142 THE BEE-HIVES. 



sphere of Apiarian knowledge, I have endeavored to remedy the 

 many difficulties with which bee-culture is beset, by adapting 

 my invention to the actual habits and wants of the insect. I have 

 also tested the merits of this hive by long continued experi- 

 ments, made on a large scale, so that I might not, by deceiving 

 both myself and others, add another to the useless contrivances 

 which have deluded and disgusted a too credulous public. I 

 would, however, utterly repudiate all claims to having devised 

 even a perfect bee-hive. Perfection belongs only to the works of 

 Him, to whose omniscient eye were present all causes and 

 efiFects, with all their relations, when He spake, and from nothing 

 formed the Universe. For man to stamp the label of perfection 

 upon any work of his own, is to show both his folly and pre- 

 sumption." 



289. A short time after the issuing of the Langstroth 

 patent, the Baron Von Berlepsch, of Seebach, Thuringia, 

 invented frames of a somewhat similar character. Carl T. 

 E. Von Siebold, Professor of Zoology and Comparative 

 Anatomy, in the University of Munich, thus speaks of these 

 frames : 



"As the lateral adhesion of the combs built down from the 

 bars frequently rendered their removal difficult, Berlepsch tried 

 to avoid this inconvenience, in a very ingenious way, by sus- 

 pending in his hives, instead of the bars, small quadrangular 

 frames, the vacuity of which the bees fill up with their comb, by 

 which the removal and suspension of the combs are greatly fa- 

 cilitated, and altogether such a convenient arrangement is given 

 to the Dzierzon-hive, that nothing more remains to be desired." (???) 



Mr. Cheshire (2d vol. page 46) was mistaken in attribut- 

 ing to Dzierzon the invention of the frame-hive, for Dzier- 

 zon has not even invented, but only perfected the movable- 

 comb hive (282-283), having always, to this day, been 

 opposed to frames. So the German hive is known as the 

 Berlepsch hive. 



290. For years, both of these inventions shared equally 

 the attention of bee-keepers in Europe. Berlepsch' s hive 

 is used principally in Germany, Italy, and part of Switzer- 

 land ; Langstroth's in England, France, and the French- 



