Beekeeping through the Ages

Why? Yummy honey

 Etymology - Uncertain. Possibly from Egyptian bjt (“honey bee”). Proto-Indo- European *b ʰ i- reconstructible from Germanic and Balto- Slavic evidence gave Old English bēo (English bee ), but would have entered the Latin then as the reduced form /af/ from /?fj/. Alternatively, one can assume modification of initial obstruent due to a taboo (common for Proto-Indo-European flora). Other theories speculate on Osco-Umbrian borrowing, from an original * akuis (“sharp, stinging”) (confer Latin aqui- in aquifolius, aquilinus ; Osco-Umbrian reflex of Proto- Indo-European labiovelar */k ʷ / that gives Latin is regularly /p/).Egyptian bjtProto-Indo- European *b ʰ i-Old English bēoEnglish beeProto-Indo-EuropeanLatin aquifolius aquilinusProto- Indo-European Latin: apis

 Probably as long ago as humans have existed  Graphic depictions of beekeeping exist in rock paintings from 15,000 years ago  Image to right was dated as 8,000 years old & found in a cave near Valencia in Spain. When did it all start?

 4,500 years ago, Egyptians began to “domesticate” the bees (bees have never truly been domesticated)  Sun temple depicts people using smoke to calm the bees to remove honeycomb - circa 2400 BCE. Egyptians

Egyptian Beekeeping (from tombs)  Two jars in Tutankhamun's tomb were labeled as containing honey, but none was found in the jars.  Beeswax & honey used in mummification.

 Mother Earth goddess, Artemis, was depicted as half woman, half bee  Aristotle observed bees in his History of Animals. In it, he identified the three types of bees – queen, drone, worker & observed bee development in the comb.  Alexander the Great embalmed with honey & wax. Greeks

 Copied Egyptian/Greek beekeeping methods.  Interestingly, although writing exist about beekeeping, few pictures or artifacts from Roman times exist.  Virgil, among other Roman writers, talked about bees.  Roman writings included recipes for sugar syrup for feeding the bees.  60 AD Comella (Roman) described beekeeping tools, including a smoker and a hive tool very much like the ones used today. Romans

 When the Spanish landed, they found the Mayans keeping bees (and were surprised!)  Tended Meliponine bees, which were stingless  Mayans used honey medicinally  Mayans had several bee gods Mayans

 Earliest written recording of bees ( feng ) found on inscriptions on animal bones dating from 3000 BCE  First recorded professional beekeeper - Jiang-qi (158 CE -167 CE). Supposedly trained other beekeepers.  Kept apis cerana (Eastern honeybee) in wooden boxes  Apis mellifera introduced 1911 Ancient China

Beekeeping in Medieval Europe  Bees were kept in skeps (Anglo-Saxon for “basket”)  Mentioned in book about Norman conquest  First skeps were German  Beeswax for candles was as important as honey, especially before the Reformation (church needed lots!)  Different fermented honey drinks were made – Hydromel was favorite of Elizabeth I

 1300 AD, Marco Polo returns from Asia with sugar cane  Sugar cane cheaper source of sweetener  Mead replaced by cheaper beer and imported wine – lower class drink/medicine Sugar starts to displace honey – late Middle Ages

 Book about Honey as medicine – circa 1480

 EARLY SCIENCE & BEES  1586, Luis Méndez de Torres - Spain - first described the queen bee as a female that laid eggs.  In 1609, Charles Butler - England - identified the drones as male bees.  In 1637, Richard Remnant - England - recognized that the worker bees were females. Beekeeping in European Renaissance

 Brought by settlers to Virginia in 1622  Brought to Massachusetts in 1638  Native Americans called bees the “white man’s flies”  Beeswax was a recorded Virginia export in the 1700s  Bees were feral until the 1800s  No bees on the West Coast until mid-1800s  Mormons took bees to Utah in 1840s  Bees shipped to California via Cape Horn Apis Mellifera comes to America

Bees were patriots

Karl von Frisch  Studied honey bees for 50 years  Focused on bee perception  Identified the waggle dance  Won 1973 Nobel Prize for his work on bees.

Frisch’s Dancing Bees

Eva Crane  Trained as quantum mathematician  Became a beekeeper when she and her husband got a hive as a wedding present during WWII  Wrote over 180 articles, books, & papers about bees  Two important books in beekeeping (written in her 70s & 80s): Bees and Beekeeping: science, practice and world resources (1990) & The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting (1999)

 Tools of the trade Beekeeping supplies

 Humans began “keeping” bees in artificial hives before written history –  Used hollow logs, pottery hives, wooden boxes, and skeps Artificial Hives

 Beekeepers did use top bar hives so that they could remove comb.  The Greek hive at right was used in 1600s Early top bar hives

Gedde Hive  First hive patent granted circa 1657 to John Gedde by Charles II of England  Had removable inner frame

 Francis Huber (Switzerland) invented the first known moveable hive in  With his servant, Furnes (Huber was blind), he made many observations – bees lay eggs, queens mated in flight, etc. The Leaf Hive

 In the 1800s, beekeepers continued to try to segregate the laying area from the honey so as not to destroy the hive during honey extraction.  Got lbs of honey/year Other Pre-Langstroth Hives

 Lorenzo Langstroth, a depressed minister, started keeping bees in the mid-1800s.  Based on his observations, he developed a hive with hanging frames.  Coined the term “bee space” Langstroth Hive

 The addition of the Hoffman frame completed the evolution of the modern beehive. Hive Improvements

 Moses Quinby invented the first bellows smoker around 1857 Smokers

 Improved upon by TF Bingham in 1880s  Essentially the same as the Quinby, except Bingham added the wooden face to the bellows  For a definitive look at historic bee smokers – watch “The History Bee Smokers – with Paul Jackson” on YouTube Smokers

Veils Below: Circa 1568 (Belgium) Above: Circa 1905 (Texas)

 1945 photo – John McFayden w/automatic honeycomb decapper Decappers

 Egyptians collected comb in cow skin & crushed it by stepping on the skin  Inevitably, bees were killed to get honey  Wax presses used  Austrian Major Francesco de Hruschka invented the first centrifugal honey extractor in Supposedly, the idea came to him as he watched his son swing a bucket of honey around. Extraction

Extractors  A.I. Root of Ohio is credited with building an extractor for Langstroth hive frames.  Wrote ABC & XYZ of Bee Culture & started Bee Culture magazine

 beekeeping beekeeping  throughout-ages-bees-in-ancient.html throughout-ages-bees-in-ancient.html   6/0628_050628_maya_bees_2.html 6/0628_050628_maya_bees_2.html   rocess.htm rocess.htm Sources

 history-of-honey/ history-of-honey/  lution%20of%20Chinese%20Apiculture.pdf lution%20of%20Chinese%20Apiculture.pdf  honey/ honey/   y-of-beekeeping-in-the-united-states/ y-of-beekeeping-in-the-united-states/  rful-history-of-honey-extraction.html rful-history-of-honey-extraction.html   ne/mummification/Pages/materials1.html ne/mummification/Pages/materials1.html

 val-versus-modern-beekeeping val-versus-modern-beekeeping   berlin.mpg.de/en/research/projects/deptII_munz_ ScienceofAnimals berlin.mpg.de/en/research/projects/deptII_munz_ ScienceofAnimals