Period Hives & Their Modern Equivalents: Cork Hives

Not much information is available written in English for the use of cork hives in medieval and Renaissance time periods. There is mostly pictorial evidence. Cork hives were cylindrical or cube shaped. These hives were used primarily in Spain and Portugal because of the abundant availability of the material. The methods of creating cork hives did not change from period through at least this time.

Evidence of cork hives has been found in France. The use of cork hives could also relate to temperature. This is true of hives of any style and material.

Cork hives are used to this day. There is a movement to increase the amount of cork used in art and for practical uses.

Georgica (BNF Lat. 7939 A, fol. 38v), 1458

August Quote - Driving of the Bees: Charles Butler, 1609

Driving the bees is part of the medieval process of harvesting honey. Skeps do not have frames that allow for easy inspection of the hive and harvesting the honey. Charles Butler recommends driving the bees rather than smoking them out with a sulfur fire.The smoke from the sulfur fire killed the bees and left a residue on the wax and in the honey.

Below is a quote from Charles Butler's "The Feminine Monarchie: Or a Treatis Concerning Bees and the Due Ordering of Them" published in 1609. He discusses how to drive the bees in order to harvest the honey.

“Around midsummer, early in the morning, invert the skep to be driven. Cover the mouth of the full skep with an empty one. Wrap the join with a cloth to seal the opening. Clap rhythmically on the sides of the full hive. The bees will walk to the other hive. After most of the bees have walked to the empty hive, place it where the first hive was. Bees that are coming back from flight will go in there.”  - Charles Butler

History of Honey and Its Use in Period: (Part 1 of 6): Introduction

This is the first in a series of entries on a brief history of honey and its use in pre-1600's history. 

Introduction:

Honey is an all natural food that has been produced by bees for over twenty million years. There is evidence that man has exploited honey for about ten-thousand years (Crane, 1980, pg 19). Bees and honey have been regarded as sacred objects for just as long as evidenced by cave paintings. The earliest known evidence of beekeeping, as opposed to honey-hunting, is 3,000 years old (Friedman, 2008). Honey was a staple in the Medieval and Renaissance household until sugar became cheaper.

Honey was an important staple in the Medieval and Renaissance household and economy. It had more uses than just food. It was used to barter with and make mead with. As sugar became more popular and cheaper to produce, honey became less and less important.

Annotated Bibliography: "Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry"

• Tusser, Thomas. "Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry". England. 1580. Reprinted Kessinger Publishing.

This is a primary source that focuses on husbandry of all animals. Each chapter is a month of the year. There is an abstract and more detail in the second half of the chapter. Suck topics as when to plant and harvest crops, how to deal with pests, and how to take care of animals are presented. Honey bees are featured in six of the twelves months. This is probably because beekeeping maintenance is repetitive once each phase starts. This is an easy read as it written in high English. The font has been updated to modern English as well.

Skep Beehives (Part 8 of 8): Harvesting

This is the eighth and final part in a series of short articles on skeps in the Medieval through Renaissance periods.

The beekeeper finished the summer with many more hives than he started with. He only over-wintered stock hives with all of their honey for use in the spring. All of the honey was harvested from the other hives. The remaining hives, about 50-80%, were left to die. In 1609, Charles Butler recommended to harvest the heaviest and the lightest hives (Crane, 1999 p240). He recommended harvesting the heaviest hives because they yield the most honey and the lightest because the bees would starve to death anyways. This would leave the medium weight hives for the spring. 

The bees were killed or driven from the hives for harvest. They were killed by sulfur fumes. This was done by placing the hive over a pit of burning sulfur. It was also done by placing burning paper impregnated with sulfur into the hive. The bees were also killed by drowning. The hive was placed in a sack and put in hot water. Charles Butler didn’t agree with drowning the bees and writes it “hurteth the Honie, doth the Hive no good” (Butler, Ch 10).

More detailed instructions were given by Butler.

“Around midsummer, early in the morning, invert the skep to be driven. Cover the mouth of the full skep with an empty one. Wrap the join with a cloth to seal the opening. Clap rhythmically on the sides of the full hive. The bees will walk to the other hive. After most of the bees have walked to the empty hive, place it where the first hive was. Bees that are coming back from flight will go in there.”

Driving out the bees could be done when there were sufficient late honey flows. At or near midsummer, the bees were driven out of an upturned hive into an empty one. In 1580, Thomas Tusser writes “At midsummer drive them, And save them alive” (Crane 1999, p240).

The hope of driving the bees was they would have time to build new comb and store more honey before winter. Driven bees often did not prosper. Driven bees could be added to another colony to strengthen it. An alternative harvest method was to only harvest the bottoms of the combs. (Butler, Ch 10). The bees could then rebuild the combs.