Langstroth Hive. 121 



proved hives were without value except to the amateur, and 

 iaferior for practical purposes? Our apiarists not native to 

 our shores, like the late Adam Grimm and Mr. Charles Da- 

 dant, 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-loving editor of the early volumes of the American Be& 

 Journal, himself of German origin, says : ' ' When Mr. Lang- 

 stroth took up this subject, he well knew what Huber had 

 done, and saw wherein he had failed — failing, possibly, only 

 because he aimed at nothing more than constructing an ob- 

 serving hive suitable for his purposes. Mr. Langstroth's object 

 was other and higher. He aimed at making frames movable, 

 interchangeable, and practically serviceable in bee culture." 

 And how true what follows : ' ' Nobody before Mr. Langstroth 

 ever succeeded in devising a mode of making and using a 

 movable frame that was of any practical value in bee culture." 

 No man in the world, beside Mr. Langstroth, was so conver- 

 sant with this whole subject as was Mr. Wagner. His extensive 

 library and thorough knowledge made him a competent judge. 



Mr. Langstroth, though he knew of no previous invention 

 of frames contained in a case, when he made his invention, in 

 1851, does not profess to have been the first to have invented 

 them. Eveiy page of his book shows his transparent honesty, 

 and his desire to give all due credit to' other writers and invent- 

 ors. He does claim, and very justly, to have invented the first 

 practical frame hive, the one described in his patent, applied 

 for in January, 1851, and in all three editions of his book. 



For this great invention, as well as his able researches in 

 apiculture, as given in his invaluable book, ' ' The Honey- 

 Bee," he has conferred a benefit upon our art which cannot be 

 over-estimated, and for which we, as apiarists, cannot be too 

 grateful. It was his book — one of my old teachers, for which 

 I have no word of chiding — that led me to some of the most 

 delightful' investigations of my life. It' was his invention — 

 the Langstroth hive — that enabled me to make those investi- 

 gations. For one, I shall always revere the name of Lang- 

 stroth, as a great leader in scientific apiculture, both in 

 America and throughout the world. His name must ever 

 stand beside those of Dzierzon and the elder Huber. Surely 

 this hive, which left the hands of the great master in so perfect 



