Talk:L. L. Langstroth

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The text used to say:

"His was the first design to have comb that was enclosed on four sides by a wooden frame that allowed for easy removal and reuse of the comb."

The problem with this statement is that, as mentioned earlier in the text, Huber had already designed a hive with comb "that was enclosed on four sides by a wooden frame that could be easily removed and reused." True, you had to pull the pin on a hinge (an easy thing to do), but you could remove them easily. In fact Huber's hive had most of the advantages claimed by Langstroth for his hive. MANY bee hives previous to Langstroth's design had "comb that was enclosed on four sides by a wooden frame" and, according to their proponents, "allowed for easy removal and reuse of the comb." However, in reality the frames would be propolized to the point they were difficult to remove. What Langstroth did that was revolutionary was to provide a "bee space" around the frame so it was not glued into place by the bees, and, also important, did this in a simple, mechanically and financially practical way. The original senetence, I feel, implied that it was the removable wooden frame that was revolutionary. But it was not the wooden frame that was revolutionary, since many had done this before. It was the bee space surrounding it. Therefore, for clarity, I changed this to:

"His was the first design to have comb that was enclosed on four sides by a wooden frame surrounded by a 'bee space' that allowed for easy removal and reuse of the comb."

Also, an aside, the original book by L.L. Langstroth is still in print as well as the 1992 edition by Dadant & Sons. Very little of Langstroth's original work is in the newest version. A scan of the old Langstroth version is available from Cornell and I added a link to that.

--Michael Bush

• That's a very good clarification.David 02:16, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

"The Leaf Hive, invented in Switzerland in 1789 by Francis Huber, was a fully movable frame hive, >>but the distance between combs was too small.<<"

I don't believe this phase concerning the distance between the combs is at all accurate nor relevant.

Relevance:

What Huber built was a hive made of small boxes (frames) that when put together made up the "box" of the hive. There was no space between these frames at all. What Langstroth did was build a box with frames suspended inside the box separated by a beespace all the way around the inside of the box. This article is about what Langstroth did that was different from what had been done before. Langstroth's frames were spaced by eye and I'm sure they ranged from 30 to 35mm because that's about as accurate as you can get without built in spacers which Langstroth did not have. It wasn't the spacing of the combs that was revolutionary.

Accuracy:

The spacing between the frames on the Huber hive were fine. Spacing between combs on Apis mellifera brood comb run from about 30mm to 35mm on centers. Hives have been built with frames in this range from Huber's time until now. Charles Koover was a recent vocal proponent of 32mm spacing (the same as Huber had in his leaf hive) as were many others through the years. There is nothing "too small" about this measurement.

Michael Bush (talk) 21:34, 11 January 2008 (UTC)