That sounds very odd. Is the decimal off? Could it be .20?

 

From one inflation calculator $20 in 1863 would be $363.64 today.
In comparison the $20 queens we buy today. He would have been selling for around $1.20 ea.

 

It would seem likely that the people who bought Italian queens for $20 from Rev. Langstroth would view them in a similar way to the "breeder queens" that are available today. And today breeder queens cost multiple hundreds of dollars. Here's one example:

http://latshawapiaries.com/index.php?page=ordering-information

 

So 2 dollars might make more sense.

 

Langstroth was instrumental in getting those Italian genes into this country. Imagine back in those days not having air mail what a feat it would of been to get live genetics to the US!!! The first Italian queens in the country were considered breeder queens so yes he did have a corner on the market but I'm sure he had a lot of $$$ invested in getting those queens imported.

 

http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cg.../cgi-bin/WI/WI-idx?type=turn&entity=WI.WIBeev06.p0008&id=WI.WIBeev06&isize=text

This is a good read. It tells of Mr. Grimm and how he made $10,000.00 in one year from bees and sold daughters of his imported Italians for $18.00.
Apparently beekeepers of yesterday where dreamers always looking for the next greatest bee!
Bee fever!!!

 

Tommyt: Interesting, I had no idea. I think prf's assessment is probably on the mark. The history of queen pricing in the 40+ years I have been in the business is that the midpoint for the pricing of either a production queen or a pound of April bees equates to 10 pounds of honey.

 

You can read about the difficulties on importing Italian queens (by steamboat, the fastest option) in the Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for the year 1863, thru the magic of Google Books, here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Az...TA9gTkxYHIBw&ved=0CEkQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Langstroth queens italian 1863&f=false

This was at a time when a steamboat could make a trans-Atlantic voyage in about 11 days, if things went well.

 

I just read some online ABJ articles from 1870-71 and one add had pure Italian queens for $8 in May down to $4 in Aug/Sept or $2.50 for an untested queen. Most adds asked the reader to write for prices. A complete hive with bees was around $15.
Regarding shipping one article mentioned the queen being well provisioned for 30 days, that may have been from Europe.
It was interesting reading. Some of the topics were about the best method of wintering, feeding graham flour, feeding flour, how the bees use sugar, the best style of hive, winter losses, queen rearing. Sound familiar?