MANUAL OF THE APIARY. 285 



at the time the invention is said to have been made, says : 

 " I will venture the prediction that both Quinby's hive and 

 mine will ere long be cast aside, to give place to a hive con- 

 structed in such a manner that the apiarian can have access 

 to every part of the hive at pleasure, without injury to the 

 colony. In this particular both Mr. Quinby and myself have 

 signally failed. The invention of such a hive was reserved 

 for Mr. Langstroth." It is significant that J. S. Harbison, 

 another brother, who was also with his father at the time, in 

 his '' Bee Culture," San Francisco, 1861, speaks of the Lang- 

 stroth hive, p. 149, but not of that of his brother. It has 

 also been claimed that W. A. Flanders, Martin Metcalf, 

 and Edward Townley, each invented this .hive prior to Mr. 

 Langstroth's invention. Yet, each of these gentlemen wrote 

 a book, in which no mention is made of such an invention. Well 

 might Mr. Langstroth say, "I can well understand what Job 

 meant when he said, '0 ! thatmyenemy had written a book.' " 

 It is also stated that Mr. A. F. Moon was a prior inventor of 

 this hive. Mr. Moon's own testimony, that he not only 

 abandoned his invention, being unable to secure straight 

 combs, but even forgot all about it, till it was discovered in 

 an old rubbish pile, shows that he did nothing that would, in 

 court, overthrow Mr. Langstroth's claims, or that in the least 

 conferred any benefit upon bee-keepers. Mr. Maxwell, of 

 Mansfield, Ohio, was another who is said to have anticipated 

 Mr. Langstroth. Yet Mr. Maxwell's own son swears that he 

 helped his father make all his hives, and that his father never 

 used a movable frame till after 1851. Solon Robinson thought 

 his brother, Dr. Robinson, of Jamaica Plains, near Boston, 

 made and used movable frame hives prior to 1852. The wife 

 of Dr. Robinson testified that her husband bought a right to 

 use the Langstroth hive, and with it made his first movable 

 frames. 



Every claim, both at home and abroad, to the invention of 

 a practical movable frame hive, prior to that of Mr. Lang- 

 stroth, when examined, is found to have no substantial foun- 

 dation. All previous hives were plainly inferior to the 

 improved Huber hive as described in Bevan, p. -106. It is a 

 sad blot upon American apiculture, that he who raised it to 

 ibe proud height which it occupies to-day, should have been 



