Call no.: SF523 .L354 1853

Lorenzo L. Langstroth (1810-1895) was arguably the most influential American apiarist of the nineteenth century and his innovations in hive design are considered fundamental to the modern apicultural industry. A graduate of Yale, Langstroth was employed alternately in the Congregational ministry and as principal of a succession of schools in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, until 1852, when he moved to Oxford, Ohio.

With a love of bees, Langstroth began experimenting with the construction of hives, intent on finding a more efficient means of extracting honey. Although his was not the first movable frame hive, his movable frame combined with his discovery of "bee space" (the minimum space which bees will not fill in with combs) revolutionized beekeeping by keeping the frames completely free, even when fully laden. He was equally innovative in several areas of bee management.

Langstroth first published his findings in the much-reprinted Langstroth on the hive and the honey-bee, which is now considered a cornerstone in American bee literature. In outlining a new approach to bee management and a description of his novel hive, Langstroth positions himself as part of the evolving tradition of beekeeping that included both Bevan and Huber, and he notes similarities between his own techniques and those of the German Apiarist Jan Dzierzon. As might be expected, Langstroth emphasizes the superiority of his hive over that of the German.

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