LANGSTROTH 
554 
a fondness for the study of insect life; but 
“idle habits” in that direction were not 
encouraged by his matter-of-fact parents. 
In 1838 began his real interest in the 
honeybee, when he purchased two stocks. 
No such helps existed then as now, the first 
bee journal in America being issued more 
than 20 years later, and Mr. Langstroth at 
that time had never seen nor heard of a 
book on bee culture; but before the second 
year of his beekeeping he did meet with 
one, the author of which doubted the ex¬ 
istence of a queen! But the study of the 
bees fascinated him, and gave him the 
needed outdoor recreation while engaged in 
literary pursuits, and in the course of time 
he became possessed with the idea that it 
might be possible to construct a hive so 
that its contents in every part might be 
easily examined. He tried what had been 
invented in this direction, bars, slats, and 
the “leaf-hive” of Huber. None of these, 
however, was satisfactory, and at length 
he conceived the idea of surrounding each 
comb with a frame of wood entirely de¬ 
tached from the walls of the hive, leaving 
at all parts, except the points of support, 
space enough between the frame and the 
hive for the passage of the bees. In 1852 
the invention of the movable-comb hive 
was complete, and patented October 5 of 
that year. See Frames, Hives, and Bee- 
space. 
It is well known that, among the very 
many hives in use, no other make is more 
popular than the Langstroth; but it may 
not be so well known that, in a very im¬ 
portant sense, every hive in use among 
intelligent beekeepers is a Langstroth; that 
is, it contains the most important feature 
of the Langstroth—the movable comb. 
Those who have entered the field of api¬ 
culture within a few years may faintly 
imagine, but can hardly realize what bee¬ 
keeping would be today, if, thruout the 
world, in every beehive, the combs should 
suddenly become immovably fixed, never 
again to be taken out of the hive, only as 
they were broken or cut out. Yet practi¬ 
cally that condition of affairs existed thru 
all the centuries of beekeeping up to that 
time when to take out every comb and re¬ 
turn them to the hive without injury to the 
colony, was made possible by the inventive 
genius of Mr. Langstroth. It is no small 
compliment to the far-seeing inventive 
powers of Mr. Langstroth, that, altho 
frames of different sizes have been devised 
and tried, and improvements, so-called, 
upon his hive have been made by the hun¬ 
dreds, yet today his hive and frame still 
stand, and their use is almost universal 
thruout this country and over a large part 
of Europe. 
As a writer Langstroth takes a high 
place. “Langstroth on the Hive and Hon¬ 
eybee,” published in May, 1853, is consid¬ 
ered a classic; and any contribution from 
the pen of its author to the columns of the 
bee journals was read with eagerness. In¬ 
stead'of amassing the fortune one would 
think he so richly deserved, Mr. Langstroth 
at the time of his death was not worth a 
dollar. He sowed, others reaped. At the 
date of his invention be had about 20 colo¬ 
nies of bees, and never exceeded 125. 
In August, 1836, Mr. Langstroth was 
married to Miss Anna M. Tucker, who died 
in January, 1873. He had three children. 
The oldest, a son, died of consumption con¬ 
tracted in the army. Two daughters sur¬ 
vive. 
After his twentieth year, Mr. Langstroth 
suffered from attacks of “head trouble” 
of a strange and distressing character. 
During these attacks, which lasted from 
six months to more than a year (in one 
case two years) he was unable to write or 
even converse, and he viewed with aversion 
any reference to those subjects which par¬ 
ticularly delighted him at other times. Mr. 
Langstroth was a man of fine presence, 
simple and unostentatious in manner, 
cheerful, courteous, and a charming con¬ 
versationalist. 
In reply to a question, he wrote, under 
date of March 26, 1888: “I am now a 
minister in the Presbyterian Church. Al¬ 
tho not a settled pastor I preach occa¬ 
sionally, and delight in nothing so much as 
the Christian work. My parents were 
members of Mr. Barnes’ church, in Phila¬ 
delphia, the mother Presbyterian church in 
the United States.” 
Mr. Langstroth died Oct. 6, 1895, at the 
Wayne Avenue Presbyterian Church, Day- 
ton, Ohio, where he was preaching that day. 
Before he began, the pastor of the church, 
Rev. Amos 0. Raber, moved the pulpit to 
one side and placed a chair in front where 
