Langstroth

Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth (1810–1895) was an American clergyman and apiarist who is widely considered the father of modern beekeeping for developing the movable-frame beehive and the concept of bee space. He patented a movable-frame hive in 1852 and popularized the design through his subsequent work, including The Hive and the Honey-Bee (1853).

Langstroth's hive uses vertically stacked boxes containing removable frames. The key innovation is the careful spacing between frames and walls, based on bee space, a narrow gap that bees will not fill with comb or propolis. This allows beekeepers to inspect, add, or remove frames without destroying the structure of the comb or injuring the colony. The brood area typically lies in the lower boxes, with honey supers placed above.

Impact and legacy: The movable-frame hive revolutionized beekeeping by enabling efficient management, disease control, and scalable honey production. It made standardized equipment and practices possible, facilitating commercial apiculture and agricultural pollination. Today, the Langstroth hive remains the dominant design worldwide, with numerous adaptations and variations still based on its core principles. Langstroth's work laid the foundation for modern beekeeping science and industry, influencing equipment design, hive management, and the understanding of colony dynamics.