HISTORY OF MOVABLE FRAMES. 



Movable frames have revolutionized bee-keeping, and so 

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

 Few 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 G-eorge Wheeler, in his "Journey into 

 Greece," published in 1682, page 411, that the G-reeks 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, Hubei 

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

 a foot square and fifteen lines wide, and joined them together 

 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 



