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Original Document
Lorenzo L. Langstroth, “Langstroth’s Reminiscences: An Interesting Account of the Circumstances That Lead to the Invention of the Langstroth Hive and Frame,” 1893.

In the fall of 1851 I had nearly completed my application for a patent upon my improved bar hive. It will, no doubt, appear very strange to persons not familiar with the ordinary progress of inventions, that the shallow space between the tops of the bars and the board on which the receptacles for surplus honey rested, and which I proposed to make one of the leading features in my patent, did not at once suggest itself to me that uprights might be fastened to the bars, so as to give the same bee-space between the front and rear walls of the hive, and so change the slats into movable frames. But I used the shallow space above the bars, for a whole season, without ever connecting the two ideas: and then, only when it was too late to make any use of it in the apiary for that year, did the simple idea of the movable frames present itself to my mind. Returning late in the afternoon from the apiary, which I had established some two miles from my city home, and pondering, as I had so often done before, how I could get rid of the disagreeable necessity of cutting the attachments of the combs from the walls of the hives, and rejecting, for obvious reasons, the plan of uprights, close fitting (or nearly so) to these walls, the almost self-evident idea of using the same bee-space as in the shallow chamber came into my mind, and in a moment the suspended movable frames, kept at suitable distances from each other and the case containing them, came into being. Seeing by intuition, as it were, the end from the beginning. I could scarcely refrain from shouting out my " Eureka! " in the open streets.
 
At that time there was visiting me my college classmate and dear friend, the late Rev. E. D. Sanders, who afterward founded the Presbyterian Hospital in Philadelphia, and who had taken that season a lively interest in my apicultural experiments. Full of enthusiasm, we discussed, until a late hour, the results which both of us thought must come from using movable frames instead of bars….
 
With the ordinary bar, the work of removal is always difficult and often impossible; and this is the reason why hives with bars, notwithstanding all their theoretical advantages, have been so little used. It is very obvious, that the box or boxes for the storage of surplus honey may be furnished with these bars." ..." The use of this bar will, I am persuaded, give a new impetus to the easy and profitable management of bees, and render the making of artificial colonies an easy operation.
 
By the very great ease with which the bars with their combs may be removed, a command over the whole proceedings of the bees is obtained which is truly wonderful. If a hive is infested with the larviu of the bee-moth, all the combs may be examined and cleansed in a short time. To one unaccustomed to the scientific management of bees, it would appear to be a very formidable undertaking to remove a bar with its comb full of bees. The timid or inexperienced may use a bee-dress, or resort to a little smoke." "' The removing of the queen by means of these bars is very easily accomplished, and this and all other operations may be performed without injuring a single bee, thus preserving the apiary from constant irritation, and keeping the bees always peaceable. It is obvious, that the movable frames (I now call them by the better name) may be adapted to almost any hive, and that they will be of the greatest practical benefit."
 
It must be remembered, that, when I set down these remarks, I had never seen nor even heard of movable-comb frames for a bee-hive. However crudely expressed, they show at least- that I was well prepared for the results which followed their invention. It is very obvious, that the idea of using movable frames could never have occurred to any one unless he had become fearless in the management of bees, by knowing
to what a wonderful degree they can be made subject to human control.
 
Up to the time of my reading Mr. Wagner's manuscript translation of Dzierzon. I knew nothing of European bee culture save what I found in the works of Huber, Bevan, and Huish. I was satisfied that my hive and methods of management were far in advance of any thing given by these writers, and, even after learning how far they had been outstripped by Dzierzon. I still thought that my movable frame made a foundation for much greater results than he had reached. Making, therefore, the claims to embrace my newly invented movable frames, my application for a patent was filed in the Patent Office at Washington, on the 8th of January, 1852. The original specifications and claims of this patent, which, from some modifications of my claims, and the great press of business then before the office, was not issued until Oct. 5, 1853, are so exhaustive as to leave no room to question what I claimed to have invented.
 
Dayton, O. L. L. Langstroth.

Credit: “Langstroth’s Reminiscences," Gleanings in Bee Culture, 21: 4 (February 15, 1893), 117-18. 
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