A Short History of Beekeeping

foreign [Music] if you have a jar of honey in your cupboard you're not exactly alone Americans consume some 618 million pounds of honey in 2021 and the worldwide honey Market is valued at more than 8 billion dollars it's not exactly forgotten history that bees play a vital role in the ecosystem and our key to pollinating plants worldwide but perhaps less well known is exactly how long the history between humans and bees go perhaps among the oldest relationships between humanity and another species it deserves to be remembered that humans have been collecting honey and protecting and nurturing beehives since pre-history apiculture or beekeeping has been practiced by humans for Millennia honey is most commonly collected today from the bees of the apis genus especially the Western honeybee native to Africa Europe and the Middle East unlike most bee species honeybees live socially in colonies built around a single queen cultures around the world have Incorporated bees into their mythology from the Egyptians and ancient Greeks to Hindu hittite and sand mythology depictions of humans Gathering honey from wild bees date to at least 10 000 years ago including eight thousand year old cave paintings from near Valencia Spain that show Wild Honey Gathering for hunter-gatherer societies searching for Wild Honey Bee nests is called honey hunting archaeologists have discovered chemical residue of beeswax across Europe North Africa in the near East proving that humans have been exploiting bee related products for at least nine thousand years evidence that humans maintained artificial hives specifically for collecting honey only comes much later ancient Egyptians are known to have been maintaining artificial hives for as long as 4 500 years the honeybee is commonly depicted in ancient Egyptian art from the founding of the first dynasty when the title sealer of the honey was first given 5100 years ago a fifth Dynasty tomb from 4 400 years ago depicts workers blowing smoke into beehives in order to remove the honeycomb not dissimilar from Modern practices an Egyptian official was responsible for mounting expeditions to the desert to collect honey and resin from bee nests a manuscript from the time of Ramses III has the Pharaoh saying to a god that I have made you archers and collectors of Honey to collect honey for you beeswax was used in the casting of copper objects in Lost wax casting in the Bronze Age such as objects found in Judea between 5000 and 5 500 years ago and in ancient Sumeria in Lost wax casting wax is used to make a mold in sand the sand is then heated until the wax melts and brass or bronze can be poured into the mold numerous references in the Old Testament also relate to Honey into Canaan is the land of milk and honey in The Iliad Hummer refers to bees storing up honey in jars likely the jars have become homes for beehives Mesolithic paintings from Central India also show Honey Hunters beekeeping seems to have come slightly later to China and with different local species of bees the earliest mention of beekeeping in China comes from the 5th Century BC the ancient Hittites had lost to punish anyone who stole Beast swarms or hives the sand people of South Africa also relied on honey in prehistoric times and bees and Honeycombs play a large role in their rock art the oldest honey ever discovered was found in the country of Georgia in a nobleman's grave from around five thousand five hundred years ago the website saved the bees explains the tomb belonged to an important Chief or leader he had several other people buried with him inside his Bronze Age burial site where wild berry offerings to the dead they were still red and Incredibly well preserved despite being 4 300 years old because they were cured with ancient honey this handily beat the previous record of Honey found in King Tut's tomb two thousand years newer the oldest direct archaeological evidence for beekeeping comes from a site in Israel dated to 900 BC where 30 intact hives of straw and unbaked clay were discovered archaeologists suggest as many as a hundred hives could have been kept at the site which could produce 1 100 pounds of honey annually a 4th Century BC Egyptian Papyrus describes building artificial hives advising that one does not build a royal palace for the honeybee a hive of dung is better than a hive of stone in the ancient Greek city of NASA beekeeping paraphernalia such as hives honey extractors and smoking pots have been found across the world in Central America the ancient Maya were collecting honey from an entirely different kind of bee distinguished be of the genus moaponini keeping stingless bees is called malaponic culture and the Maya kept bees in highs from at least the 3rd Century BC according to the journal ACTA Americana Maya meloponiculture reached a higher level than anywhere else in the world the Maya continued to practice beekeeping the same way their ancestors did keeping hives in Hollow horizontal Logs with one enclosed by a disc of wood or stone when the Spanish arrived each Maya household had as many as 60 hives B and honey played a large role in Maya culture and religion honey was used in the creation of alcoholic drinks used in rituals and they worship bee and beekeeper gods despite the Antiquity of beekeeping as an activity there remains some considerable disagreement of whether bees are truly domesticated it appears that apiculture began in Egypt before spreading throughout Europe Africa and the Middle East and while it appeared separately in China and possibly India initially humans likely attempted to get bees to settle their hive in more convenient locations to gather honey before Apiaries were established humans have affected B genetics through artificial selection selecting colonies that produce more honey were less aggressive and were heartier especially in cold weather in 1603 an English writer wrote that the bee I may well reckon a domestic insect being so pliable to the benefit of The Beekeeper some modern writers however have questioned the degree of domestication despite thousands of years of semi-captivity researchers PR Oxley and BP old Droid argue that bees are only managed and that they are largely unchanged from their wild cousins others note that bees even in colonies managed by men are perfectly capable of leaving artificial hides to establish wild hives without intervention domesticated or not they were kept in artificial hives over much of the world in the Common Era Roman writer Barrow describes some beekeepers building hives of wicker others of wood Embark others of a hollow tree others built of earthenware and still others fashion them of fennel stocks several Roman writers disparaged the use of baked clay hives as poor quality while thimble shaped big clay hives have been found at Greek sites north of Italy bees were kept differently east and west of the elb river to the West skeps basically overturned baskets were most common made of wicker grass and straw depictions are common in medieval manuscripts were often harvested by tossing the entire Hive into the water to drown the bees before harvesting the honey in Eastern Europe bee forests were more common beekeepers would cut or expand cavities and trees to attract hives 5 to 25 meters up the tree warmer regions such as Spain used cork hives to protect the colonies from Heat most of these early highs would have to be destroyed or seriously damaged to gather the honey in middle age Europe beekeeping was a lucrative an important task sugar was not widely available so honey was the only common food sweetener it was used to brew Mead and flavor ailed sweetened porridge and was used as an ointment on wounds and rubbed on a horse's legs when it was ill but the more important and lucrative product was beeswax was used as an adhesive a binder for charcoal black pigment and other paint for sculpture for casting metals and for candles West African cultures use beeswax to cast brass gold weights beeswax has been found intact from various sites including a Bronze Age Foundry monasteries regularly raised beets for wax but often needed more and English Abbey south of London recorded producing 155 pounds of wax in 1269.70. wax was also used to shape religious icons to leave it shrines in churches and mixed with resin it was used for wax seals wax was imported across medieval Europe especially from Russia Spain and Africa no illustrations of beehives have been found from the so-called Dark Ages but beekeeping seems to have flourished Mead is mentioned in poems including the 8th Century Beowulf Charlemagne required all manners to keep bees and that two-thirds of the honey produce be given to the crown laws from the reign of King Alfred of Wessex recorded that Steelers of bees would face harsh fines beehives were even used as weapons in 908 citizens of the city of Chester and England broke a Siege by throwing beehives over the walls William the conquerors Doomsday Book included a survey of the number of beekeepers and hives 601 hives were counted in Essex and old Anglo-Saxon term has been found that was spoken in an attempt to keep bees from swarming which starts seal down Victory women sink to Earth never be wild and fly to the woods there's also an old custom found throughout Europe have been forming the hives of marriages births and deaths called telling the bees if not informed the Swarms might die or become aggressive though today it is hard to imagine beekeeping without protective suits it seems to have come late to apaculture no depictions of protective clothing exist until the 14th century when a Flemish manuscript shows a beekeeper wearing a veil a French version of Virgil's georgics shows a kind of tailored cowl by the mid 15th century drawing show beekeepers wearing clothes resembling modern protective clothing while relatively little about Chinese apoculture has survived in 1273 the Mongol government published a book with a section on beekeeping which displays nuanced knowledge of the art 200 years before any similar book was produced in Europe Korea and Japan also kept bees by at least the 7th century in Southeast Asia relief at Angkor Wat shows bees being collected in artificial hives probably the most important advancement in apiculture was the invention of artificial hives that could be harvested without killing or even seriously disturbing The Colony in 1696 a refugee from Crete in Italy describes his time in Crete from before 1669. he describes traditional top bar Greek beehives which had a number of small lengths of wood two fingers in breath LED across the top of a basket-like or ceramic hive the honeycomb was produced along the bars which could then be removed several of the bars would be left intact to maintain the hive examples are still in use today while possible versions of this movable comb Hive have been dated to the arcade Greek period between 750 and 480 BC even older possible hives have been found dated to 3 500 years ago Travelers noted these kind of Greek highs by 1676 and in several later Publications Thomas Wildman published A Treatise on the management of bees in 1768 and described the construction of a hive with parallel wood bars atop a straw Hive so that there are in all seven bars of deal to which the bees fix their Combs he also described hives with sliding frames Wellman's work also described other advances reporting on highs meant to preserve bee colonies from Brittany in the 1750s in the 1700s a sovenian painter and a teacher of apoculture named Anton yanza changed the shape and size of beehives making them smaller and square so that they could be stacked professionals like yansa and scientists began to examine bees more closely during the Enlightenment in 1814 Ukrainian Petro Pro kokovic invented the world's first Hive which used frames in the 18th century Swiss naturalist Francois Huber developed a movable comb Hive that had wooden leaves that could be flipped like the pages of a book in the 1830s Polish apiarist Johann girjin created a movable comb Hive with exact measurements for the distance between cones in 1850 Lorenzo langstroth a minister born in Philadelphia studied georgian's work as well as yonces before he began developing his own movable comb hive he noticed that when the bees had less than nine millimeters but more than six millimeters of space to move they would not block the path nor build comb into it exact measurements this encouraged more efficient building of comb and langstaff dubbed the distance b space craft developed a new frame Hive that incorporated these spaces and prevented bees from building the honeycomb on the sides of the hive box or cementing areas closed bees instead only build along the frames and even the frame comb is kept separate the patent for his Hive called the langstroth Hive was granted in 1852 his high was practical and top open which proved to be more popular than various other designs invented around the same time The langstroth Hive in its basic form remains one of the world's most popular designs and the basic design of the national beehive more commonly used in England this Hive design is the basis for commercial honey production in Europe in the United States and further advancement in Hive designs have followed around the world often designed to fit the particular climate or B subspecies being raised in 2006 beekeepers in the United States began reporting dramatic losses of up to 90 percent of their hives many with novel symptoms sudden loss of a colony's order bee population while similar collapses have been recorded the sudden rise led to the coining of colony collapse disorder the cause of the disorder is still somewhat unclear although studies to only point to pesticides the varroa might and extreme weather but similar unexplained events have occurred throughout history in 1869 an anonymous beekeeper reported colonies dying but leaving behind ample amounts of honey in the 1890s similar reports of colony collapse were reported clustered in May leading to the name May disease though it was possibly a disease called Stone brood the Isle of whites are several years of extraordinary Colony loss without certain explanation numerous other events in Australia and the U.S of Disappearing disease have had various explanations as recently as the 1990s whether these were also examples of colony collapse disorder is unclear you might have heard that honey lasts forever and to an extent that is true because of its low moisture high acidity and the anti-microbial process by which bees make honey honey actually lasts indefinitely in Honey found in ancient tombs is often described as still edible but please be warned if honey is stored improperly if it gets moisture inside of it honey can go bad or ferment the loss of bees is a sobering idea Penn State University's Center for pollinator research says that three-quarters of the world's major food crops benefit from pollinators like bees so as you sit down to eat watermelon kiwi pumpkin cucumber apples avocados almonds blackberries and much much more remember to thank a bee May 20th is worldwide b day a day that is dedicated to acknowledging the roles of bees and other pollinators in the world environment and their importance to human agriculture to learn more go to un.org en observances slash B Dash day I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guide check out our community on the historyguyguild.locals.com our webpage at thehistoryguy.com and our merchandise at teespring.com or book a special message from the history guy on Cameo and if you'd like more episodes of Forgotten history all you have to do is subscribe [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 102,589

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy

Id: ecTh6d820t0

Length: 15min 26sec (926 seconds)

Published: Wed May 10 2023