LANGSTROTH, THE "BEE MAN" OF
OXFORD
by OPHIA D. SMITH
A revolution in beekeeping began on a
summer day in 1838
when Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth saw a
large glass globe filled
with honey on the parlor table of a
friend. He was so fascinated
by the beautiful sight that he went with
his friend to visit his bees
in an attic chamber. In a moment, all
the intense curiosity of his
childhood and boyhood seemed to
"burst into full flame." When he
went home that evening he took with him
two stocks of bees in
ordinary box hives. With that small
purchase he began his apiarian
career.
As a little boy, Lorenzo had worn out
his trousers by too much
kneeling and crawling on graveled walks
to observe the curious
habits of ants that he attracted by
digging holes in the gravel and de-
positing therein bits of meat, bread
crumbs, and dead flies. He had
no books on natural history to read, so
he studied that subject at first
hand. An unsympathetic teacher punished
him at school for put-
ting flies in paper cages. His parents
had little patience with his
strange habits, but nothing stopped his
observations of the insect
life about him.1
Lorenzo's parents, John George
Langstroth and Rebecca Amelia
Dunn Langstroth, lived at 106 South
Front Street, not far from In-
dependence Hall, in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. Lorenzo was the
second child and the eldest son in a
family of eight children. His
maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Lorraine
Dunn, was a grand-
daughter of Count Louis Lorraine, a
Huguenot, who had fled to
America after the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes.2
In spite of his peculiar devotion to the
study of insects, Lorenzo
made a good record in school. In
preparatory school he became a
notable Latin scholar. He could
translate Latin so readily that one
1 Langstroth's
"Reminiscences," in Gleanings in Bee Culture, XX, 761-762, quoted
in Florence Naile, The Life of
Langstroth (Ithaca, N.Y., 1942), 36.
2 Naile, Langstroth, 35.
3 Oxford Citizen, October 11, 1895.
147
148
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
would think he was reading from an
English book.3 He entered
Yale College as a freshman in the fall
of 1827, before his seven-
teenth birthday, which fell on December
25. At Yale his fine scholar-
ship and excellent character won for him
election to Phi Beta Kappa.
There was practically nothing in his
course at Yale that pertained
to his lifework, but at that time he had
no thought of becoming a
professional apiarist.
Langstroth was not particularly
interested in religion until his
senior year. In that year, under the
influence of a fellow student,
he decided to study for the ministry. In
the fall of 1831, he entered
the Yale divinity school. To provide
funds for his education, he
taught in one or another female school
in New Haven. For two
years (1834-36), he was tutor in
mathematics to the freshman class
at Yale.
Early in 1836, while still a tutor at
Yale, Langstroth was called
to the pastorate of the South Church in
Andover, Massachusetts.
The parish was large, and the young
minister found his duties too
strenuous. At the end of two years, he
resigned on account of a
strange nervous condition that from time
to time made him unable
to perform his pastoral duties. It was
while he was in Andover that
he began to keep bees and to study their
habits.4
In the meantime, Langstroth had married
Anne Tucker, of New
Haven, who was teaching with her mother
in a girls' school in New
Haven. After resigning his pastorate, he
became principal of Abbot
Academy at Andover. At the end of six
months, his health failed
again. In the spring of 1840, he became
principal of a girls' school
at Greenfield, Massachusetts, and
removed his family to that town.
In addition to his teaching, he supplied
the pulpit of the Second
Congregational Church for two years.
From 1843 to 1848 he served
as pastor of the church. A fine portrait
of Langstroth hangs in the
office of that church today.5
About the first thing Langstroth bought
in Greenfield was a
stock of bees in a section of a hollow
log. While in Greenfield, he
gradually increased the number of his
colonies.
4 Naile, Langstroth, 41-53.
5 Ibid., 53-62; letter
by F. N. Thompson, dated Greenfield, December 17, 1939,
in Springfield (Mass.) Republican.
LORENZO L. LANGSTROTH 149
In 1848, ill health again forced
Langstroth to resign his pas-
torate. Again he turned to teaching. He
removed to Philadelphia
where he became principal of a school
for young ladies. Here he
remained until 1852.6
Langstroth continued his careful study
of bees in Philadelphia.
When he had made his start in Andover,
he had only his schoolboy's
Virgil and a small book written by a man
who doubted the existence
of a queen bee. While in Greenfield, he
acquired the Letters of
Francois Huber, the blind apiarist of
Switzerland, and Bevan's
Treatise of the Honeybee (London, 1838). He bought a Huber
hive, which was a "leaf" hive
that stood on end and could be opened
like a book, each "leaf"
exposing the surface of a comb. Langstroth
made a number of these leaf hives and
some of the Bevan hives, in
which the combs were suspended from
movable bars. After much
futile experimentation, Langstroth used
the Huber hive only as an
observation hive.
The more Langstroth read, the more
questions he found un-
answered. Beekeeping seemed to have
changed little since the time
of the ancient Greeks. What was needed
was a hive that would per-
mit inspection without disturbing the
bees, and which would permit
the removal of the combs without waste
of honey and without injury
to the bees. Bar hives allowed the bees
to suspend a comb from each
bar, and the use of "wings"
kept the combs separated. Bars and
wings, however, were not new, dating
back to colonial times, and
even to ancient times. Huber had
outlined the biology of bees, and
Jan Dzierzon of Silesia, a
German-speaking Pole, had formulated
the theory of parthenogenesis.7
Langstroth was trying to improve the
Bevan bar hive. While it
had the advantage of each bar holding a
separate comb, these combs
could not be removed readily, being
glued by the bees to the walls of
the hive. Concentration upon this grave
defect led to the discovery
that made Langstroth famous.
In 1848, in Philadelphia, at Chestnut
and Schuylkill streets,
Langstroth had a house with a
second-story veranda and several
6 See Dictionary of American
Biography, X, 598-599.
7 Kent L. Pellett, "The Father of
Movable Frames," in American Bee Journal,
LXVIII (1928), 509-510, 556-557, 569.
150
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
spare attic rooms. There he established
his apiary; but a year later
he removed it to West Philadelphia, two
miles away. In the summer
of 1851, he discovered that bees could
be made to work in a glass
hive, exposed to the full light of day.
This glass hive led to an
acquaintance with the Reverend Mr. Berg
of Philadelphia, who told
Langstroth about a Prussian clergyman
named Dzierzon, who was
attracting the attention of the rulers
of Europe by his discoveries in
the management of bees. Berg was
astonished at the wonderful sim-
ilarity between Langstroth's and
Dzierzon's methods of management,
neither of the men having any knowledge
of the labors of the other.8
In the same year, he received first
prize from the Philadelphia
Horticultural Society for his specimens
of comb honey in glass. To
obtain perfect combs for market,
beekeepers placed glass tumblers
upside down in upper boxes
("supers") directly over holes cut to
permit the bees from the hive to store
surplus honey in those re-
ceptacles. Such a device provided a
"fancy" article for the market.
Seeking to improve the Bevan hive,
Langstroth discovered a
means of removing the cover of the hive
with ease. No matter how
snugly the cover might fit, the bees
always found crevices to fill
with propolis ("bee glue"),
thus gluing the cover down tightly. By
simply lowering the bars, to which the
combs were attached by
about three-eighths of an inch from the
top, Langstroth made the im-
portant discovery that the bees left
open that space at the top of the
hive, using it as a passageway. A
smaller space the bees would fill
with propolis; a larger space they would
fill with comb.9
On the afternoon of October 30, 1851,
Langstroth was return-
ing home from his apiary in West
Philadelphia, pondering the prob-
lem of how to eliminate the necessity of
cutting the combs loose
from the walls of the hives. Jan
Dzierzon had invented a hive with
combs on movable bars, which he could
manipulate successfully,
but beekeepers less skillful could not
use it, because the combs had
to be cut loose from the sides of the
hive before they could be re-
moved. The Dzierzon hive as well as all
other movable-frame hives
up to this time had been abandoned by
disgusted beekeepers. It was
this problem that Langstroth had long
been trying to solve. Sud-
8 L. L. Langstroth, A Practical
Treatise on the Hive and Honey-Bee (Philadelphia,
1875), 16.
9 Naile, Langstroth, 71-74.
LORENZO L. LANGSTROTH 151
denly, the obvious solution came to him.
There, in his mind, was
the Langstroth movable-frame beehive!
The movable frames sus-
pended with a bee space between them, a
bee space between the
frames and the hive walls, a bee space
between frames and bottom
board as well as the cover on top-that
was the vision that revolu-
tionized beekeeping. There on the
street, Langstroth could hardly
refrain from shouting
"Eureka," so happy was he as he visualized
the new hive. That very night he entered
a complete description
with sketches of the improved hive in
his journal.
The advantages of the new hive were
manifold. The honey
could be removed with the comb intact;
the combs could be removed
for inspection or cleaning without
disturbing the bees; and artificial
swarms could be made with ease, now that
the queen could be re-
moved without injuring or irritating the
bees. Beekeepers could now
produce enough honey to make bees
profitable.
About a month later, on November 25,
Langstroth wrote down
the great advantages of his new hive:
(1) The scientific beekeeper could
examine every comb quickly
and easily. The Huber hive was expensive
and the removal of the
combs was tedious and difficult. The
Langstroth hive would be
cheap, and the combs could be removed
with safety to the bees;
(2) The practical beekeeper, who wished
an income from his
bees, could propagate queens, make
artificial swarms, supply desti-
tute hives with honey or brood, and produce
honey ready for the
market in boxes or in glass tumblers,
and he could protect his hives
against the bee moth. In short, he could
do almost anything he
wanted to do with his bees;
(3) The farmer could easily procure
honey for his own use.
Entries in Langstroth's journal show
definitely that he had fully
developed the idea of the movable-frame
hive before the year 1851
ended.
Early in the spring of 1852, he
increased the number of his
colonies and removed all of his bees to
his West Philadelphia apiary.
He had a skillful cabinetmaker, Henry
Bourquin, who loved bees, to
make the new hives. The old bar hives
were converted into mov-
able-frame hives by simply nailing
uprights and bottom strips in
152
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
place to provide a bee space all around
the frames containing the
combs. As Langstroth
manipulated the
frames-removing the
combs, shaking the bees from them, and
changing the position of the
frames-Henry Bourquin fairly shouted to
"Friend Lorenzo" that
he (Langstroth) had not made an
invention but "a perfect revolu-
tion in beekeeping."10
Langstroth set forth his claims in the
press in 1852, summar-
izing them by saying:
I claim, first, the use of a shallow
chamber, substantially as described,
in combination with a perforated cover,
for enlarging or diminishing at will
the size and number of the spare honey
receptacles.
Second, the use of the movable frames,
or their equivalents, substanti-
ally as described; also their use in
combination with the shallow chamber,
with or without my arrangement for spare
honey receptacles.
Third, a divider, substantially as
described; in combination with a mov-
able cover, allowing the divider to be
inserted from above between the ranges
of comb.
Fourth, the use of the double glass
sides in a single frame, substantially
as set forth.
Fifth, the construction of the trap, for
excluding moths and catching
worms, so arranged as to increase or
diminish at will the size of the entrance
for bees, substantially in the manner
set forth.11
During the summer of 1852, Langstroth
had more than a hun-
dred movable-frame hives made, some of
which he sold with the
patent right whenever the patent should
be issued. Most of the hives,
however, were used in Langstroth's own
apiary.
Late in the summer, the old nervous
disorder returned. Under
this affliction he was forced to sell
his bees. By November, how-
ever, he was well again and had secured
his patent.
On account of the uncertainty of his
health, he returned to
Greenfield, Massachusetts. There he
secured the capital to intro-
duce his new hive, by giving Doctor
Joseph Beals, a Greenfield
dentist and a former parishioner of
Langstroth's, a half-interest in
10 See Naile, Langstroth, chap.
V. In a manuscript compilation of facts after a
research trip to Oxford more than twenty
years ago, Florence Naile quoted E. R. Root
as saying: "Imagine, if you can,
all the frames in all the hives of bees suddenly be-
coming immovably fixed, never to be
taken out again except as they were cut out, and
you will have a fair idea of what
beekeeping had been through all the centuries until
the days of Langstroth."
11 See Ohio Cultivator, VIII
(1852), 357.
LORENZO L. LANGSTROTH 153
his patent. In Greenfield, he began to
write his famous manual for
apiarists, Langstroth on the
Honey-bee, which was the first of his
contributions to the literature of
beekeeping. Langstroth's book
eventually led to the beginning of
apicultural journalism in
America.
Jan Dzierzon of Silesia had published
his work on the theory
and practice of beekeeping in 1848.
Samuel Wagner of York,
Pennsylvania, an intelligent student of
bee culture, had translated it
into English and was about to publish it
when he became acquainted
with Langstroth. When Wagner saw
Langstroth's new hives, he
gave up the publication of the Dzierzon
translation and urged
Langstroth to write a book on
beekeeping, for he was convinced that
Langstroth could do more for beekeeping
in America than any
foreign writer could.
It was a bold venture for a
poverty-stricken man with uncertain
health to embark upon such an uncharted
sea. But he went to
Greenfield in November 1852 to live with
one of his sisters, Mrs.
Almon Brainerd. His wife and two
daughters remained in Philadel-
phia, where Mrs. Langstroth taught in a
girls' school. For six years,
Langstroth lived with his sister and her
husband. During most of
that time he supplied the pulpit of the
Congregational church at
Colrain, near Greenfield. In summer
vacations, Langstroth was
joined by his wife and two daughters at
Colrain. Their son James
lived with a family on a nearby farm. As
soon as Langstroth was
settled in Greenfield, he began to
write, sending the sheets, a few at a
time, to his wife in Philadelphia to be
transcribed into legible copy
for the printer. Within a few months the
book was completed. His
brother-in-law advanced the money for a
small edition, which was
published in May 1853 by Hopkins,
Bridgman & Company of
Northampton, Massachusetts. The book was
printed in Greenfield.12
Langstroth on the Hive and the
Honey-bee, a Bee Keeper's
Manual was the first American work on the physiology and
habits
of the honeybee and the principles of
its culture. Never before had
this information been available in the
English language. It was de-
lightful to read, and it was practical
and explicit in its instructions.
Most of its advice is as good today as
it was in 1853. A revised
12 See Naile, Langstroth, chap.
VI.
154
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
edition was brought out in 1857. In
1859, the J. B. Lippincott Com-
pany of Philadelphia published a third
edition. New printings were
made from time to time without further
revision. Langstroth's
health would not permit frequent
revision. Finally, in the 1880's, he
undertook, with Charles and Camille
Dadant13 to prepare a new
edition. Langstroth's health was so
poor, however, that the Dadants
finally took complete responsibility for
the revision and publication.
This edition came out in 1889, and the
Dadants sponsored several
subsequent editions. The book has been
translated into the French,
Russian, Spanish, Italian, and Polish
languages.l4 It made great
beekeepers like Moses Quinby and Amos
Ives Root.
In 1854, Langstroth began to write for
the American Agricultur-
ist. He later contributed to the Country Gentleman, Wagner's
American Bee Journal, and to Amos Ives Root's Gleanings in Bee
Culture. In 1874, arrangements were made for Langstroth's
articles
to run in the Journal and the Gleanings
at the same time. Langs-
troth wrote in a lively style that made
scientific facts as fascinating
as fiction. He knew and loved his bees
so well that he wrote of them
as if they had the impulses and
reactions of men. His essay on the
"poor slandered Drone," for
instance, allows the drone to present a
highly humorous but logical defense
against the accusation of gen-
eral laziness and lack of character.
There is a chuckle in every
line. He enriched his writings with his
wide acquaintance with the
classics, with his keen insight into the
human heart, and with an
unusually fertile imagination. His
scientific writings bore the im-
print of a scholar, a Christian minister,
and a gentleman in the finest
sense of the word.
In 1858, Langstroth removed with his
family to Oxford, Ohio.
He brought with him his widowed mother,
Rebecca Dunn Langstroth.
Oxford was the seat of the Miami
University, the Western Female
Seminary, the Oxford Female Institute,
and the Oxford Female Col-
lege. It was called the classic village,
and its society must have been
peculiarly congenial to Langstroth. Soon
after he arrived, the
13 Charles Dadant was a highly
successful apiarist in Hamilton, Illinois. He wrote
for bee journals in France before coming
to the United States, and continued to write
for them after he established his apiary
in Hamilton. He took up the cudgels for the
American way of apiculture, which, of course, was based
on Langstroth's hive and
writings. Charles and his son Camille finally acquired
Samuel Wagner's American Bee
Journal in 1912.
14 Naile, Langstroth, 93, fn.
LORENZO L. LANGSTROTH 155
Presbyterian minister, the Reverend
Edward W. Root, resigned his
pastorate and wished to sell his new
house. One of Langstroth's
brothers-in-law, Aurelius B. Hull,
bought the comfortable eight-
room brick house with ten acres of land
and gave it to Langstroth.
The house is now owned by the Western
College for Women (the
Western Female Seminary) and is called
Langstroth Cottage. Here
Lorenzo L. Langstroth established an
apiary in partnership with his
young son James. He employed local
cabinetmakers, Samuel Gath
and his son Harry, to make his hives.
Around his house, he planted apple
trees, for apple blossoms
are especially fine for honey. Along the
turnpike that ran past his
house, Langstroth planted linden trees
for his bees. A few of those
trees stand along that highway today,
and when the lindens bloom,
their fragrance brings to mind the
gentle beekeeper who once walked
in their shade. Langstroth devoted an
acre of ground to a formal
garden planted with flowers that the
bees loved best, the box-bordered
beds primly divided by narrow walks.
North of the house was a
clover field, and nearby a field of
buckwheat for the delectation of
his bees.
Nevertheless, with all this lavish
bloom, the bees roamed far
from home in search of pollen and
nectar. From the wild flowers
and trees of the campus and outlying
fields, the bees came winging
home with heavily laden honey sacs and
pollen baskets.
In those Calvinistic days, children
feared their elders, and a
minister was usually a man of awesome
rectitude. But not one child
was afraid of dear "Father
Langstroth." Little folk capered with glee
at his approach. If Father Langstroth
chanced to lead in family
prayer, they dared to peep through their
fingers and speculate upon
what the capacious pockets of his linen
duster might contain-a
bright bird feather, a bit of bark, a
shining pebble, or a lustrous
shell. They hovered around the "bee
man" as he worked in a shed
always sweet with wood shavings, near
his house. Wide-eyed, they
watched his eager face as he bent over a
frame or pinched into one
of its angles a bit of wax. They
wandered through the honey garden
with him and listened to his wondrous
stories of insects and flowers.
Early in the morning, they could see him
moving among his
neat, white hives, beginning a long day
devoted to the care and study
156
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
of his bees. A child who loved him
remembered him in later years
as
a huge, portly, stooped figure in black
bee bonnet hung about with a long
calico curtain softly, slowly, slouching
through the garden between the blos-
soms and around his hives, the sun
shining goldenly, the bees airily dancing
above his head as, the world forgot,
wholeheartedly he peered into their wise
ways, studying, planning.
He told the children that white clover
honey tastes clearly of the
blossom and is the finest of all.
Then comes red clover [he said]; then
apple blossom honey from my
own orchard; locust honey from the trees
of the campus; then linden, in point
of flavor; last of all buckwheat, not so
dainty and not pure gold in the comb.15
A little boy who lived next door never
forgot Father Langstroth,
though he lived to be a very old man.
One day he with his parents
was a guest at the Langstroth home. The
unusual courtesy that
Langstroth showed the small boy in a day
when children were kept
in the background was an unforgettable
experience. Langstroth's
young nephew and the little visitor,
George Peck, were clothed in
bee hats and gloves after dinner and
taken out into the yard crowded
with beehives. For hours Father
Langstroth entertained those two
children with the marvels of bee life.
All through George Peck's
long life, the memory of Langstroth's
kindly smile and genial
presence was an inspiration.16
The recollections of the Reverend H. B.
Brown, brother of Ox-
ford's famous farmers, Waldo and
Benjamin Brown, which appeared
in the Oxford News, September 3,
1897, give an interesting side-
light on Langstroth:
One September day, along somewhere in
the '50's, I was called from
my work to show a stranger about the
farm. I was told by my brother that
he was a preacher from Philadelphia who
had recently moved into the village
near which our farm was situated.
I found a pleasant-looking middle-aged
gentleman who said he would
be glad to walk over the farm and see
the crops. He listened attentively,
and I fancied I was impressing him....
As we passed a field of broom corn he
noticed that some of the heads
were infested by a small wood louse and
he told me some interesting facts
15 Memoir of Langstroth, in manuscript,
by Jennie Brooks of Oxford.
16 Conversation with George Peck, now
deceased.
LORENZO L. LANGSTROTH 157
about their habits. Coming to a patch of
watermelons, he called my attention
to the fact that some of the hills
appeared to be affected by a blight, and
asked me the cause of it. I confessed
ignorance, when he remarked that
possibly it was the work of an aphis or
wood louse akin to those upon the
broom corn, and plucking off a leaf, he
examined it by means of a small
microscope, which he carried in his pocket;
then handing me the glass and
the leaf, he pointed out some things in
which the two species differed....
Passing on, we came to a patch of
Hubbard squashes, and he asked: "Do
you keep your seed pure?" I
replied, "No! we send to Gregory at Marblehead
every spring for new seed."
"There is no need of that," said he. "You have,
no doubt, observed that the pistillate
flowers, from which the squashes are
formed, remain in blossom for only a
day, while the staminate flowers con-
tinue for several days. As the bees are
the principal agents in mixing different
species, by carrying pollen of one
flower to another, if you would keep your
squashes pure, get up before it is
fairly light (for the bees are early risers),
take a staminate blossom, shake the
pollen into a pistillate blossom, then tie
it up with a piece of thread, put down a
stake to mark it, and there you will
have a squash true to its kind."
In walking through the orchard, I found
my companion knew all about
the different varieties of fruit,
understood budding and grafting, was posted
in the best methods of fighting the
curculio and other insect pests.
In the spring of 1859, Lorenzo
Langstroth and Samuel Wag-
ner, with Richard Colvin of Baltimore,
made arrangements to im-
port Italian bees from Jan Dzierzon of
Silesia. Wagner had ordered
Italian bees four years before, but they
had not survived the voyage.
Dzierzon never received the order from
Langstroth, Wagner, and
Colvin. About this time the United
States government attempted to
import Italian bees, and S. B. Parsons
of Flushing, Long Island, was
employed to procure them. Parsons wrote
to Langstroth asking his
advice about breeding and disseminating
the bees when they should
arrive. Upon Parsons' invitation,
Langstroth went to Flushing and
remained there almost two months caring
for the imported bees,
trying to save as many queens as
possible. The bees arrived in hol-
low sections of trees, but most of the
bees were dead. Those that
were alive were in very poor condition.
Only the loving care of
Langstroth saved them. Out of thirty
colonies only seven queens
survived. But those few queens bred
colonies which supplied many
a beekeeper with the nucleus of a
colony.
Naturally, Langstroth and his son were
soon breeding Italian
queens and experimenting with this new
race of bees in Oxford.
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OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Hoping to improve the strain by careful
breeding, Langstroth be-
gan to import Italian queens from Jan
Dzierzon. In 1865, he wrote
Dzierzon that although Oxford was not in
the best honey district,
he had several times obtained nearly 150
pounds of surplus honey
from a single stock of Ligurian bees. In
1881, Langstroth summar-
ized more than twenty years of
comparative study of the native black
bees and the golden-banded Italian bees
in a series of articles in the
American Bee Journal and in Cleanings in Bee Culture. These
articles show the meticulous care taken
in his observations. The
Italian bees he considered highly
superior to the native bees in many
respects.
Langstroth and his son were successful
in the propagation of
the Italian queens. The Langstroth
"twenty-dollar queens" were
known far and wide. In one year the
Langstroths sold 2,000 dollars'
worth of Italian queen bees. They were
sent by mail to destinations
as far as 1,200 and 1,500 miles away,
arriving in perfect condition.
In the summer, Father Langstroth was
usually happy and con-
tented. When autumn came the old nervous
trouble frequently re-
turned. It was a curious form of
melancholia, bordering on in-
sanity. Naturally exuberant and joyous,
he grew moody and morose
as the black shadow fell upon him. It
was his custom to exchange
papers with Professor McFarland across
the way. As the attack
came on, he would not look up when he
came to exchange the papers.
Always he went about with his eyes cast
down when he felt the
seizure coming on. "His face would
grow sodden and grave, his step
slower, no greeting would come from
across the hedge" to the
children who loved him. They were
saddened by the change in their
friend and companion. Sometimes, when
the shadow began to fall
upon him, he would challenge Jennie
Brooks (just a slip of a girl in
those days) to a game of chess. He had
taught her the game, and if
by chance she checkmated him, he would
rock with laughter. But
such days were rare. When he was well,
he abhorred chess. When
he was ill, he shut himself in his room
away from his family until
the fit of depression passed. Sometimes
the attack lasted for months,
accompanied by great prostration of body
and mind. He who loved
humanity so much could scarcely bear the
sight of a human face.
Even his beloved bees he detested.
Sometimes even the letter "B"
LORENZO L. LANGSTROTH 159
offended him. Upon waking in the
morning, he reached for the
chessboard and began to play. Or seated
before an open fire, he
concentrated upon the most complex
problems of chess, courageously
fighting to retain his reason. Days of
agony, days of despair,
dragged slowly by in dreadful monotony.
Incredibly fasting, in-
credibly determined, he fought through
to sanity. Then, weak and
worn from the bitter struggle, he shyly
took his place with his family
again. In the fall of 1853, when much
depressed, friends sent him
to Matamoras, Mexico, to visit a
brother. The trip by steamboat,
railroad, and stagecoach completely
restored him by the time he
reached New Orleans. In later life he
regretted that he had not had
the means and the will immediately to
seek a change of scene as
soon as he felt the sickness coming on.
When he was 64 years old,
these attacks became so frequent that he
had to give up his apiary.
After that time, he never had more than
a few colonies of bees at a
time. It was impossible for him to
conduct a business of any size
after the death of his son. James had
contracted tuberculosis dur-
ing the Civil War and had died from it
in 1870.
It was in 1874 that Mrs. Robert White
McFarland wrote to her
husband that she had called on Mr.
Langstroth who lived just across
the street.
I went over to Mr. Langstroth's for an
hour . .. [she wrote]. Mr. Lang-
stroth was in one of his talkative moods
... He showed us some of his ancient
books, read some from Hood's poems. He
showed us and read some from
Tyndal's translation of the testament.
... I thought Mrs. Cowan might feel
proud of such a father.
Waldo Brown considered Langstroth one of
the most interesting
persons he ever met. The big, blond,
rosy-cheeked man was striking
in appearance and fascinating in
conversation. He had a vast fund
of knowledge and a most happy way of
imparting it to others. He
was deeply religious, but there was no
sanctimonious, long-faced
piety in his makeup. He believed
implicitly in the fatherhood of
God and the brotherhood of man and lived
according to his faith.
He attended the Presbyterian church in
Oxford regularly. On Sun-
day mornings, after the service, he
always paused outside the church
door to converse with Brown on the state
of the weather and the
crops. Invariably, after a good rain had
broken a dry spell, he
160
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
would extend his hand to his friend
Waldo, quoting the 65th psalm,
"Thou visitest the earth and
waterest it: thou greatly enrichest it with
the river of God .... Thou waterest the
ridges thereof abundantly:
thou settlest the furrows thereof: thou
makest it soft with showers:
thou blessest the springing
thereof."
Langstroth took an active part in the
affairs of the Presbyterian
church. At business meetings, if the
trustees were weighed down by
difficulties, he could always raise
their spirits by cheerful remarks
or by telling a funny story applicable
to their situation. He some-
times occupied the pulpit, and Oxonians
considered him an eloquent
preacher. One sermon Langstroth preached
in that church was long
remembered. Its text was, "A
virtuous woman who can find? For
her price is far above rubies." He
became so absorbed in his sub-
ject that he held his audience
spellbound for an hour and a half.
The "bee man" was as patriotic
as he was religious. He sent his
only son to the front in the Civil War.
With pen and tongue he
supported the Union cause and helped to
assuage the suffering of
war widows and orphans. He had been
brought up to hate slavery.
His maternal grandmother, Elizabeth
Lorraine Dunn, had taught her
slaves to read when such an act was
unlawful. She had freed her
Negroes and provided for the disabled
and the aged, depriving her-
self of the greater part of a
comfortable fortune. Langstroth was
against President Hall of Miami
University, being convinced that
Hall was a Southern sympathizer. He was
not entirely right on
that score, however. The feeling between
Hall and Langstroth, ac-
cording to a letter written by Professor
R. W. McFarland, was so
bitter that they quarreled on the
street, Hall admitting that he had
said that Langstroth deserved a caning.
Hall's daughter had re-
signed her position in the Presbyterian
Sunday School and Langs-
troth hoped that the whole family would
resign from the church.
Hall was a Peace Democrat, and
Langstroth was heart and soul for
the war. One Sunday morning when the
tide of battle was running
against the North, Langstroth walked
into the pulpit of the Presby-
terian church much depressed. He began
the service by reading the
psalm which contains the verse,
"Thou executest righteousness and
judgment for all that are
oppressed." Without lifting his eyes from
LORENZO L. LANGSTROTH 161
the Bible, or changing the tone of his
voice, he broke forth into the
majestic lines of "The Battle Hymn
of the Republic."17
Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth profited
very little from his in-
vention and his writings, yet he is
recognized at home and abroad as
having done more than any other man to
make beekeeping profitable.
One of the reasons was that he lacked
business acumen. Another
was his physical affliction, which
prostrated him so much of the
time. When he first secured his patent,
there were no factories to
manufacture his hives on an extensive
scale, and there was no ready
advertising medium in the way of bee
journals. The construction of
the hive was simple, and a good
carpenter could make it quite
cheaply. There was no way of preventing
a man who understood
the principle of the Langstroth hive
from making it for himself.
Langstroth was robbed of his rights by
shrewd men who boldly in-
fringed upon his patent. By 1863, he was
forced to try to protect
himself by obtaining a reissue of his
patent, which would expire in
1866. When it came time to prepare the
affidavit for the commis-
sioner of patents, Langstroth was too
ill to do anything about it. His
wife wrote the affidavit, and she wrote
it well, under the date of July
25, 1866. In that document she wrote a
history of the development
of the movable-frame hive18
R. C. Otis of Kenosha, Wisconsin, had
bought from Langstroth
and Beals the patent right for the sale
of hives in the western states
and territories. He had a great interest
in keeping the patent alive,
because he had built up a fine business
in the West. But Otis' agents
reported sundry hives with movable
frames being sold under various
subterfuges. Hives had been patented
which actually included the
Langstroth frame. The story of how
Langstroth was defrauded is
one of the most sordid in the annals of
business.
One of these wily competitors was Homer
A. King, in business
in New York City. Otis finally sued him
for infringement of patent.
In March 1871, Langstroth published in
the American Bee Journal
a technical statement of how he was
tricked by King. It was not a
pretty story. In the same issue of the Journal,
he addressed the
American beekeepers, setting forth the
troubles he had had with his
17 Recollections
of Waldo Brown, in manuscript; letter, R. W. McFarland to his
wife, July 1861.
18 Quoted
in Naile, Langstroth, 123-129.
162 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
patent. The story of fraud was in the records of the patent office,
and there were men involved in it who deserved drastic punishment.
Langstroth invited all beekeepers in America to send to H. A. King
and Company any evidence which would even tend to weaken or in-
validate his own claims. He concluded by saying:
I stand upon what I believe to be my rights. If I have none, but am
unfortunate enough to be the honest original inventor, who, to his surprise and
sorrow, finds that he was not the first inventor, the sooner I know this, the
better; that I may at once cease from claiming what would then belong to the
public, and not to me.
The case of Otis versus King was never decided in court. Dur-
ing the trial, Langstroth succumbed to his old nervous trouble, and
everything stopped. Afterward, Otis' counsel died, and eventually
Mr. Otis was committed to an insane asylum, where he died. So
ended the famous Otis-King case. Langstroth himself had no in-
tention of going to court to protect his own rights against infringe-
ment. In the large territory which he still owned, he trusted all to
be guided by their consciences whether or not they should pay him a
fee, even though the law allowed him to collect damages for seven
years after the patent's expiration. The gentle Langstroth was sorely
grieved to find himself, in his old age, beset with trickery and con-
troversy.
King, in his journal, published half-truths and insinuations that
put Langstroth in a very embarrassing position. But some of the
finest bee men in the country boldly defended him. They were glad
to declare that the invention of the first usable movable-frame bee-
hive was Langstroth's, and no other's.19
There is no doubt that the boom in apiculture in the United
States and Canada was attributable more to Lorenzo Langstroth than
to any other man. The movable-comb hive and Langstroth's manual
for beekeepers simplified beekeeping immeasurably. Thanks to
Langstroth and a few other enterprising bee lovers, whole colonies
of black bees had been transformed in color and character by one
fertile, golden, Italian queen. The new bees were more tractable
and more industrious, which meant greater production of honey.
19 Ibid., 129-142.
LORENZO L. LANGSTROTH 163
Beekeepers began to organize. Eventually
a national associa-
tion was formed. Unfortunately, two
calls were sent out at the same
time for a national convention in 1870.
Two national conventions
were held, one in December 1870 at
Indianapolis, and one at Cin-
cinnati early in February 1871. At
Indianapolis, beekeepers from
eleven states, the territory of Utah,
and the Dominion of Canada
organized the North American Beekeepers'
Association. R. C. Otis
nominated the Reverend Mr. Langstroth
for president, and he was
unanimously elected. A letter was read
before the association con-
cerning a rival convention to be held in
Cincinnati. Apparently, H.
A. King had called that convention
without authority from his reg-
ional association, the Northeastern.
About 150 beekeepers from
fourteen states and from Canada met in
Cincinnati in February and
organized the American Beekeepers'
Association. Langstroth was
unanimously elected president of that
association, also. He accepted
with the understanding that the election
was only a compliment, for
his health would permit no assumption of
responsibilities.
"Something of a zephyr" was
produced at the Thursday after-
noon session when H. A. King suavely
proposed to raise 5,000
dollars for Langstroth's benefit. King
said he would head the list
with fifty dollars, and two others
subscribed fifty dollars each. Then
there was an ominous silence. Presently,
a delegate from Canada
remarked that there was something
mysterious about the manner in
which this subscription had been
started. It had been insinuated to
him that Mr. Langstroth's financial
condition was "either" the re-
sult of his "misfortunes" or
of being "cheated out of his patents."
Mr. Otis then rose to say that if Mr.
King would give fifty
dollars for charity, he would give five
hundred for justice. Mr.
King responded that he would give a
thousand dollars to have justice
done Mr. Langstroth. Mr. Otis came back
with the accusation that
Mr. King was infringing upon
Langstroth's rights with two patents.
The chair ruled that Mr. Otis was out of
order. It had been said
that Otis had helped to ruin Langstroth,
and Otis defied anyone to
say, in his presence, that such was the
case. The subscription was
finally referred to a committee with
King at its head.20 Langstroth
said nothing till the committee brought
in a favorable report con-
20 Cincinnati Commercial, February 9, 1871.
164 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
cerning the fund. Then he said that he
did not wish his personal
affairs to be considered by the
association and that he wished the
matter to go no further.
At the convention, Langstroth was
frequently and most re-
spectfully asked for his opinion. His
informal remarks upon the
cultivation of bees were so well
received that the association voted
that Langstroth should have the special
privilege of speaking
whenever he chose and for as long as he
wished to talk.
In 1874, Langstroth suffered a great
sorrow in the death of his
beloved wife. In 1887, he removed with
his daughter, Mrs. H. C.
Cowan, and her family to Dayton, Ohio.
As he grew older, the mental affliction
troubled him less. In
September 1895, he was able to go to a
meeting of the North Ameri-
can Beekeepers' Association at Toronto,
Canada. There he ad-
dressed the convention and related the
story of his labors with an
early shipment of Italian bees. On
October 6, 1895, he died in the
Wayne Avenue Presbyterian Church in
Dayton, just as he was be-
ginning a sermon on the love of God. It
was fitting that he should
die thus, for he ever loved the ministry
and never ceased to regret
that he could not pursue his chosen
calling. Always he wore the
clerical collar.
He was buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery
at Dayton. The
stone that marks his grave is the gift
of many grateful beekeepers,
and is suitably inscribed to the
"Father of American Beekeeping."
Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth was a prince
among men. Few
suffered more cruelly at the hand of
their fellows than he, but there
was no room in his great heart for
bitterness and revenge. He was
straightforward and kind, more wise and
discerning in the ways of
bees than in the ways of men. One of his
admirers said that there
was "a lofty dignity and moral
majesty" about him that was deeply
impressive. As Amos Ives Root said,
"He was a poet, a sage, a
philosopher, and a humanitarian all in
one."
LANGSTROTH, THE "BEE MAN" OF
OXFORD
by OPHIA D. SMITH
A revolution in beekeeping began on a
summer day in 1838
when Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth saw a
large glass globe filled
with honey on the parlor table of a
friend. He was so fascinated
by the beautiful sight that he went with
his friend to visit his bees
in an attic chamber. In a moment, all
the intense curiosity of his
childhood and boyhood seemed to
"burst into full flame." When he
went home that evening he took with him
two stocks of bees in
ordinary box hives. With that small
purchase he began his apiarian
career.
As a little boy, Lorenzo had worn out
his trousers by too much
kneeling and crawling on graveled walks
to observe the curious
habits of ants that he attracted by
digging holes in the gravel and de-
positing therein bits of meat, bread
crumbs, and dead flies. He had
no books on natural history to read, so
he studied that subject at first
hand. An unsympathetic teacher punished
him at school for put-
ting flies in paper cages. His parents
had little patience with his
strange habits, but nothing stopped his
observations of the insect
life about him.1
Lorenzo's parents, John George
Langstroth and Rebecca Amelia
Dunn Langstroth, lived at 106 South
Front Street, not far from In-
dependence Hall, in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. Lorenzo was the
second child and the eldest son in a
family of eight children. His
maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Lorraine
Dunn, was a grand-
daughter of Count Louis Lorraine, a
Huguenot, who had fled to
America after the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes.2
In spite of his peculiar devotion to the
study of insects, Lorenzo
made a good record in school. In
preparatory school he became a
notable Latin scholar. He could
translate Latin so readily that one
1 Langstroth's
"Reminiscences," in Gleanings in Bee Culture, XX, 761-762, quoted
in Florence Naile, The Life of
Langstroth (Ithaca, N.Y., 1942), 36.
2 Naile, Langstroth, 35.
3 Oxford Citizen, October 11, 1895.
147