All posts by Claus Kropp

Virtual “Draft Animals” and a Virtual “Plowing Match” before they happen! A note from Bob Powell

Agricultural History, Announcements, Draft Animals, Uncategorized, , Leave a comment

Before I begin, I will blame this impromptu personal “blog” on our colleagues and friends, Cozette Griffin Kremer and Claus Kropp who suggested, nay twisted my arm, to write something to link two up and coming events. 

As 2021 proceeds still under the effects of the Covid-19 virus, two related “virtual” events are occurring.  Firstly, on May 8th ~ 9th, instigated and administered by Claus is his on-line Conference “Draft Animals in the Past, Present and Future.” (Figure 1).   Secondly, following in an established tradition of the Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums (ALHFAM) is the Annual Conference’s “Plowing Match.”  The latter too, usually a major event, is for the first time, and experimentally, virtual.

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Figure 1: Poster for Claus’ “Draft Animals’ Conference. (Picture P. Starkey)

Encouraged by the late Peter Ledwith of the then Ontario Agricultural Museum, Milton, Canada, I joined ALHFAM back in 1993.  At the time I was ‘Curator’ at the Weald & Downland Living Museum, near Chichester, West Sussex, England.  It was June 1995 before I attended my first ALHFAM Annual Conference, which was held at Lake Farm Parks, Ohio.  The weather was exceptionally hot.  At that time there was no ‘Plowing Match’ but, as working livestock have invariably formed a part of the Annual Conferences, there was horse plowing.  This aspect is for ever “burnt into my memory” for the ground was baked like concrete.  I had never used a wheel-less walking plow before but what really threw me was that the plow being used was left-handed and totally alien to me (Figure 2). I was used to furrows always being thrown to the right.  I since learned that left-handed plows were often favoured in Ohio.

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Figure 2: Bob with the left-handed plow in 1995.

Living in Scotland from 1997, I did not attend my next ALHFAM Annual Conference until 2002 when it was held at Fortress Louisburg, Nova Scotia.  There was no Plowing Match but there was an opportunity to plow behind oxen, which at the time was my first occasion.

The following year, 2003, for which I sadly did not attend, the Annual Conference was held in New Jersey. The Conference incorporated Howell Living History Farm where the Director, ALHFAM Past President and our good friend, Pete Watson formally inaugurated the Annual ALHFAM Plowing Match. At Howell cultivation by both horses and oxen is the norm.  Further, under Pete’s instigation, Howell has held its own draft animal Annual Plowing Match since 1983.  Resultantly, Howell was the ideal place for the inauguration of the ALHFAM match and the start of an annual tradition.

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Figure 3: Bob with Canadian Horses at Upper Canada Village, 2008

The beauty of the ALHFAM Plowing Matches is that they are inclusive for all Conference comers; experiential and educational yet fun.  When I reflect, apart from the comradeship, I think about the variety of plows that we have had the opportunity to try from 18th Century replicas at Colonial Williamsburg to 20th Century industrially manufactured models.  I think too about the animals: mules, oxen and a variety of horses including ‘Canadian’ (Figure 3) when we were at Upper Canada Village in 2008.

When I further reflect, I think of a “brotherhood” that includes “sisters” of horse plowmen that has gelled over the years.  I have had the honour of both being a judge and a winner of the competition.  For the former, I think of melting as we judged (Figure 4) in the searing heat of Grapevine, Dallas, Texas in 2012.  Before that at Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 2006, where with my good pal Ed Schultz from Colonial Williamsburg, we had to, first, literally wire a plow together for the Match. Then, second, at the end of the not only very hot but humid event, Ed and I running for “liquid refreshment”.  Thinking about running, I recall being near Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2007 where lightning sent us running from the Match field for shelter. There has been much enjoyment and good memories. Over the years we have grown older, not necessarily wiser but it is good to see the events giving opportunities to especially younger participants who we hope will continue to be “tradition bearers.”   

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Figure 4: Ed Schultz gives guidance to a novice competitor at Grapevine, Texas in 2012 while the writer behind studies her plowing.

Although it is immaterial because of the positive outcomes, strictly speaking the ALHFAM “plowing matches” have not been really so but rather a version of furrow drawing contests, where each competitor follows on from the one before.  In the past in England, for example, furrow drawing matches were wholly individual, where each competitor had to draw a single straight furrow across a field for judging that had no physical connection to anyone else’s.  Now 2021’s Virtual ALHFAM Plowing Match will be different because in the true sense of a match and skill, each competitor will have to stand alone; plowing more than one furrow.   In my vernacular, each competitor will have to “open out, plough three rounds with neat ins and outs to result in a level finish with all rubbish buried and no ‘gardening’ allowed.” In other words, for judging each competitor is going to have to start straight with their first two back-to-back furrows, followed by three ploughed furrows on either side of the opening furrows that will be judged for straightness, width and depth of furrow.  Further, neat ends at the headland as the plough enters or exits each furrow, the efficiency of burying of surface growth and overall regularity and level of finish.  Finally, no manual handling to enhance the final plowed result! 

This change of the challenge may sound daunting to some.  However, one of the principal aims is to encourage participation.  We want entrants, ALHFAM members, to try and have fun.  It is about the experience as well as about learning.

As I started, this is in the lead up to the “Draft Animals” conference and one important aspect of the ALHFAM Plowing Match has been to increase the awareness of the potential of draft animals (horses, mules and oxen) by giving a memorable hands-on experience. 

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Figure 5: In the foreground a 1950s ‘Fordson Major’ and behind a circa 1970 ‘Ford 4000’ at ‘Farming Yesteryear’, Scone, Perth, Scotland in 2019.  Both are models of tractor, now widely collectible and nostalgic, that the writer regularly drove 50 years ago.

That said, again 2021 will be different because we are introducing a tractor element.   I am an ardent lifetime working horse enthusiast, yet I fully support this new initiative.   In the mid-1960s, a good 50+ years ago, I started to drive on a 1950s Ferguson TE20 tractor, a 1959 “Massey Ferguson 65” and “Fordson Majors” before moving on to such as Ford 4 and 5000s.  Having spent my career in living history museums, I have often thought that many of our fellow institutions are stuck, say in the early 1900s, a period when they were either founded or interpreted because their tangible or physical collections were nostalgic to the then audiences.  I have been “retired” since the start of 2014 but before that I used to say to staff during annual training to remember that the parents visiting with their offspring may have been born since 1990. Of course, now you might say 2000!  In the 1990s it became clear to me that many of our younger farming visitors had little idea about what we were exhibiting.  I recall a radio program where young people were talking about the “old days”, the 1990s!   I think that many of us, despite the potential for draft animals in existing and new contexts, realise that our representation of the “new” is often lacking.  However, that “new” may be from 100 years ago.  As a Curator I was pleased to include a 1950s Fordson “Super Major” and a 1960s Massey Ferguson 135 in our collection that were ticking the nostalgic senses of many similarly middle and older aged visitors to myself.  That’s still a long time ago… 50 plus years and well before the experience of our current early 21st century audiences.  OK, I’ll get off my soap box.  Many of us know that there will be many ongoing challenges to collection, relevance and interpretation.  However, with no threat to draft animals (my passion) intended, I am delighted that we are addressing an overdue need by the inclusion of tractors in our event.

In conclusion, may both of our related, “new normal” virtual events be successful.  Claus’ Conference creates opportunities for further engagement to explore the past and future relevance of draft animals.  The ALHFAM plowing match, is not only a means to encourage continuing engagement with a traditional skill but to also introduce a long overdue new aspect.

Speed The Plow… however drawn!

Bob Powell

Bob Powell is a working horse and farming historian, retired from the ‘Highland Folk Museum’, Scotland.

Year of the ox: an informative celebration of work oxen technologies worldwide

Uncategorized, , , , One Comment

Abstract:
A high-resolution educational poster has been created illustrating the use of working oxen in 62 countries. This portrays a wide variety of operations (including tillage, transport and post-harvest technologies) and harnessing systems (for single oxen, pairs and teams). While most work oxen are castrated cattle, some are cows or bulls. Some reasons for the decline in the use of work oxen are discussed, as are the requirements to allow long-standing, ecologically sustainable work oxen technologies to survive in modernising economies.

Résumé
Un poster éducatif haute résolution a été créée pour illustrer l’utilisation des bœufs comme animaux de trait dans 62 pays. Elle décrit une grande variété d’opérations (y compris les technologies de travail du sol, de transport et de post-récolte) et de systèmes de harnachement (pour un ou deux bœufs, ou en équipes). Alors que la plupart des bœufs utilisés sont des bovins castrés, certains sont des vaches ou des taureaux. Certaines raisons du déclin de l’utilisation des bœufs dans le travail de la terre sont discutées, tout comme les conditions qui permettraient à cette technologie ancestrale, écologiquement durable et à faible émission de carbone de survivre dans les économies en voie de modernisation.

Key words: Oxen, Animal Power, Animal Traction, Draft animals, Working animals, Yokes

To commemorate the Chinese Year of the Ox that started in February 2021, Paul Starkey has created a high-resolution educational poster (see Figure 1), using photographs he has taken in 62 countries to illustrate the diversity of using oxen for work. Paul is a member of AIMA and Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading. High resolution versions of the poster can be made available to AIMA members and not-for-profit organisations. It is currently available in English, French and Spanish versions. At the end of this article (Figure 5) is a key to make it easier to spot the photos relating to the various countries mentioned.

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Figure 1: English version of the ‘Year of the Ox’ poster (Photos: Paul Starkey).

Oxen can be defined as working cattle or castrated bulls. Most of the work oxen in the world are indeed castrated bulls, as breeding populations of cattle always produce surplus males, making them readily available. Farmers, transporters and loggers using working cattle almost invariably use castrated males. In West Africa, farmers may buy young oxen from pastoralist herders (or traders), train them and work with them for a few years, before selling them on to the meat trade. Since the oxen double their weight in this time, the farmers make a capital gain: a rare example of an appreciating asset. However, when resources are scarce, smallholder farmers with intermittent need for work, cannot justify feeding oxen all the year. They therefore start to use cows, that can provide work, calves, milk and manure: a better return for the feed resources and the labour expended to keep them. The ‘oxen’ shown in some European countries (Bulgaria, Czechia, Romania and Spain) are cows used for light work. Working cows have also been commonly used for smallholder farming in North Africa, Turkey, Indonesia and the Altiplano of Bolivia. Art from the Pharaonic period of ancient Egypt shows yoked cows pulling plows. With good training, bulls can also be used for work, and working bulls are popular in some parts of the world including Chad, Niger, Northern Nigeria, Mexico and Cuba.

Oxen can be used for a wide variety of operations, with transport and soil tillage being the commonest. The poster shows oxen pulling two-wheel carts (eg, Bangladesh, Mauritania and Sri Lanka), four-wheel wagons (eg, Bulgaria, Brazil, Costa Rica and Paraguay) and sledges (Fiji and   Namibia). Plowing in rain-fed soil with factory made implements is illustrated (eg, France, Kenya, Tanzania and UK) as is ridging (Chad and Nigeria). Tine-tillage and ridging using traditional wooden-beamed implements is shown for Bolivia, Ethiopia, Morocco and Peru. The use of factory-made tines is shown in Togo while upland harrowing is illustrated in Spain. Between-row weeding using either traditional or factory-made implements is shown in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, Mexico, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Irrigated rice cultivation can involve oxen in various ways including trampling (Madagascar), tillage (China, Nepal) and levelling (Myanmar, Indonesia, Vietnam). Modern equipment is shown with pesticide spraying in Cuba and mowing in Zambia (with oxen-pulled motorised equipment). The use of oxen for irrigation is shown in Egypt with a sakia (or saqiyah) pump) and Senegal, where oxen pull a rope to raise water from a deep well. Post-harvest operations with work oxen include their use in threshing, illustrated by pulling a stone roller over harvested cereals in India. The use of oxen to mill oilseeds is shown in Chad, while in Honduras, oxen are seen milling sugar cane. Forestry logging with oxen in Malawi is illustrated, as is the use of oxen for grading roads in El Salvador. The training of small N’dama cattle as work oxen is shown in Guinea and Guinea Bissau and the exhibiting of heavy work oxen in USA is also illustrated.

Besides the diversity of operations, there is a wide variety of yokes and harnessing systems to see. There are broadly similar numbers of head yokes (tied behind the horns) and withers yokes (resting at the base of the neck) although the designs of these vary greatly and are often unique to particular areas. Collars are seldom used with oxen. Full collars and three-pad collars have been used to a small extent in UK and parts of central Europe and they have been trialled by researchers in other countries but have not become widespread (see Figure 2).

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Figure 2: Three pad collar harness at Kloster Lorsch, Germany (Photo: Mascha Funke), a rare ox collar in UK (Photo: Museum of English Rural Life) and a three-pad collar being trialled in Kenya (Photo: Paul Starkey).

Most oxen are worked in pairs and some work singly. Teams of four oxen are illustrated in the poster (in Lesotho and South Africa), but much larger teams can be used to pull wagons or for soil tillage (see Figure 3).

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Figure 3: Ten Afrikaner and Nguni oxen pulling disc harrow in South Africa (Photo: Paul Starkey).

There are two main types of oxen in the world, humpless cattle (Bos taurus) and humped cattle (Bos indicus) although many new breeds have been developed as hybrids derived from crossing the two species. Historically, Bos taurus breeds dominated Europe, North Africa and parts of West Africa (the home of the trypanotolerant N’dama cattle seen in the photos from Guinea, Guinea Bissau and Sierra Leone).

The importance of folk art and traditional designs can be seen in the special designs of decorated oxcarts used in Cambodia, Turkey, Madagascar and Sri Lanka, as well as the wagons typical of Bulgaria, Czechia, Romania and Paraguay. The heavy, carved, painted and plumed withers yokes of Portugal were widely used for yoking oxen for tillage and transport and also for pulling in fishing nets (in the example shown in the poster). A simpler, cheaper yoke would have worked just as well, and would probably have been more comfortable for the oxen, but the farmers might have felt less pride.

Depending on their local traditions, most farmers are adamant that their form of yoke (whether withers or head yoke) is superior, and the other type can be relatively cruel. However, there seems to have been little technology transfer between the users of the two principal yoke types within farming communities. In France there is a complex distribution pattern of traditional designs of head and withers yokes, with many neighbouring Départements having different yoking systems. The photo from Malawi shows an interesting exception. Malawians mainly use withers yokes, but for forestry applications they use head yokes as logging oxen descend slopes dragging heavy logs and head yokes provide better braking due to the rigid connection between the yoke and the animals.

Colonialists from various cultures have transferred the yoke designs they knew, and these have spread with the introduction of work oxen applications. In the Latin America, head yokes tied to the horns are widely used due to colonial Spanish and Portuguese influences. Most farmers and transporter in USA used withers yokes, while the Quebec yoke was tied to the horns. Dutch and British settlers brought the withers yoke to Southern and Eastern Africa, while the French introduced both head yokes and withers yokes into West Africa. All those international technology transfers were in the past 500 years, but for millennia, oxen with withers yokes have been widely used in most of Asia, North Africa and Ethiopia. The yoking examples seen in the photos from these regions are very similar to those used in historic times. The ox plow and yoke used in Egypt today is very similar to that seen in models and art from Pharaonic times (see Figure 4), although some Pharaonic art does suggest yokes were sometimes tied to the horns.

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Figure 4: Pharaonic period model of Egyptian oxen (British Museum), a replica papyrus showing cows plowing and present period use of cows for plowing by the Nile in Egypt (Photos: Paul Starkey).

The photo from Morocco shows a cow yoked with a donkey. This is not ideal (they both have different strengths and stepping rates) but that farmer owns one cow and one donkey. Mixed teams are not unusual in North Africa. Different animals, including camels and horses, can be harnessed together, each fitted with an independent single withers yoke attached to a joining beam (sometimes referred to as a belly yoke) below animals. The implement attaches to this ‘belly yoke’.

Most ox carts in Madagascar are painted blue and decorated, and follow the design with good brake shoes introduced in the Napoleonic times. The poster photo from Seychelles shows ox carts being used to carry tourists to their hotels: a taxi would be cheaper, but the tourists pay a premium for the ‘traditional’ experience.

The use of oxen is still very important in many countries, although it is declining. In northern Europe and in the temperate zones of the Americas, heavy horses gradually replaced working oxen from the eighteenth century. Horses have good acceleration and walk faster and are preferred for frequent and specialised work (although military demand sometimes made farmers revert to using oxen). With industrialisation, horses and oxen were gradually replaced by tractors and other machine power, particularly on large farms that could afford the investments. On smallholder farms, animal power was retained, being available and affordable. However, in regions like southern Europe, reduction in household labour due to fewer children, children in school and adult family members seeking external full- or part-time employment made retaining work animals problematic. As smallholder farmers increasingly adopted tractors and pickup trucks, the critical mass needed to sustain animal power technologies (and associated folk art) diminished, so that support services making yokes, harnesses and implements gradually died out, making it increasingly difficult for individuals to rely on animal power.

Similar declines are now being seen throughout the world, exacerbated by the negative image often given to animal power in the media. As small tractors, motorcycles and three-wheelers are adopted, a critical mass develops, supported by new, local services. This reduces the demand for the different services supporting animal power, leading to a spiral of decline.

In industrialised countries, the economics of mechanisation was associated with land consolidation and increasing farm size. Smallholder farmers sold up to larger farms and joined the work force in rural or urban areas. Such processes continue in much of the world where land rights facilitate this. However, in many countries, including in much of sub-Saharan Africa, land ownership can be more complicated and associated with highly sensitive cultural traditions. Motorisation on rain-fed, small-scale farms may not be profitable, giving an economic advantage to animal power. However, people aspire to modernisation and motorisation, and politicians frequently respond with promises of subsidised tractor services. Across Africa there are ‘graveyards’ with strata of old tractors, each with different colours depending on the tractor make provided by each supporting development project. In many countries, those who continue to use work oxen face an additional problem of theft: with improved transport and road infrastructure it is becoming easier to steal and transport an ox and sell the meat in an urban outlet within a few hours. This is one reason why many farmers in Africa switched to using donkeys, that were less likely to be stolen (that is until the recent Chinese demand for ejiao made from the gelatine of donkey hides inflated the disposal value of donkeys).

In many countries, oxen are readily available and can provide an ecologically sustainable, low-carbon, local form of rural power. However, there is currently minimal research or support for animal power at national or international levels. Work animals need political and media champions to stress the advantages of the longstanding and well proven animal-powered technologies.

Figure 5: Schematic key showing the approximate location within the poster of the various countries (not to scale)

The Author

Paul Starkey is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading and a consultant in animal power, integrated transport and transport services.

Bees in Egypt of the Pharaohs

Agricultural History, Bees, , , ,

Abstract:
In Ancient Egypt honey bees seemed to have been of great significance during all periods – as decoration or motif in various contexts as well as icon within the religious and mythological sphere. In addition to that, bees also seemed to have been devoted as a symbol of the royal status and were applied in correlation with high-ranking officials. The practical use of bee products like wax and honey (apart from consumption) ranged from diverse applications within the fields of cosmetology or medical therapy to the utilization as an indispensable adjuvant for the mummification process.  

Zusammenfassung:
Im Alten Ägypten schienen Honigbienen durchweg von großer Bedeutung gewesen zu sein – als Dekoration oder Motiv in unterschiedlichen Kontexten sowie als Symbol und Ikone im religiösen und mythologischen Bereich. Darüber hinaus scheinen Bienen als Zeichen des königlichen Status zu dienen und wurden auch im Zusammenhang mit hochrangigen Beamten genutzt. Die praktische Verwendung von Bienenprodukten wie Wachs und Honig (abgesehen vom Verzehr) reichte von diversen Anwendungen im Bereich der Kosmetik oder bei Heilverfahren bis hin zur Verwendung als unverzichtbares Hilfsmittel für den Mumifizierungsprozess.  

Keywords:
beekeeping – ancient egypt – honeybee – honey – symbolism

Bee in the royal name: “he who belongs to the sedge and the bee” (nesout-bity)

Egyptians may well have gathered the honey of wild bees in the prehistoric period. As early as the first dynasty, the rare inscriptions conserved show us that the canonical titles of the Pharaoh mention “he who belongs to the sedge and the bee” (nesout-bity), that is, the symbols respectively of Upper and Lower Egypt. Beekeeping is then attested in the Old Kingdom: a bas-relief of the funerary temple of the Pharaoh Nyuserre in Abusir (Fifth Dynasty, around 2500 BCE) represents peasants busying themselves around beehives. A royal collar found at Saqqara and belonging to Queen Hetepheres, the mother of Khufu (Cheops), has a handsome bee décor. Much later in the New Kingdom (1580-1054 BCE), several beekeeping motifs are to be found in the tombs of high-ranking civil officers, as in that of the Vizier Rekhmire in Thebes showing honey being taken from the hive, as well as filling and sealing jars of honey.

Gathering honey, Relief from Royal Sun Temple of Abu Ghorab built by Pharoah Nyuserre Ini (after G. Kritsky)
Gathering honey tomb of noble and vizier Reckhmirê (painting by Nina de Garis Davies, 1881–1965)

Later still, a bas-relief from the Saite period of the 26th Dynasty in the tomb of the high-ranking civil officer Pabasa in Thebes (26th Dynasty, around 700 BCE) shows peasants lifting a beehive. In the Greek period of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, papyrus fragments mention it is necessary to change the position of beehives twice a year so that bees can forage in favourable areas with plenty of flowers. The Greek papyri of Zenon, the manager of the estates of the diocetus (minister of the economy) Apollonios in the 3rd century BCE tells us about economic management and honey production, transport, storage and uses.

Tomb of Pabasa (26th Dynasty) gathering honey

According to some of the medical papyri (among them, the Ebers papyrus), honey was utilised in various compositions as a softener or an adjuvant and it was also an ingredient in cosmetics. Honey and wax were likewise indispensable in mummifying processes.

In mythology and religion, the bee was associated with the goddess Neith of the city of Sais in the Western Nile Delta, one of the creation goddesses (also a divinity of the hunt and of war). Some inscriptions also refer to Rê, God of the sun, whose tears, when they fell to earth, were transformed into bees, who created wax.

Author:

Catherine Chadefaud
French agrégée in History
Doctorate in Egyptology and Historical Geography (ancient Egyptian climate and vegetation)

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Editor and contributors have made every effort to identify copyright-holders of free-access online material. We apologize for any errors or omissions and would be grateful to be notified of any corrections

Commercial bumblebee breeding in Norway

Bees, Uncategorized, , , ,

Abstract:
Norway was early in starting to produce bumblebees for use in tomato cultivation in commercial greenhouses. This niche production is relatively complicated and therefore requires good knowledge and precise work. The Department for Agriculture was concerned that importing bumblebees could lead to importing of sicknesses and to genetic pollution of native Norwegian bumblebees. This article describes the start of bumblebee production in Norway and gives a technical description of the process of bumblebee rearing.

Keywords:
bumblebee – breeding – Norway – beekeeping – pollination

In Norway there are 35 species of bumblebee, out of a total of around 250 species worldwide. Bumblebees belong to the family of bumblebees and other bees, called Apidae. It is the large earth bumblebee (or buff-tailed bumblebee), Bombus terrestris, which dominates in commercial bumblebee rearing, both in Norway and internationally.

It started in 1989

The idea and enthusiasm for starting up commercial rearing of Norwegian-produced bumblebees came from The Norwegian Beekeeping Society’s General Secretary, Trond Gjessing together with Rogaland County Council’s Chief Agronomist, Ketil Fuglestad. Due to their positions, the pair acted as coordinators, assistants and initiative takers, but they did not provide technical assistance; this was provided by biologist Atle Mjelde.

It started with a public body, The Bee Sickness Committee, of which Trond Gjessing was secretary. They received a request from The Department for Agriculture with respect to the importing of bumblebees to Norway. They were particularly concerned with the problem of taking insects over the border, and the effects this would have on the genetic heredity of Norway’s native population.

In 1991 The Norwegian Beekeeping Society arranged a meeting inviting key people to attend. They had arranged for a Dutch speaker to hold a presentation on this niche area of production: the commercial rearing of bumblebees. The speaker was Ard de Ruijter, Director of The Research Center for Insect Pollination and Beekeeping. Ketil Fuglestad, Rogaland County Council’s Chief Agronomist, took part in the meeting and says himself that he was excited by the possibility of Norwegian bumblebee production, and that Ruitjer was very inspiring. Ruitjer’s experience from Holland, was that it was beekeepers who were most successful at rearing queens. Some in the professional community believed that it was easier for beekeepers to take care of the bumblebees, because they understood how sensitive they are. One must learn the signals given by the bumblebees and be able to interpret their behaviour.

Pollinering Service Company

In 1991 beekeepers Karl Ivar Stangeland and Egil Fosse established the company “Pollinering Service ANS” and thereby started Norwegian bumblebee production. They were the only company in Norway engaged in bumblebee rearing up until the year 2000. At that time two new companies started up, and all three of them were based in Jæren in Rogland.

Pollination in Norwegian commercial greenhouses has gone from manual pollination to Norwegian production of bumblebee colonies. This change has meant that tomatoes have become a much better commodity. Tomatoes have many seeds, and if the tomatoes are to swell to be round and even, they must be pollinated evenly inside the flower – this is the job of the bees. Bumblebee production has meant that several different growers have been able to use bees for pollination, and this has lead til a reduction in the use of chemical spraying in fruit and berry production.

Ban on import of bumblebees to Norway.

Since as early as 1991 it has been forbidden to import bumblebees in to Norway. There were two important reasons given by professionals in the field, for not allowing the import of bumblebees. The first was the risk of importing disease and parasites and the second was the danger of genetic pollution. The latter problem was a particular concern for The Department for Agriculture. The initiative to start up rearing of bumblebees in Norway came from Rogaland County Council and The Norwegian Beekeeping Society.

How is the bumblebee colony produced?

To understand the challenges of rearing bumblebees, you need to have a good understanding of ecology and not least a good understanding of bumblebee biology.

The large earth bumblebee comes out of hibernation in the spring

After pairing, the large earth bumblebee queen goes in to hibernation for the winter. She digs a hole in the earth in autumn to protect her from the frost, but she makes sure that the hole will not be in full sunlight. That is to say, she finds a place where spring will not come too early.

After coming out of hibernation the bumblebee queen is alone at first and is therefore very busy. First she has to find a site for a nest. She builds herself up by gathering nectar. She makes circular honey pots from wax for storing nectar, pollen and eggs. When the store of nectar and pollen is big enough, she lays the first egg.

Bumblebees can’t eat dry pollen: they need extra nectar to moisten it. Unlike other bees, bumblebees do not have salivary glands. They therefore chew a mixture of pollen and nectar, swallow it and then regurgitate the mixture as food for the larvae. The queens, drones and workers all die before the winter; only the queens that have mated and that have dug themselves down under the earth, survive the winter.

How is this done in commercial rearing?

A new colony is started with a queen in a starting case, which is about 5 cm x 10 cm in size. To get the queen to lay eggs, live drone pupae are used. The drone pupae are taken from a larger bumblebee colony. The bumblebee queen will warm up and brood the pupae. When she has eaten enough pollen, she will start to lay eggs. The queen is given fresh pollen every third day, and it is the new pollen that stimulates her to lay eggs. After the first pupae have hatched, the worker bees start to feed the larvae and from there the colony usually develops quickly.

The best way that has been found to get the bumblebee queen to lay eggs, is to mate them in autumn and winter. Thereafter they are put in to hibernation for four months at a temperature of +4°C.

Starter case. The queen has laid eggs and is brooding them. The temperature rises to minimum + 30 °C. Bee feed is in the glass and pollen in the food bowls.

Bumblebee queens are cooled to + 4°C

When the case containing the queens is taken out of the cold room, following 4 months of hibernation, the queens are fed with pollen and a sugar solution, and they soon come back to life. Their ovaries start to grow and the queens must be separated within a couple of days. If not, they get angry and start to attack each other.

Breeding

To avoid in-breeding it is important to constantly renew the breeding stock. If there are several queens that are to be fertilised all from one nest, it is important to use drones from a nest that is not related. It is important to take the queens out from the cold room at exactly the right time, so that they can be mated with the right drones.

To make sure that the queens being used for breeding don’t start to stagnate, the newly born queens need to be taken out each day and fed with pollen and sugar solution, for a period of five days, before they are put together with the drones for mating.

Shelf 1: two cases with queens, ready to be put in to the mating case. Shelf 2: large cases that will later on be delivered to greenhouses. Shelves 3 and 4: small cases labelled with the queen’s number and life-history, such as the date the first egg was hatched and when the first worker bee appeared. The pink light in the room reduces the bumblebees’ sight, making them less active.

The picture shows mating in progress, with the queen over and the drone under. They hang together like this for about 30 minutes.

Life in the bumblebee colony is dynamic.

The queen uses pheromones to exercise full control over the worker bees in the first weeks. The more eggs the queen lays in this period, the stronger the colony will be. At a set point in the development of the colony, activity goes over to the production of gendered individuals, that is drones and queens. After this point the queens reduce the production of pheromones that hinder egg laying by the worker bees. Some of the workers start to lay eggs, but the queens eat most of the eggs laid by the workers. If the queen is strong enough to lay enough eggs to keep the worker bees occupied with feeding only larva hatched from them, the colony will last longer.

If the queen shows signs of weakness, which is to say she lays too few eggs, the workers can kill the queen and take over control of the nest. The dominant workers stress the others, fighting, killing and threatening. In this phase, before the ranking within the workers has been established, the nest should not be sold, as the workers will not be effective.

The nest is ready for the greenhouse.

When a nest is delivered to the greenhouse, it contains between 200 and 400 worker bees. Some greenhouses buy a new nest every month. Despite the fact that a nest can last from 7 to 8 weeks, they want to have a period of overlapping. This means that they have several nests simultaneously. It is important to make sure that the colonies are not too large in relation to the greenhouse, as the workers can be too hard on the pollen anther and style, causing them damage.

Nest ready for delivery. About 200 worker bees, 70 worker pupae, a cluster of drone pupae and a cluster of larve that will become either drones or queens.

Author:

Knut G. Austad
Jaermuseet
PB 250, 4367 Nærbø
kga@jaermuseet.no

Virtual Symposium Nov 14th 2020

AIMA Meetings, Announcements, Related to AIMA Goals

We invite you to join AIMA on Nov 14th 2020 for our first virtual symposium.

As many of our members and we as an organization had to adapt and adjust to the ongoing crisis and its challenges, we would like to share our experiences with a wider public.

Register now:

https://ingeniumcanada.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_OaBkqCh9ReytGD5MIqwt_A

The conference will feature presentations from all around the globe including a Keynote by Susan Reckseidler (the current President of the Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums, short ALHFAM) with the title “One Step at a Time: Re-Imagining Re-Opening During Covid-19”.

Schedule:

Start of the symposium: 3 PM CET/MEZ
End of the symposium: ca. 7 PM CET/MEZ

In the map you see the timezone in which the symposiums timetable is set

Session 1
Introduction

Welcome Address
(Ollie Douglas, President of AIMA)

Introduction and technical information
(Claus Kropp, Lauresham Laboratory for Experimental Archaeology, Germany)

Key note: One Step at a Time: Re-Imagining Re-Opening During Covid-19
(Susan Reckseidler, Heritage Park Historical Village, Canada)
https://youtu.be/zDNZFDvNKGc

Break with Clip (Promovideo of AIMA)
https://youtu.be/mj-5oYNCHfI

Session 2
On-site responses

Share the harvest: One living history farm´s response to C-19
(Pete Watson, Howell Living History Farm, USA)
https://youtu.be/JktoOHgw_eg

Sustaining living “exhibitions” during crisis: C-19 lessons for updating Risk Management Plans
(Kerry-Leigh Burchill, Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, Canada)
https://youtu.be/pCMYOsrxfSE

Online/Offline. The MERL Communicating through the Pandemic
(Isabel Hughes / Ollie Douglas, Museum of English Rural Life, England)
https://youtu.be/wjZXxFvYQ8Q

Break with Clip (Activities of the National Museum of Agriculture in Szreniawa during the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic)
https://youtu.be/IugpZQ4uwto

Session 3
Digital pathways

Digital ways of approaching museum audiences during the crisis
(Claus Kropp, Lauresham Laboratory for Experimental Archaeology, Germany)
https://youtu.be/bVD7by-l0io

Celery and Tomatoes: Digital Products based in Agricultural Museum Collections
(Debra Reid, The Henry Ford, USA)
https://youtu.be/0HdK89goaSE

Break with Clip (Slideshow of AIMA Members)

Session 4
Widening the scope

Deep networking as a chance
(Cozette Griffin-Kremer, CRBC Brest, France)
https://youtu.be/J9UGv6Bz7gU

Harvesting memories on the Farm. Oral Histories of African American Farm Owners
(Adrienne Petty, College of William & Mary, USA / Mark Schultz, Lewis University, USA)
https://youtu.be/Nm-eIV_rvPU

Indian Agriculture coping with the C-19 crisis
https://youtu.be/LLWmPbIMHas

Concluding Remarks
(Kerry-Leigh Burchill, Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, Canada )

Preview CIMA 2021 at the MERL in Reading, England
(Ollie Douglas, President of AIMA)

A little follow up on our blogpost on beekeeping in Slovenia

Agricultural History, Bees, Related to AIMA Goals,

On June 29th, we posted a very interesting report on beekeeking in Slovenia by our fellow AIMA member Barbara Sosič (follow this link to the blog post here: https://www.agriculturalmuseums.org/2020/06/29/poetry-of-agriculture-on-the-significance-of-beekeeping-in-slovenia/ )

About a month later, BBC reel published yet another interesting aspect of slovenian beekeeping which we want to bring to your attention:

https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p08lb5l4/the-therapeutic-sound-of-slovenian-bees?fbclid=IwAR0c-P7HpFIqrk1h7K1xSocBw4SjKzyZSik_N8rxmsS_2Iyo_10K-fsJSUg

(Please note, that we are not responsible for the content of external links; we will regularly check if the link is still valid)

How to do bee business despite Covid-19? Some practical and personal experience from Firestone Farm, Dearborn, Michigan

Agricultural History, Bees, Related to AIMA Goals, , , ,

Abstract

While the global pandemic disrupts our routines, those who care for livestock, including domesticated honey bees, must continue care without disruption. Patrice Fisher, the beekeeper at Firestone Farm, reports that bees are thriving at the living history farm within Greenfield Village, The Henry Ford, in Dearborn, Michigan, as of 4 June and 6 July 2020.

Während die globale Pandemie unsere täglichen Routinen durcheinanderbringt, müssen diejenigen, die sich um Nutztiere kümmern – und hierzu zählt auch die domestizierte Honigbiene – die Versorgung der Tiere ungehindert sicherstellen. Patrice Fisher, die Imkerin von Firestone Farms, berichtet, wie die Bienen sich in der Living History Farm innherhalb Greenfield Village, The Henry Ford, in Dearborn Michigan im Zeitraum vom 4. Juni bis 6. Juli 2020 entwickeln.

Keywords

pandemic – beekeeping – Living History Farm – practical experience – beekeeping tools

Pollinator and common comfrey [Symphytum officinale] in Greenfield Village, The Henry Ford, Dearborn, Mighican. July 2017. Photograph by Lee Cagle.

Livestock need care daily despite the disruptions of a global pandemic. This includes domesticated honey bees. Beekeepers inspect their hives, monitor the food supply, harvest honey, and treat what may ail members of the colony. Patrice Fisher, the beekeeper at Firestone Farm, shares this report on the condition of hives at the living history farm within Greenfield Village, The Henry Ford, in Dearborn, Michigan, on 4 June and with a 6 July 2020 update.

Beekeepers inspect historically appropriate Langstroth-type hives in the orchard at Firestone Farm, Greenfield Village, The Henry Ford, Dearborn, Michigan, August 2017. Photograph by Lee Cagle.

Beekeepers at Firestone Farm use a Langstroth-type hive to house pollinators at the living history farm that interprets the birthplace of Harvey Firestone and farm life during the mid-1880s. The structures were originally located in Columbiana County, Ohio, but were relocated and reconstructed in Greenfield Village, and opened to the public in 1985. The project included an orchard with historic apple varieties. The bees pollinate the apples and other crops, shrubs, and flowering plants throughout Greenfield Village.

The Langstroth-type hives in the orchard at Firestone Farm, with weights to stabilize the hive covers. Beekeepers installed the support timbers for the hives to elevate them above the ground on 25 March 2020. Photograph by Patrice Fisher on 4 June 2020.

Lorenzo Langstroth observed bee behavior and patented a hive in 1852 that mimicked the spaces that bees created as they built their comb within hives. Langstroth designed a structure that consisted of stackable “supers” into which frames of a standard dimension were inserted, each located a “bee space” from the other. Within this structure, bees constructed their hives to nurture the bee larvae and store their honey food supply.

Tools of the beekeepers’ trade, a smoker and soft-bristle brush, 4 June 2020. The smoker, of a design in use since the late 1800s, disrupts bees’ ability to sense the fight pheromone. Photograph by Patrice Fisher.

Firestone beekeepers had three objectives to accomplish during their 4 June hive inspection:

1) to replace the solid bottom boards with screened boards for better ventilation.

2) to apply a formic acid treatment for varroa mites. At the last hive inspection on 25 April, beekeepers did a mite count test and determined that #1 hive (closest to barn) had 8 mites per 300 bees, #2 had 0 mites, and #3 had 4 mites per 300 bees. That’s not terrible but definitely needed to be addressed before the numbers started increasing exponentially.

3) to add an additional super with empty frames to each hive to give bees in each hive more room.

Beekeepers practice state-of-the-art bee care within the historic setting. They installed this screen base to increase air circulation on 4 June 2020. Photograph by Patrice Fisher.

This photograph shows the pads treated with formic acid to treat for varroa mites nailed into the sides of a hive frame, 4 June 2020. Photograph by Patrice Fisher.

Inspection determined that the bees are doing fabulously. All three hives have a lot of bees and all have surplus honey already during springtime in Dearborn, Michigan. Patrice indicated that “This is the best I’ve seen for this time of the year in the five years I’ve been minding these bees. We were wondering if they were somehow benefiting from the lack of people in the vicinity and perhaps reduced landscaping, resulting in a lot more forage in their territory. Just supposition. We didn’t really look too deeply into the hives; it was obvious that they are all thriving.”

Photograph of notebook documenting 4 June 2020 inspection. Photograph by Patrice Fisher.

Beekeepers saw capped supercedure cells in every hive (photographs below). These cells were simultaneously attached to the bottom of one super and the top of the one below it. Maintaining the hive requires removing supers, even as this also can destroy some of these cells because the supers must be separated to get to the bottom layer.

Supercedure cells visible at the bottom of some supers, and the top of others, indicating that bees need more room to expand their comb to store food and larvae. 4 June 2020. Photograph by Patrice Fisher.

The Master Farmer of Greenfield Village, Steve Opp, reported a swarm of bees just before the 4 June inspection. Beekeepers tried to figure out which hive they came from, but it seemed as though they could have come from any hive. They added an additional empty super to each hive to give the bees more room, hoping that increasing the hive capacity will quell the bees’ natural inclination to swarm. Yet, Patrice reported that she is “happy to see swarms even if we can’t catch them – it just means more native bees are being introduced into the environment.”

The Firestone Farm beekeepers returned to the hives on 6 July 2020, with two goals:

  • to remove the medicated formic acid pads attached 4 June
  • remove the entrance reducer and take out the solid bottoms from each hive, to improve ventilation.
  • document the visit and actions taken in writing

They found the hives buzzing with activity, and bee “making honey like crazy. The empty supers added last month are already full, so the keepers added another empty super to each hive, right above the level where the bulk of the brood was residing” (see notes taken, and location of new super documented below).

The documentation of the 6 July 2020 Firestone beekeepers’ visit, actions taken, and location of empty supers added to hives.

At the end of July the beekeepers will do another sugar roll test to monitor the mites and see if treatments continue having the desired effect. Toward the end of summer, after honey production slows late in July and before golden rod starts to bloom in the early fall, they will harvest some of the honey, probably 3 supers full. Then the bees can rebuild their food supply with pollen from the fall flowers before frost ends the growing season. Beekeepers will winterize the hives late in the fall to help sustain them through the winter season.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

 Submitted by Patrice Fisher, The Henry Ford, Dearborn, Michigan

Poetry of agriculture? On the Significance of Beekeeping in Slovenia

Agricultural History, Bees, Related to AIMA Goals, , , ,

Abstracts
Slovenia is home to excellent beekeepers and the indigenous Carniolan bee. Beekeeping is one of the oldest traditional activities and an important part of Slovenia’s identity, natural and cultural heritage. It is a kind of a national hobby; there are 5 beekeepers per 1000 inhabitants in a population of just two million, together around 11.000. The Slovenian landscape is adorned by nearly 14,000 apiaries, containing around 200,000 hives with bees that collect quality honey and other products.  

Slowenien ist die Heimat exzellenter Imker und der einheimischen Kärntner Biene. Imkerei ist eine der ältesten traditionellen Kulturpraktiken und wichtiger Teil slowenischer Identität sowie des natürlichen und kulturellen Erbes. Es ist eine Art nationales Hobby; es gibt 5 Imker pro tausend Einwohner bei einer Bevölkerung on gerade mal zwei Millionen; zusamengenommen also etwa 11.000. Die slowenische Landschaft ist geschmückt durch annähernd 14.000 Bienenstände, die etwa 200.000 Beuten enthalten und deren Bienen Qualitätshonig und andere Produkte produzieren.

Slovenija je domovina odličnih čebelarjev in avtohtone krajnske čebele. Čebelarjenje je eno najstarejših tradicionalnih dejavnosti in s tem pomemben del slovenske identitete ter naravne in kulturne dediščine. Lahko bi rekli, da je čebelarjenje nacionalni hobi, saj imamo v le dvomilijonski državi kar 5 čebelarjev na 1000 prebivalcev, skupaj jih je okoli 11.000. Slovensko pokrajino bogati skoraj 14.000 čebelnjakov z okoli 200.000 panjev s čebelami, ki nabirajo kakovosten med in druge pridelke.

Keywords
Beekeeping – Carniolan bee – bee hives – urban beekeeping – transporting bees

An apiary under Golica mountain. Photo by Franc Šivic.

Beekeeping in the 18th and 19th centuries was marked by outstanding figures

Successful beekeeping has always been based on thorough knowledge of bees, ingenious beekeeping techniques, dictated by the local foraging conditions, and especially on the Carniolan bee and its excellent characteristics. Of key importance to the progress of beekeeping were several figures, who with an enthusiasm based on great human qualities taught sensible beekeeping to simple peasants, and at the same time spread their knowledge about the Carniolan bee and beekeeping to the wider world.

The most outstanding among them was Anton Janša (1734 – 1773), an excellent beekeeping theoretician and practitioner, and the first teacher of the subject at the Beekeeping School in Vienna. His birthday, May 20, was chosen as World Bee Day from 2018 onwards on the initiative of Slovenia.

Another figure highly important for the development of Slovenian beekeeping was the priest Peter Pavel Glavar (1721 – 1784), the founder of the first beekeeping school in Slovenia. He was among the first to write a treatise on bees in Slovene.

The Tyrolean natural scientist and physician Joannes Antonius Scopoli (1723 – 1788) was active in the Slovene territory and was the first to inform the world that the queen bee mates with drones outside the beehive.

The great beekeeping expert and first Carniolan bee trader Emil Rothschütz (1836 – 1909) was instrumental to promoting the Carniolan bee.

Anton Janša (1734 – 1773), the first teacher of modern beekeeping in Vienna. A Yugoslav stamp from 1973.

The pride of Slovenia – the Carniolan bee

The Carniolan bee, Apis mellifera carnica, is a Slovene indigenous bee species that originated in the area of the Balkan Peninsula, and for historical reasons, its homeland is held to be Slovenia. The species also lives in Carinthia and Styria in Austria, in Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as in Serbia; it has been artificially introduced in Germany and in many other places. Following the Italian bee, the Carniolan bee is the second most common bee species in the world.

The Carniolan bee has excellent characteristics: it is gentle, industrious, and long-lived, does not stray into other beehives, overwinters well, consumes little stored food, multiplies quickly in spring, efficiently builds combs, thoroughly exploits rich pastures, especially forest ones, has a well-developed cleaning instinct, making it less susceptible to diseases, and is very good at orientation and swarming.

A worker bee, a queen bee and a drone of the Carniolan bee, Apis millifera carnica. Photo by Franc Šivic.
Carniolan bee, Apis millifera carnica. Photo by Franc Šivic.

Why do the Slovenes keep their bees in hives grouped in apiaries?

The principal reason for this method of beekeeping are the AŽ-hives (AŽ stands for Alberti-Žnideršič). Slovenes are very attached to their bees and make sure that they dwell in dry, warm hives, protected against the cold, heat, and bad weather by the apiary’s shelter. Apiaries differ from one region to another and Slovenes are most proud of the Slovene Apiary which has preserved its typical form for centuries. It derives from Central Slovenia and was described by Anton Janša in his book Popolni nauk za vse čebelarje (The Perfect Theory of Beekeeping) in 1772. These apiaries were mostly built by self-taught craftsmen, based on knowledge passed on by their ancestors and enriched with their own experiences, discoveries, and creativity.

Two traditional apiaries with painted beehive panels from Upper and Lower Carniola. The beginning of 20th century. Slovene Ethnographic Museum Photo archive.

The traditional Slovene beehive is thus an AŽ leaf hive. Beekeepers claim that it is the beehive best suited to our climate and foraging conditions. It was introduced by Anton Žnideršič in the early 20th century and is by far the most popular type of beehive, since over 90% of all beekeepers use one of its variants. It is also spreading elsewhere around the world. The AŽ-beehive is very handy for transporting bees to different pastures, as well.

A typical Slovenian apiary in Arboretum Volčji potok. Photo by Franc Šivic
Beekeepers inside of their apiaries inspecting bee colonies. Photo by Franc Šivic.

Painted beehive panels are a specific Slovene phenomenon

The painted front panels of the formerly plain kranjič hives are part of Slovene cultural heritage that almost every Slovene is familiar with. They are a genuinely original Slovene cultural element. After emerging as a genre of folk art, largely created by and for members of the peasant classes, in a part of the Slovene ethnic territory in the mid-18th century, the custom peaked between 1820 and 1880, to decline due to socio-economic and religious conditions in the early 20th century.

An apiary with painted beehive panels near Radovljica. Photo by Franc Šivic.
Adam and Eve in Paradise, a painted beehive panel from 1860. Collection of the Slovene Ethnographic Museum in Ljubljana. Photo by Marko Habič.
Adam and Eve in Paradise, a painted beehive panel from 1860. Collection of the Slovene Ethnographic Museum in Ljubljana. Photo by Marko Habič.

Beekeeping in towns

Urban beekeeping is not something new or exceptional in our towns, but the practice has recently seen a revival around the world, including in Slovenia. The bees can produce quality and above all pristine honey in our towns, since there are no areas affected by phytopharmaceutical products. Apiaries, but more often stands of box hives, are set up on the roofs of commercial buildings, on balconies, or in gardens.

Beekeeping is above all a relaxation activity for townspeople. It provides them with bee products and contact with nature close to their home, contributing to their well-being and a quality “green way of living”.

Urban beekeeping on the roof of Cankarjev dom Congress and Cultural Centre in Ljubljana city centre. Photo by Luka Dakskobler .
An apiary in the garden of the famous Slovenian architect Jože Plečnik.Photo by Doris Kordić.

Transporting bees to pastures  

Transporting bees from places with poor pastures to better ones, especially forest pastures, is a centuries-old tradition in Slovenia, which also spread elsewhere in the late 18th century thanks to Anton Janša.

There are indeed no places in Slovenia that would provide enough pasture for an entire beekeeping season. Transporting bees is above all of economic importance, as it allows beekeepers to exploit the honeydew produced by some insects on plants at different times and in different places. The practice requires special knowledge and skills and these are continuously being improved.

Transport of beehives to forest pastures in 1928. Slovene Ethnographic Museum Photo archive.
Transporting bees to different pastures is very common in Slovenia today. Photo by Barbara Sosič.

Bees and bee products have a beneficial effect on people

Beekeepers increasingly adapt their apiaries into apitherapy rooms, where people can inhale the healing aromatic air produced by the hives. Apiaries are thus no longer merely small or large structures protecting bees, but have been turned into refuges for the well-being of body and mind. Bee products like honey, propolis (bee glue), pollen, wax, and royal jelly have a beneficial effect on health, while apitherapy with bee-venom seems to be effective in treating rheumatoid arthritis and other diseases.

Apitherapy in an apiary for inhaling beneficial aromatic beehive air. Photo by Franc Šivic.

Barbara Sosič, Slovene Ethnographic Museum, Ljubljana

Did anybody care about, or for, bees in the European Middle Ages?

Agricultural History, Bees, Rural History, , , , ,

Abstract:
Medieval texts and iconography have much to tell us about beekeeping in Europe, from how hives were constructed to who took care of them, and… for whom.

Résumé:
Les textes et l’iconographie du Moyen Âge en Europe recèlent une pléthore d’informations sur l’apiculture, sur les ruches, sur qui s’en occupait et… pour qui.

Keywords:
Honeybees – Beekeeping – Archaeology – Middle Ages – Written Sources – Honey


Honey was highly important in the Middle Ages. Cane sugar was known in Antiquity, but it was rare until the 17th century, so honey was used in food and drinks, as well as in medical treatments. Remember, too, that wax was needed for civil and religious lighting. We have evidence of all this from medieval texts such as agricultural treatises, encyclopaedias, fable-books and even religious texts, as well as the illustrations in them. They show us a great diversity of beehives in medieval times and deep interest in the insects’ lives.

There seem to have been three periods according to the shape and function of beehives. The first has fixed honeycombs – the bees attach their combs to an immobile upper wall and this is the only kind used in the Middle Ages. The second type has movable components added to the upper part of beehives with fixed combs and it is only subsequently that we see hives with movable frames appear. Still, the beehives we see in illustrations have a wealth of shapes and materials that highlight regional diversity and personized craftsmanship, since peasants made their beehives from their own local resources.

Trunk or box beehives

Widely used in Gaul, tree trunk beehives are fairly rare in medieval images, although a few appear in Italian illuminated manuscripts, while their widespread use is attested to in texts from southern France and in Spain. This kind of beehive is the closest to what bees do naturally, when they set up home in hollow trees. Medieval written sources tell us that people often  harvested a wild forest swarm by cutting out part of the tree trunk and bringing it back as a beehive. In that case, the trunk was cut out half-way down to provide a flight entrance.

Of course, there are other cylindrical beehives, always Italian and made of wooden slats or boards side-by-side. On the other hand, although we have much evidence in written sources from Provence, central and southern Italy, Spain and Portugal, of beehives made of a band of cylindrical cork oak off a tree trunk, we have no illustrations of these.

Log beehive (Polish) Barć in the museum (Bialowieża, Poland), Wikipedia Creative Commons “Beehive”, source Przykuta (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Przykuta)

Parallel to trunk beehives, the box beehives so widespread in Greek and Roman Antiquity, seems to exist in nearly all Italian testimony, made of wide wooden boards, although we do not know what kind of wood – conifer, as Columella recommended because they resisted honeycomb moth.* Illustrations of light-coloured beehives might attest to this. Probably derived from a tree trunk laid out on the ground, these parallelepiped hives were always large, seeming to be about a meter long, even 1.5m, and about 1.30m wide. In most of these hives, flight holes were small, but there were many of them and they seem to be made of two movable partitions. Pliny mentioned “the cover should penetrate the hive, if the hive is too large or if the honey harvest is too small, for fear that the bees will be discouraged and not work well, then it can be made smaller, so that they are fooled about how much their work has progressed.

English: Galleria_mellonella ; Français : Galleria_mellonella – Fausse teigne de la cire (honeycomb moth), 21 February 2009, Source: dhobern (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dhobern/3298989266/), Creative Commons, FR Wikipedia ‘Galleria mellonella’

Wattlework hives

The beehives we see the most often in medievial illustrations are made of wickerwork woven wattle or split-wood. This kind of basketwork, which was used in Roman times, continued in Gaul and was widespread in the Middle Ages – we see it in illuminated manuscripts in England, northern France, Flanders or in the Rhineland, whereas we hardly find them in more southern manuscripts.

Bees and beehives, Tacuinum sanitatis d’Ibn Butlan, (14th century, Lombardy), Rome, Bibl. Casanatense, ms. 4182, f. 182, public domain, EN Wikipedia “Beekeeping”

We can see several types in these illustrations – some have a ribbed outside of woven wattle over a framework, without any visible coating, so insulation from heat and wet must have been poor. However, this woven surface was more frequently covered with a brownish coating, which matches the written sources indicating the use of cow pats, as in Antiquity, as the most common covering.

All this kind of beehives, usually about 50 cm in height, were woven over a wickerwork frame: a barked branch was split into several bundles for the vertical stays the wattles were woven around, usually with 8 to 12 ribs and sometimes these ran down to the bottom to make short feet, unless the bottom had a loop around it for the flight hole. The often golden colour of the wattlework does not enable us to see if they were made of oak, hazel, osier or clematis, as suggested by the texts.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Beekeepers and the Birdnester, ca. 1568, line drawing, Kupferstichkabinet Berlin, Source: Christian Vöhringer – Pieter Bruegel, 1525/30-1569 Tandem Verlag 2007 (h.f.ullmann imprint) S. 129, public domain, EN Wikipedia “Beekeeping”.

These beehives came in many shapes, some of them like a small dome with a flattened top, others conical with a narrow top like a sugarloaf. It is rarer to see a trunk-shaped hive with a flat top or a bell shape. Most of these hives had a handle formed by the end of the branch under the woven framework, which made it easier to carry and to attach the winter covering of straw.

Several of these hives are illustrated without a flight hole, but most of them have a small opening in the lower part where the basketwork is looser or in the wooden hoop between the sides and the base in the form of a small arch or rectangle. Only conic or bell-shaped baskets have a hole in the lower third in the form of a narrow slit.

Straw hives

These are less frequent than the basketwork hives, and most are found in manuscripts from northern France or Flanders and entirely missing in southern, especially Italian, documents. This is due to the fact that they are connected with cereal-growing, especially rye in more northern areas.

This kind of beehive is mainly made of eight to 10 rows of light-coloured straw twisted into rolls. Depending on the source, this is mainly of well-dried rye straw, the stems of which are far longer than those of other cereal grains, put together in rows and linked up with vertical osier (water willow) ties (occasionally oblique).

Straw hives are usually dome-shaped and fairly small, hardly over some 40 cm. They may be capped by a round or stick-like handle, but most of them have none, in contrast to the wattle hives. They usually have a flight hold at the base, a simple arch in the straw, and more rarely, a rectangular slot in the lower third.

Making traditional beehives called skeps. Photograph taken by Michael Reeve, 27 June 2004, Creative Commons EN Wikipedia “Beehives”.

Written and ethnographic testimony tells us that these basketwork or straw beehives had a central cross to hold the swarm at the beginning of the comb construction and they could be open at the bottom for work on the colony.

Louis XII, King of France, coming out of the fortress of Alessandria at the head of his army to put down a rebellion in Genoa (January to May 1507). 5th illumination of the manuscript Le Voyage de Gênes (ca. 1500) by Jean Marot. The motto NON UTITUR ACULEO REX CUI PAREMUR means “the King whom we obey does not use his goad”. NB porcupines were also one of the symbols of Louis XII. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abeille#/media/Fichier:Voyage_G%C3%AAnes_Marot_Louis_XII_2.jpg

This diversity of medieval beehives shows us the privileged relationship of human and bee at all times, even if the Middle Ages especially prized beehive products in the domestic economy. This is confirmed in the 14th and 15th centuries by permission for Royal, religious or secular lordly appointment of a bigre, a specialized forestry expert responsible for capturing, for his lordly masters, wild swarms of bees and putting them into productive beehives.

Author:
Perrine Mane, Emerita Director of Studies, CNRS (CRH-EHESS) Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, translated and edited by Cozette Griffin-Kremer

* For honeycomb moth (FR teigne) -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galleria_mellonella and https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galleria_mellonella

How has beekeeping changed over time? An archaeobeekeeper and an archaeological open-air museum in Germany showcase pre- and proto-historic beekeeping methods

Agricultural History, Bees, Related to AIMA Goals, Rural History, , ,

Abstracts:

Archaeological finds provide proof of beekeeping in man-made places for bees to live in for the first sedentary cultures. Tubular wooden constructions (log hives) and skeps are the typical bee habitations for (pre-)historic beekeepingin Central Europe. Only two really groundbreaking changes can be pointed out that have led to the modern type of beehives which are a very new development in comparison to the ancient practice of beekeeping.

Archäologische Funde belegen die Bienenhaltung in von Menschen hergestellten Bienenbehausungen für die ersten sesshaften Kulturen. Hölzerne Röhren (Klotzbeuten) und Stülper sind die typischen Bienenbehausungen für die (prä) historische Bienenhaltung in Mitteleuropa. Nur zwei wirklich grundlegend neue Veränderungen können bis zu den modernen Magazinbeuten aufgezeigt werden. Letztere stellen eine sehr neue Entwicklung im Gegensatz zum Alter der Bienenhaltung in der Menschheitsgeschichte dar.

Keywords:

Honeybees – Beekeeping – Archaeology – Beehabitations – Central European Pre-/Early history

A summary of beekeeping in prehistory is often reduced to two highlights: a representation of the so-called honey hunting in Mesolithic rock-art and the images of honey harvesting, commercial collection of honey of wild or semi-wild honeybee colonies in living trees) in the Middle Ages Zeidlerei (known inGerman as Zeidlerei. Interestingly, this picture of honey harvesting as the origin of our beekeeping has a strong impact. There are also pictures of manmade beehives and beekeeping from that time, but the honey harvester (Zeidler) is obviously considered so archaic that it remains in memory. Between these two highlights there are approx. 7000-10,000 years and all the archaeological eras that have brought great changes and developments in handicraft and cultural techniques. This could also lead to the conclusion that from the Mesolithic to the Middle Ages “bees were kept in the living tree” implying that there was no development from the Mesolithic to the Middle Ages and that sedentism had no influence on beekeeping, and instead, that the first development towards modern day beekeeping happened after the Middle Ages. But this is not the case…

Left: Cuevas de la Araña (Spain), Mesolithic culture, dated around 8000 to 6000 BCE. By Achillea – Drawn from a painting from the caves of Cueva de la Araña by fr:Utilisateur:Achillea converted to svg by User:Amada44, GPL, Source
Right: Krünitz, J.G.: Das Wesentliche der Bienen-Geschichte und Bienenzucht, Berlin, 1774, Pictures: public Domain

The Archaeological Beekeeping Project at the Zeiteninsel – Archaeological Open-Air Museum Marburger Land, Germany (www.zeiteninsel.de) started with one beehive – in a modified modern bee dwelling to show people how bees build the combs and construct their homes. However, the aim of the project from the beginning was to show beekeeping in five different prehistoric eras – Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and finally the early Germanic Peoples – in Central Europe.

The starting point of the prehistoric display was the Neolithic. Wooden tubes found at a lake dwelling (Arbon Bleiche III on Lake Constance in Switzerland) were interpreted as bee habitations. Based on these wooden tubes, the first “Neolithic beehive” was introduced at the Zeiteninsel-project in 2017. The log hive was reconstructed according to the smaller find from Arbon Bleiche III and was accepted very well by the bees.

Next to be reconstructed was the bee dwelling for the early Germanic peoples. So, in 2018, the first wicker skep was introduced to the project. This is based on a find from the northern German coast dated to the 1st/2nd century CE from Feddersen Wierde, a terp settlement. The reconstruction of this skep started with harvesting the willow branches and working with techniques of basketmaking in order to build the frame of the skep. This frame was covered with a mixture of clay and long hay. There are no remains from the cover of the frame, therefore this is open to experiment and discussion. It is important that the clay can be applied in a very thin layer, so the skep will not become too heavy for handling and the clay will not crack. Until now, it is still an experiment in progress about how to harvest honey and find the right management technique for the hive in the wicker skep. The bees accepted the wicker skep very well, so the hive works! (In this project, the standards of modern beekeeping with regard to animal welfare and legal requirements are guaranteed.)

Left: Log hive according to Neolithic find (front), modified modern-type beehive (back)
Right: Beeyard at the Zeiteninsel. Log hive (left), wicker skep after early Germanic find (right) in an open shelter with base and roof. Modern-type beehive outside the shelter (back). Pictures: Sonja Guber

So today there are three different types of bee habitations at the Zeiteninsel: a wooden tube as a Neolithic bee dwelling, one wicker skep as a Germanic bee home and one modified modern beehive to actually show people more of the life of the bees, for example, for visiting school classes.

There is archaeological evidence of wooden tubes aka log hives nearly throughout all the time periods of central Europe, starting with the Neolithic (as mentioned above). The Bronze Age is a particularly interesting era for the question of the use of bee products. A steady availability of huge amounts of wax was required for the lost wax process. Beekeeping management may well have been implemented during the Bronze Age to ensure the availability of wax. There is evidence of a wooden log hive in a Bronze Age settlement in Berlin Lichterfelde, Germany. During the first centuries CE (early Germanic peoples) there are several archaeological finds of log hives, e.g. in Pinnow, Germany. For the early Middle Ages there is a find in the Venemoor, Germany, and there is evidence of the same types until recent centuries, for example, a log hive dated to 1770 from Spreewald, Gemany. The first evidence of a man-made bee dwelling that is not a wooden tube is the wicker skep of the Feddersen Wierde, Germany (as mentioned above). You can find a written source from a Roman author (Columella,1st century CE) and pictures of wicker skeps from the 8th century CE until the late Middle Ages. Sometime in the middle of the first millennium of the Christian Era is when skeps made of straw must have appeared, but we have no archaeological evidence for exactly when. There are pictures of straw skeps from the Central Middle Ages onwards. And there was beekeeping in straw skeps in Germany until the middle of the 20th century.

As explained in the article before “Which came first, bees or crops? Why does it matter?” by Debra A. Reid, there was a huge development towards beekeeping on a larger scale, having more control over the bees, possibilities to manipulate the hive and of course to centrifuge the harvested honey thanks to inventions in the mid-19th century. This is the origin of the modern bee dwelling nearly all beekeepers all over the world now use: (Mostly) wooden supers with moveable frames.

These are the three different types of central European bee hives: log, skep and modular supers. Log and skep have one central factor in common: these beekeeping methods work with fixed frames, with wax combs that are built by the bees in their free order and these are fixed at the insides of the habitation (top and sides, not the bottom). Only the invention of the movable frames brought a basic change in the handling of beehives.

Left: View inside the tilted over skep with fixed wax combs
Right: View inside a modern-type beehive with movable frames
Pictures: Sonja Guber

So what is the reason for development or, let’s say remaining with what is already there? Is it a question of time or are there different influencing factors? There were two major changes in beekeeping methods:

1) the beginning of beekeeping in man-made bee habitations near settlements co-evolving with sedentism and keeping livestock in general

2) there was this huge development within beekeeping techniques in the middle of the 19th century (see above) and there was a completely different area of beekeeping in living trees in forests, but this is more an issue of different natural, agricultural and cultural landscapes and not a time-related development.

Dr. Sonja Guber, Immenzit (www.immenzit.de) 

Literature and Sources

COLUMELLA: De re rustica

CRANE, E. (1999). The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting. Cardiff, 1999.

DE CAPITANI, A., DESCHLER-ERB, S., LEUZINGER, U., MARTI-GRÄDEL, E., SCHIBLER, J.(2002). Die jungsteinzeitliche Seeufersiedlung Arbon Bleiche 3, Funde. Departement für Erziehung und Kultur des Kantons Thurgau.

GUBER, S. (2018). Prähistorische Bienenhaltung in Mitteleuropa – ein archäoimkerliches Projekt. In: Experimentelle Archäologie in Europa, Jahrbuch 2018. Unteruhldingen, 2018.

GUBER, S. (2019). Prähistorische Bienenhaltung in Mitteleuropa – Rekonstruktion und Betrieb eines Rutenstülpers. In Experimentelle Archäologie in Europa, Jahrbuch 2019. Unteruhldingen, 2019.

LEHMANN, H. (1965). Ein dreitausendjähriger „Klotzstülper“ aus Berlin-Lichterfelde in Berliner Blätter für Vor- und Frühgeschichte. 11, 1965, Berlin.

RUTTNER, F. (1981). Ein Bienenkorb von der Nordseeküste aus prähistorischer Zeit in: Werner HAARNAGEL (ed.): Feddersen Wierde: die Ergebnisse der Ausgrabung der vorgeschichtlichen Wurt Feddersen Wierde bei Bremerhaven in den Jahren 1955 bis 1963. III, Steiner, Wiesbaden.