On Wed, 28 Feb 2007 10:06:58 -0500, David.Meldrum 
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Not on line, but the definitive Langstroth biography is the book
>"America's Master of Bee Culture" by Florence Naile ISBN 0-8014-1053-3.
>It is hard to find, but if you search around on line used book stores
>you can often turn up a copy for sale.
>
I recently came across a copy of this book and have found it interesting 
reading. Most refrences to Langstroth I have read say only that "As a 
child he had shown a rather unusual interest in insects...". And I've 
always wonder, "what does that mean, he liked to torture flies?" So I was 
a bit surprised to read on 
page 36 of Florence's book that "When he was six years old, so his mother 
afterwards told him, his teachers reported that although he was doing well 
in other respects she had to punish him for spending time in catching 
flies and shutting them in paper cages."

But the book goes on to tell how, as a boy, Langstroth wore the knees out 
of his pants studing ants and cicadas. According to this book Langstroth 
first 
noticed cicadas when he was seven. A brood of cicadas hatched in 
Philadelphi in that year, 1817. 

Langstroth writes about taking his daughter and some of her classmates 
back to Philadelphia in his 40th year to observe another brood of cicadas 
hatching. He says about that night, "...but from my boyish recollections I 
could have described them almost as vividly and accurately as I could 
after these last observations."

It seems that Langstroth never lost the wonder and fascination he had 
for insects as a child. I guess that is what others were trying to say by 
refering to his "unusual interest".

Maybe someone can now write a book about how many researchers and REAL 
(tm) beekeepers out there secretly dream of being the next Lorenzo 
Lorraine. This syndrom (LLL syndrom) has led to many inovations over the 
years but has also resulted in a surplus of articles on hive ventilation 
etc. 
Will the next Lorenzo Lorraine please stand up? (Ok, you can sit down 
again, at least you got some exercise).

L.L. Hancock

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