MANUAL OP THE APIARY. 283 



hives were disastrous to French bee culture. Once misled by 

 movable frames, they ever afterwards refused them even for 

 trial. Of course Mr. S. S. Fisher, once commissioner of 

 patents, and an expert, could see nothing in this hive, or any 

 of the inventor's modifications of it, to invalidate the Lang- 

 stroth patent. How grateful all American apiarists should 

 be, that Mr. Langstroth's invention was of a different type. 



As already stated, bars were used centuries ago in Greece. 

 Delia Rocca, in a work published in 1790, also describes bars 

 as used by him. Schirach used slats across the top of a box 

 with rear-opening doors, as early as 1771. In Key's work, 

 "Ancient Bee Master's Farewell," London, 1796, p. 42, such 

 hives are described, and beautifully illustrated, plate 1, figs.. 

 2 and 3. Bevan, London, 1838, describes on p. 82 a similar 

 hive, with the bars set in rabbets, which is figured on p. 83, 



In 1835, Dzierzon, who has been to Germany what Lang- 

 stroth has to America, commenced bee-culture. Three years 

 later he adopted the bar hive, and although these bar hives 

 were previously of little value to practical apiculture, in his 

 hands they became a most valuable instrument. To remove 

 the combs, the great German master had to cut them loose 

 from the sides of the hives. Yet from his great skill in 

 handling them, his studious habits, and invaluable researches, 

 which gave to the world the . knowledge of parthenogenesis 

 among bees, his hive and system marked a new era in German 

 apiculture. 



In 1851, our own Langstroth, without any knowledge of 

 what foreign apiarian inventors had done, save what he could 

 find in Huber, and edition 1838 of Bevan, invented the hive 

 now in common use among the advanced apiarists of America. 

 It is this hive, the greatest apiarian invention ever made, 

 that has placed American apiculture in advance of that of 

 all other countries. What practical bee-keeper of America 

 could say with H. Hamet, edition 1861, p. 166, that the im- 

 proved hives were without value except to the amateur, and 

 inferior for practical purposes ? Our apiarists not native to 

 our shores, like the late Adam Grimm and Mr. Chas. Dadant, 

 always conceded that Mr. Langstroth was the inventor of this 

 hive, and always proclaimed its usefulness. Well did the 

 late Mr. S. Wagner, the honest, fearless, scholarly and truth- 



