§ VIII.] HUBER'S HIVE. 129 



not surprising that several apiarians, independently and 

 simultaneously, were engaged at this period in working 

 it out. 



Briefly summarised the sequel is as follows. In 1841 

 our own countryman Major Munn obtained a patent in 

 France for his movable bar-and-frame hive, of which he 

 published a description in England in 1844 ;* in America 

 in 1 85 1 Mr. Langstroth completed the invention of his 

 movable bar-frames; and in Germany in 1853 Baron 

 von Berlepsch by a distinct inventive process added 

 the frames to Dzierzon's bars. Thus England appears 

 after all to possess the honour of the contrivance, 

 although we certainly proved the last to make of it any 

 general or extensive use. Major Munn's original hive 

 opened at the back, and when in 185 1 he reappeared 

 in print with a hive opening at the top, he had altered 

 the frames (and hive too) from oblong to triangular. 

 Probably one reason of the invention's failure was the 

 _ expensiveness of the Major's fittings, which are such 

 as to make the hive appear in his engravings more like 

 some astronomical instrument than a box for bees and 

 honey. Be this as it may, there was practically no such 

 thing as a frame hive in use in England till i860, when 

 Mr. Tegetmeier was the means of reintroducing it — 



* "A Description of the Bar-and-Frame Hive invented by W. A. 

 Munn, Esq.:" London, Van Voorst, 1844; 2nd ed. 1851. In his 

 edition of Sevan's " HoneyJ Bee," brought out in 1870, the Major 

 tells us that he had been for some years engaged in connection with 

 this distinguished author''(and we presume Mr. Golding) in, the pre- 

 paration of the above hive. 



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