The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting

Eva Crane

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 1999
• Print ISBN: 9780415924672
• eBook ISBN: 9781136746697
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

First published in 2000. This comprehensive book represents the first attempt to write a world history of people's use of social bees: how bees' nests were initially hunted for their honey and wax and, later, how the bees were kept in purpose-made hives. Evidence survives from early times in the form of artefacts, pictures and written records, and also human traditions of dealing with bees. Since 1949 the author has had opportunities to travel in over sixty countries, and to see traditional and modern hive beekeeping and also honey collection from nests. She learned much that helped her to piece together some of the long history in the different continents.

1

The Structure of the Book

This book presents a world history of the methods by which people used bees as a resource and succeeded in managing them. In many societies honey was sacred, and in some the bees themselves or the wax they produced. Early hunter-gatherers and succeeding generations valued honey as a sweet food and a medicine. Hives were probably first used for bees between 5000 and 3000 BC. The search for a ‘rational’ system of beekeeping began only a few centuries ago, and in 1851 it culminated in the production of a practical movable-frame hive which led to the establishment of a worldwide beekeeping industry.

The book deals with the subject diachronically, and follows through each stage of honey harvesting until a subsequent stage superseded it – or where necessary up to the present. Table 1.1A summarizes the sequence of the stages for the honey bee most commonly kept in hives, Apis mellifera, and for the most productive Asian honey bee Apis dorsata which nests in the open. Each Part of the book from II to VIII deals with a single stage of development in different geographical regions; even the most primitive stages still exist somewhere in the world and have been observed and studied. Table 1.1B leads to Sections of the book on various stages of harvesting from the world’s different honey-producing insects.

Names and boundaries of many countries have been changed over the centuries, and information is usually entered under the present name, except that the alternative Persia is used for Iran.

Use of the term ‘beekeeping’: In this book the hunting of natural nests of bees and the collection of honey from them are not included under ‘beekeeping’; the term is limited to keeping bees in hives (Parts V to VIII) or in other purpose-made nest sites which include cavities in trees, rocks and walls (Chapter 16).

Part I. Setting the scene Chapters 2-5

Part I provides background information on the lives and habits of the world’s honey-storing insects; it may not be needed by readers familiar with the biology of bees. Chapter 2 refers to the evolution of the insects; all are social and live in colonies, each with a queen and many infertile females known as workers and also some males (drones) in the reproductive season. Honey-storing bees include at least nine species of honey bees (Apis) and 500 or more species of stingless bees (Meliponinae). Chapter 3 explains their world distribution; honey bees are native only in the Old World, and stingless bees only in the tropics. (In addition, certain social wasps store honey, and bumble bees and honey ants store small amounts.) Chapter 4 considers the characteristics of honey bees in relation to man’s use of them, and Chapter 5 describes animals which also feed on honey bees or their products.

Part II. Opportunistic honey hunting by man Chapters 6-13

Hunter-gatherers practised opportunistic honey hunting, the most primitive stage of harvesting (Table 1.1A). Mesolithic and later rock paintings show early methods, and recent studies of hunter-gatherer peoples using similar techniques have brought these early scenes to life. The nests searched for were usually in trees or rocks, or underground. In some regions bee brood – a food rich in protein – was valued even more highly than honey. Certain societies used the wax from the bees’ combs for many purposes, but others discarded it.

In areas where hive beekeeping had started, natural nests were often hunted to get bees to populate hives.

Part III. History of collecting honey from owned or tended nests Chapters 14-17

Ownership of land probably developed during the Neolithic period. Individuals or communities might then own bees’ nests or nest sites, and tend them to some extent. The nest was protected if necessary; at harvesting, the colony was preserved and in some cases it was provided with food to prevent starvation. An owner might improve his access to nests in trees by inserting climbing pegs, and cutting a door to a nest cavity. In trees or soft rock, he might also provide additional nest sites by making new cavities or by enlarging existing small ones. Chapter 15 discusses the collection of honey from owned nests of Asian honey bees, including species which nest in the open.

Part IV. Honey bees that nest in the open: tending and beekeeping Chapters 18-19

In a few localities in Asia, artificial outdoor nest sites were made for colonies of honey bees which nest in the open, and a form of beekeeping was done with them.

Part V. History of traditional beekeeping using fixed-comb hives Chapters 20-32

Part V starts the history of the mainstream development of hive beekeeping, which occurred in the Old World where honey bees were native. Purpose-made hives were probably used in Egypt for colonies of the cavity-nesting honey bee Apis mellifera between 5000 and 3000 BC, and in China and Vietnam for the rather similar Asian species Apis cerana before AD 200. The history of beekeeping during and after classical times is relatively well documented.

In one part of Central America stingless bees were also kept in hives from Ancient times (Chapter 30). Beekeeping with honey bees started in the New World during the 1600s (Chapter 31) when early settlers took hives of A. mellifera from northern Europe.

A hive for cavity-nesting bees needed one or more small flight holes for the bees and, for the beekeeper harvesting honey combs, either an open base or a large removable closure. As in a natural nest cavity, honey bees attached their combs to the hive, and with all such fixed-comb hives the beekeeper had to break or cut the combs away, although different beekeeping methods were developed in different regions. In some temperate regions beekeepers captured swarms that issued from their colonies and used them to populate empty hives. In the tropics, a colony was likely to move as a swarm between two flowering areas in the course of each year, and at the appropriate season beekeepers put out empty hives to attract incoming swarms.

Table 1.1A
Chronology of stages in the harvesting of honey and wax from the honey bees
Apis mellifera and Apis dorsata

The construction of an apiary, where a beekeeper kept his hives of bees, depended on characteristics of the region, for example building materials and the animals or weather against which protection was needed (Chapter 32). A small number of hives might be kept near the dwelling house.

Part VI. History of practices in both traditional and movable-frame beekeeping Chapters 33-37

Some beekeeping practices with Apis mellifera originated early and continued up to the present, whatever type of hive was used. For instance various measures were taken to guard against bees stinging the beekeeper (Chapter 33); a common method was to pacify the bees with smoke or another agent before their hive was opened (Chapter 34). Hives were ‘migrated’ from one area to another to utilize extra honey flows (Chapter 35). During the last few centuries different species and races of honey bees were transported between different parts of the world (Chapter 36), and this had some far-reaching consequences – especially in the Americas to which European honey bees were taken in the 1600s, and tropical African honey bees in 1956.

Observation hives with windows (Chapter 37) were devised from Roman times onwards.

Part VII. Development of beekeeping using more advanced hives Chapters 38-40

Even in Antiquity beekeepers improved their hives for Apis mellifera, so that they could work with the bees more easily and more effectively. An early improvement was the addition of a separate honey chamber to a hive (Chapter 38). Chapters 39 and 40 follow the improvements in hives from the 1600s up to 1851 when Langstroth devised the first practical modern type, a movable-frame hive. This hive contained framed combs distanced from each other and from the hive walls by a ‘bee-space’, so that each frame was ‘movable’ and any framed comb could easily be lifted out.

Table 1.1B
Key to Chapters and Sections on different harvesting techniques, from nests of different insects

Part VIII. Development of beekeeping using movable-frame hives Chapters 41-45

Methods of management for Apis mellifera in movable-frame hives were worked out during the second half of the 1800s. Chapter 41 describes the impact of this hive in different parts of the world, and Chapter 42 explains the part played by Beekeepers’ Associations of various countries in promoting its effective use. New specializations were originated in the 1900s, and some are still being developed (Chapter 44). Examples are methods of large-scale queen rearing – including instrumental insemination of queens – and the production of package bees. Hives of honey bees were hired out to pollinate crops, and bumble bees and solitary bees were also reared in large numbers for crop pollination (Chapter 45).

Part IX. History of bee products Chapters 46-51

Chapter 46 describes methods developed for handling and processing honey and beeswax. Honey was always a primary bee product, used for food and medicine, and in many societies also for fermenting into an alcoholic drink (Chapters 47, 48). Many peoples had no wax except beeswax, and this had important applications including lighting and the lost-wax process for casting metal (Chapter 49).

Early man must sometimes have consumed other substances removed from bees’ nests with honey comb: pollen, royal jelly, propolis and brood. From the 1950s, these substances were collected separately and marketed commercially. Bee venom had been extracted for medical use from the late 1800s (Chapter 51). Stinging bees were used as a weapon of war from Ancient times (Chapter 50).

Part X. Bees in the human mind Chapters 52-54

Chapter 52 traces the growth of scientific knowledge about honey bees, what they collect and what they produce. Bees had been kept in hives for at least 4500 years before it was known that the large ‘ruler bee’ in the hive was not male ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1. The Structure of the Book
• Part I: Setting the Scene
• Part II: Opportunistic Honey Hunting by Man
• Part III: History of Collecting Honey from Owned or Tended Nests
• Part IV: Honey Bees that Nest in the Open: Tending and Beekeeping
• Part V: History of Traditional Beekeeping using Fixed-Comb Hives
• Part VI: History of Practices in both Traditional and Movable-Frame Beekeeping
• Part VII: Development of Beekeeping Using More Advanced Hives
• Part VIII: Development of Beekeeping Using Movable-Frame Hives
• Part IX: History of Bee Products
• Part X: Bees in the Human Mind
• Appendix 1. China: References to bees, beekeeping, honey and beeswax, from 2000 BC to AD 1600
• Appendix 2. List of some beekeeping museums
• Bibliography
• Indexes: Index of Personal Names