Langstroth- Hive No. 4

No dead beekeeper can beat the legacy of  the lovable white haired  Reverend  Lorenzo Langstroth (1810-1895).  A giant in the history of modern beekeeping- and also a tragic figure who apparently never got his just due for his inventions. He died poor, but honored around the world, in large part due to his great champion, Dadant. 

The legend is he invented the first workable "moveable frame".  And that he patented it. And that afterwards, his patent was challenged by a business partner, and people started to copy his "hive" and broke his patent, disregarded his invention entirely, and he was too ill and poor to fight them.

A great story- sort of a movie plot- with a happy-ish ending, where he is pulled up by Dadant and honored for his true contribution.

But it certainly has a lot of holes in it. Not to lessen his lovable-ness. 

He wrote four things- his patent, his book, a journal (at Cornell) and later, many years, his reminiscences in Dadant's Gleaning in Bee Culture-where he recounts his "eureka"moment of 30 years before.

So- why do I think there are holes? It comes from reading his patent, and his book- and trying to actually figure out what he was talking about. Its not at all clear.

But its way more complicated. If you actually take a look at the hives he made and was trying to sell, they don't for the most part look like ours at all. In particular, the one he patented. If you are a beekeeper and you have done this, maybe you have had the same experience as I have- of looking at his patented hive and thinking: what the heck has that got to do with a modern hive? And what the heck are all those pieces?  Here it is, from the patent:

It not the only design he had- but it is is the one in the patent, and the patent included a number of relatively wacky ideas. When one looks for the so called "bee space" reference - one finds, buried in the patent, a half hearted reference to a 3/8" space- in passing. No different really than any of the other hundred dimensions he describes- and certainly not central to the patent he was applying for.  It sure seems that this isn't a patent for "bee space" or movable frames- its for other things- and its like Langstroth maybe didn't know what he had. 

His book- still printed in its original form- and also in a number of updates by the Dadant company- is The Hive and the Honey Bee. In that book, he shows four hive designs, all numbered. They are all gone from the revised versions by Dadant- sort of a re-writing of history. In fact, all of his patent inventions are excluded, except for Hive No. 2, which is sort of plain sort of thing.

But the real prize and jewel in the crown according to Langsroth is Hive No. 4. He says its not a hive for daily use, but more like the cadillac of hives- the very best. Here is the wood engraving (one of three of four in the book of this same hive):

So- following-his very difficult instructions- which dimensions each of the many pieces but doesn't really say where it goes or how it connects- I built what I think is the exact hive in Sketch Up- a program I use for architecture. Here is the model- split in the middle for clarity- if one can call it that- it has a lot pieces:

But what it was really for, was to allow for the observation of the interior of the hive under glass. One could tilt back the top (of which there were two parts)- and look in:

Here is an animation shown from the back end. The top doesn't have a hinge- just a few wood triangles keep it from sliding off:

What one sees inside, is an outer shell- and an inner one. Below, are frames (green here) - and above that, in blue, a board with none holes in it. On top of this would either be another bunch of frames (like we do now), or a series of glass boxes which the bees come up into to make comb and fill it with honey. Which I take it, one pulls off and sells. Or pulls apart? Not sure. Seems like a mess but it was common I think then to try to have bees make comb and honey in a glass jar.

One sees in the wood cuts strange shaped sides- like below. This allows for the viewing, and there are two levels, both of which are rabbeted to each other.