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HISTORY OF MOVABLE FRAMES. 



Movable frames have revolutionized bee-keeping, and so 

 out-rank the reaper and mower, and equal the cotton-gin. 

 Pew inventions have exerted so powerful an influence upon 

 the art which they serve. Their history will ever be a sub- 

 ject of exceeding interest to bee-keepers, and their inventor 

 worthy the highest regard as the greatest benefactor of our 

 art. In writing their history, I have no personal interest or 

 bias, and am only impelled by a love of truth and justice. I 

 am the more eager to write this history, as some of our 

 apiarists, and they among the best informed and most influ- 

 ential (American Bee Journal, vol. 14, p. 380), are misin- 

 formed in the premises. In obtaining the data for this 

 account, I am under many obligations to our great American 

 master in apiculture, Rev. L. L. Langstroth, whose thorough 

 knowledge and extensive library have been wholly at my 

 command. 



We are informed by George Wheeler, in his "Journey into 

 Grreece," published in 1682, page -111, that the Greeks had 

 partial control of the combs. " The tops" of the willow 

 hives "are covered with broad flat sticks. Along each of 

 these sticks the bees fasten their combs ; so that a comb may 

 be taken out whole." 



Swammerdam had no control of the comb, nor had Reau- 

 mur. The latter used narrow hives, which contained but two 

 combs ; but these were stationary. Huber was the first to 

 construct a hive which gave him control of the combs and 

 access to the interior of the hive. In August, 1879, Huber 

 wrote to Bonnet as follows : " I took several small fir boxes, 

 a foot square and fifteen lines wide, and joined them togethei^ 

 by hinges, so that they could be opened and shut like the 

 leaves of a book. When using a hive of this description, we 

 took care to fix a comb in each frame, and then introduced 

 all the bees."— (Edinburgh edition of Huber, p. 4). Although 



