention of 

 Blake in the journals of the period. I am 

 unwilling to believe that Martin was draw- 

 ing on his imagination. Will you, then, 

 help me in this matter in which I am par- 

 ticularly interested? I can think of no one 

 else so likely to be able to do so. 



Leeford, Eng., Dec. 12. 



[We have copies of all the patents that 

 have been issued on any thing pertaining 

 to bee culture in the United States. No 

 American patent touching the subject of 

 hives or bee culture in general was issued 

 before 1831; and it is surprising how large 

 a number were introduced during that year, 

 indicating that there might have been a 

 general awakening about that time. But 

 Mr. Blake's name does not appear among 

 these early applicants. 



I have recently been over the subject in 

 the old volumes of the Aniericati Bee Jour- 

 nal, reading with considerable interest (and 

 disgust) the cruel controversy that arosedur- 

 ingthe late60's and early 70"s over the validi- 

 ty of the Langstroih patent covering the use 

 of movable frames, and assailing Lang- 

 stroth's personal honor and integrity as well. 

 His opponents searched the world over for 

 some scrap of a description antedating the 

 principles set forth iu the orig-inal Lang- 

 stroth patent. While they referred freely to 

 Munn, Prolvopovitsh, Berlepsch, Dzierzon, 

 and Debeauvoys, and perhaps half a dczen 

 others, no mention, sofar as I am aware, w'as 

 made of this man Blake. 



From the meager description you have 

 furnished, there is no evidence to show that 

 he in any wise anticipated the Langstroth 

 patent; for it must be ur;derstood that Mr. 

 Langstroth did not claim to invent movable 

 frames; but he did claim to invent the first 

 practical frame for handling bees. His 

 patent covered the principle of a bee-space 

 around the frame, top. sides, and bottom, 

 and a bee-space between the frames, the 

 same supported by a projection or a con- 

 tinuation of the top bar in such a way that 

 any one of them could be removed without 

 tearing or breaking loose the propolis con- 

 nections between the hive and frame except 

 at the small point of contact in the rabbet 

 where the frame was supported. 



In later years, I think about 1886 or '7, 

 the late Charles Dadant went over this 

 whole ground again. No man was better 

 posted on this subject than he, for he was 

 cotemporary with Langstroth ai;d all the 

 early writers when this subject came up in 

 the early days. After a full and thorough 

 investigation based on new developments he 

 gave it as his opinion that no one had an- 

 ticipated Langstroth in his invention of a 

 bee-spaced movable frame. This opinion 

 is concurred in, I believe, now by all the 

 best writers in Europe, prominent among 

 whom may be named Thomas W. Cowan, 

 editor of the British Bee Journal, who prob- 

 ably has a larger library relating to bees 

 than any other person in the world. In this 

 connection I might remark that we have 

 here at our own office a ver}' complete li- 

 brary of old bee books, some of them so old 

 that thej^ go clear back to the time of the 

 first printed translation of the Bible in Eng- 

 lish. In not one of these old volumes is 

 there mention made of a frame that embod- 

 ied the principle of the original Langstroth 

 frame patented in 1852. 



It is one of the burning shames that so 



