Hi all
This excerpt from 1953, presents a somewhat different view of "progress"

In the early 1850's, Lorenzo Loraine Langstroth introduced
his movable frame hive and then for the first time it was possible
thoroughly to inspect the inside of a hive without injury to the occupants. 

Once his feet were set in the forward path, his progress was very rapid, and
by 1875 the business had fallen into what seems its present pattern.

Unfortunately there are no early census figures but it seems
certain that apiculture today is only a shadow of what once it
was. More than 250 years ago, Benton observed, "Scarce a house
but that the south side was begirt with hives of bees," and within
my memory a half-dozen or more hives (often called "skips")
in some sheltered spot not too far from the kitchen door were a
common feature of the countryside. Like so many other vocations,
the industry has passed into the hands of a comparatively few
large producers who are specialists. Holding nostalgic memories
across a good many years, I feel, with a quiet pain of regret, that
"the glory hath departed."

It is an old idea that bees thrive best in the new country. Hence
the ancient quatrain:

Ding dong of bell and choral swell
Deter the bee from industry
But hoot of owl and wolf's long howl
Incite to moil and constant toil.


source:
The Golden Age of Homespun
By Jared Van Wagenen, Jr 
Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1953

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