Dzierzon was a German Clergyman who wrote a montly newsletter entitled "The
Bee Friend From Schlesien".
He has kept bees all of his life, as did his father. One of his main
achievements was his encouraging
readers to use a moveable type frame allowing them to leaf through hives and
also making it possible to not
destroy comb with each harvest.   In 1861 he wrote "Rational BeeKeeping", a
now famous work covering the whole
of shared knowledge up to that point. He is considered in Europe as the
father of rational beekeeping just as
Langstroth is in America.

Although Langstroth and Dzierzon worked independently, many of their
discoveries were parallel.
Dzierzon also understood bee-space but never calls it such in his book.  He
does say that the movable
type frames must be 1 ½ inches on-center to get good comb build. In fact the
importance in spacing
of movable type frames was known much earlier. Miner’s patented “Equilateral
Hive” utilized a 3/8-inch
space between special guide plate openings. From this it is clear that Miner
understood the importance of bee
space quite early. It is known that Langstroth owned a copy of the 1849
first edition of Miner’s book, and was probably
influenced by it but he states that it was years later that a friend showed
him Dzierzon's book and they realized
that they had both hit on the same ideas.  Dzierzon's hive fell out of use
since you had to manipule every frame to
examine any one frame.

He is also credited with finding the spermatheca and discovery that the
queen stores sperm throughout her reproductive life.
He was particulary interested in an idea he called "parthenogenesis" in
which he viewed the future of the hive sacrificed.
He said "Nature is not always able to proportion the means to the end ..  If
the goal is to preserve, certainly this method is flawed."
Although parthenogenesis is now recognized, when he first suggested it
nearly a century and a half century ago, it was not well received.
Some of the critics were highly politically placed which in his day was far
more important than our “pier review” in publishing is today.
Dzierzon prevailed and nearly all the countries of central Europe honored
him in for this finding.

Dave