22 THE BOOK OF THE HONEY BEE 



keeping by laying open to our inspection what had 

 hitherto been a sealed book ; though from time to time 

 attempts had been made to construct hives, the combs of 

 which could be removed for examination and replaced at 

 pleasure. 



The earliest step was the introduction of bars, i.e. 

 bars of wood placed at regular intervals across the top 

 of the hive, gridiron fashion, so as to afford the bees a 

 starting-point from which to build their combs ; but the 

 combs being extended horizontally and firmly cemented 

 to the walls of the hive prevented their removal. 



The next advance was made by one Propokovitsch, a 

 Russian, who constructed a hive in which frames were 

 inserted endways, the frames being supported on cross 

 pieces on the bottom of the hive. The great objection 

 to frames being supported within the hive in this manner 

 lies in the fact that bees firmly cement them to their 

 supports with pr6polis, thus rendering it well-nigh 

 impossible to remove them. 



The next step was to unite the two ideas, viz., the 

 bar and the frame, and construct a hive the frames of 

 which should be suspended from bars, thus, amongst 

 other advantages, giving the frames the maximum amount 

 of support whilst preventing undue propolisation. 



The credit of this idea is due (according to Neighbour) 

 to a Major Munn, an Englishman, who patented in 

 France, in 1 841, a movable bar - and - frame hive. 

 Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth, a congregational minister 

 in America, and one of the pioneers of modern bee- 

 keeping, invented a similar hive in 1852, and Baron von 

 Berlepsch, in Germany, hit upon a similar idea in 1853. 



At the outset the beginner is met with the difficulty, 

 what hive to use. The dealers' catalogues only tend to 

 further confusion, so numerous are the different modi- 

 fications of the bar-frame hive there placed before him. 



Undoubtedly the hive best adapted for general use is 



