Period Beehives: Wood Hives, Part 2

Another period style of a wood hive is also Italian. Hive management and harvest are much clearer in these examples than other styles of wood hives. Harvesting and swarm catching can be seen in the picture above. It appears that harvesting is done from along the length of the hive. The swarm is being caught on the short side indicating an entrance on that end. Two hives can be seen behind the hive being harvested. This shows how hives are placed.

It is unclear in these images if there are hinges on either hive or if the panels are pinned in place. The hive must be closed up after inspection or harvest. The bees will only build in tight and dark spaces. The image directly above looks to be a beekeeper pulling a panel off. It also appears as though there is another hive stacked on top. This interpretation would necessitate the side panel opening. This would be possible if there were a space to slide a knife inside to separate the combs from the side panel. This could possibly do considerable damage to the combs though.

Period Hives: Wood Hives, Part 1

There is very little written about the medieval and Renaissance Italian box hives. We can tell from this picture that vertical and horizontal hives were used. It is my belief, based on the picture and beekeeping experience, the lids were removed and comb was retrieved as needed. I do not believe these were harvested in the manner of skeps. Skep harvesting involves killing the bees at the end of the season by means of drowning or sulfur smoke. I think that combs were cut out one piece at a time as needed.

Italy’s growing and beekeeping season is longer than that of Northern and Eastern Europe. Not unlike Florida, the bees would have a longer season of activity. The increased activity time would allow the bees to easily maintain their hives. This would also allow more time for the bees to recover from a harvest. There was no need to destroy the whole colony.

Period Beehives: Log Hives

A lesser known type of hive of the medieval and Renaissance time period is the log beehive. The log beehives are very common in North Eastern Europe. The log beehive is still used to this day in that region.

Bees made hives in hollow trees naturally. Early beekeepers would harvest this honey from the trees. Eventually they marked and claimed ownership of the trees and the hives contained therein. Beekeepers also started making their own cavities in hives. These types of hives were most common in the Northern Forest Zone of northeast Europe, which includes East Germany, Poland, as well as Northern Czechoslovakia and Russia. Larger logs were not usually available west of the deciduous forest zone.  There is no record of tree beekeeping found in the Scandinavian countries. It was probably too cold for hives to survive in the winter. (Crane 1999, 135)

Records of tree beekeeping exist from the 1200’s and 1300’s.  The Teutonic Order of Germany secured hereditary rights of bee trees in the 1253. Landowners started limiting the rights of tree beekeepers in the 1300’s. This included making new cavities in trees.   

Log hives were developed and hung in the trees to keep animals from foraging in them. Until 1600, forests were used for hunting and collecting honey and wax. The Thirty Years War of Germany (1618-1648) changed all that. Trees were felled and hives moved closer to the home and placed in collections called apiaries. The switch from tree cavity to log hive beekeeping was caused by a shortage of natural cavities. Trees were felled on land used for agriculture or other purposes. Landowners also prohibited new cavities from being made.

Log hives were often carved with faces and then later whole logs were carved into human form. (Crane 1999, 231) In 1568, Nikel Jacob advises to use poplar, lime, alder, and willow, but not oak wood for making the hives. In the Armbruster Collection of Germany, there are hives made from poplar, lime, oak, alder, beech, sycamore, pine, and spruce or fir. (Crane 1999 p 229) Nikel Jacob describes the hives as being 165 centimeters high by 60 centimeters in diameter. In the Armbruster Museum, examples are one-hundred fifty to two hundred centimeters high by sixty centimeters in diameter.

Two log hives have been excavated from bogs in Northern Germany. The first dates between 100-200 AD. It is one meter high and thirty-one to forty-four centimeters in diameter. There is a horizontal slit near the base for the flight hole. The flight hole is the hole or holes in a hive by which the bees come and go from the hive. The second hive dates between 400-500 AD. It is one meter high by thirty centimeters in diameter. There is a cover held on by wood pegs. The flight holes are at different levels on the hive.

Large logs might be divided into two colonies. The hives were hung from trees or kept on platforms to prevent pest infestation. Most had doors or access holes (Crane 1999, 229) Honey comb was removed from the bottom of a closed top log hive. The beekeeper would take all the honey early in the season or leave enough combs later in the season for winter. 

Period Beehives: Wicker Skeps

A skep is an inverted basket made of wicker or coiled straw used in beekeeping for housing bees. The skep is over two thousand years old and straw hives are still used today in parts of Europe today. 

There are many examples of skeps in period illustrations and woodcuts. The word skep is derived from the word skeppa. It is Norse for a container and measurement for grain. It was not until the sixteenth century that this term was used with regards to beekeeping. Before that, the word “hive” was used.

The earliest known remains of a wicker skep were from 1-200AD. The example came from a peat bog near Wilhelmshaven on the North Sea coast of Lower Saxony. Wicker and coiled straw basket techniques were known since Antiquity and could have been used as skeps then.

Wicker skeps, also referred to as an alveary, were woven on a whorl of thin branches of a spruce or fir tree. Dictionary.com defines a whorl as “a circular arrangement of like parts, such as leaves or flowers around a point on an axis.” The branches formed the main stakes. Other stakes were added for support as the diameter increased. Wicker skep size and shape is determined by the size and shape of the whorl used.

Wicker hives were daubed with cloam or cloom. Cloaming increases the weather resisting abilities of the hive. There are various recipes for cloam, but the main ingredients are sand, ashes, dung and lime. Straw skeps last longer than wicker. The cloam used to protect the hive adheres better to the straw. This led to straw hives replacing wicker hives in later years because of its ability to resist weather better.

Beekeeping Adventures: Hive Set-Up Day

Saturday was hive set-up day. Two hives were set-up in Dewitt and eight in Cazenovia. It was a beautiful day with just a bit of wind. Adelle, her dad James, my dad Marty, and Dad's girlfriend Chris all helped out. Andy, the land owner helped out too. Much fun was had as we chose the placement and leveled the hives. I will be back out there tonight to sink and lash down the hives with Andy and Carol, the other land owner. This area in Cazenovia can get very windy. We want to make sure the hives don't get blown over!

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

A History of Honey and Its use in Period: (Part 5 of 6): Trade, Exportation, and Importation

This is the fifth part in a series of entries on the use of honey in pre-1600's history.

In Roman times, large quantities of honey were exported from Turdetania in Southern Spain. Ligurian people on the North-West coast of Italy carried their honey to Genoa. “Inhabitants of Carnic Alps exchange wax, honey, and other natural products for necessities of life” (Crane 1999, p491)

Honey and beeswax were traded out of Russia by the 900’s, along the trade route via the Neva and Volga to the Caspian Sea and then to Asia (Crane 1999, p 491) Beeswax was traded to Byzantium, Venice, and Genoa, before Christianity came to Russia in the 900’s (Galton 1971, p15) In 1555, Olaus Magnus reported that Europe exported much wax, but “honey they reserve to themselves in great supply.”

Spanish Arabs were important in the honey and sugar trades during the Muslim period (711AD-1492). In the 1500’s there were still Arab traders in Granada who specialized in buying honey from beekeepers. They would sell to merchants for use in the retail market.

Records survive of export and import of honey within Europe throughout the Middle Ages and following periods. After 989 AD, an Irish ship partially loaded with honey sailed to South Wales. ”Norse merchants maintained a brisk trade in Welsh slaves, horses, honey, malt, and wheat in exchange for Irish wines, furs,….butter, and coarse woolen cloth.” (Crane 1999, p491) Five Russian monasteries purchased several tons of honey each between the years of 1569 and 1599.

A History of Honey and Its Use in Period: (Part 4 of 6): Tithes and Tolls

This is the fourth part in a series of entries on the use of honey in pre-1600's history.

Honey was also required as a tithe. St. Augustine Abbey monks in Canterbury were noted to be stringent on honey as a tithe. They wrote in their “Black Book” that “Honey must also be tithed” (Crane 1999, p490). Peasants in 1290 Schleswig-Holstein were required to pay a tithe from their beekeeping yields to the church.

Tolls were charged for moving honey into another town or across a bridge. For example, in the years 1080-1082, monks of St Aubin’s in Angers, France required tolls on items peddled by peasants in neighboring markets. Wax and hives were charged a half penny to transport. Charters of 1285 and 1412 in England list portage (tolls) charges on honey crossing Montford Bridge in Shropshire according to the number of tons, carts or jars (Crane 1999, p 491)

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.

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.

Skep Beehives (Part 7 of 8): Swarms and Honey Flow

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

Catching a Swarm

Skeps are managed by swarm beekeeping. Swarm beekeeping is the practice of making a hive just big enough for the bees to make a home. Swarming is when the queen and some of the worker bees leave the hive to find a new home. Swarms were encouraged by making the skep smaller than the needed space for a colony during peak honey flow. The recommended size ranged from nine to thirty-six liters and averaged about 20 liters (Butler, Ch. 5).

The colony will swarm when it becomes too big for the skep. The beekeeper then collects the swarm and installs it into a new hive. “The swarming months are two, Gemini and Cancer: one month before the longest day and another after.” (Butler, Ch. 5). This type of beekeeping was done in north-west Europe, as far south as the Pyrenees and Alps-Maritime of France where honey flows are in mid to late summer (Crane, p239).

Honey flows are the times of the year when nectar is plentiful. Bees produce and store a great deal of honey. Swarm beekeeping takes advantage of this with the creation of new hives in late spring and early summer. Honey is produced in these hives from the later blooming flowers. 

Skep Beehives (Part 6 of 8): Tanging

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

Tanging the Bees

Beekeepers watched for swarms. This would involve a lot of time in May and June. This implies that swarm beekeeping was for career beekeepers. The beekeeper would tang the swarm to get the bees to move from one hive to another. (Crane,1999 p333) Tanging is striking two metal objects together to make a loud noise. It was believed this would cause the bees to go into the new hive. The swarm would develop into a new colony, store honey, and may even swarm again.

Skep Beehives (Part 5 of 8): Hive Maintenance

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

Hives with Hackles

It was necessary to regulate the temperature and moisture in a hive. It is essential to keep the hive dry. Skeps were placed on wooden platforms to keep out pests and moisture (Butler, Ch. 2).

The hackle or coppet provided more shelter for the skep hive. (Butler, Ch. 3) The hackle is made from rushes, reeds, or long straw that was tied together to form a tent like hat for the skep (Alston, 30). To make a hackle, tie straw together at the neck and place it over the skep. A gart was then placed around the hackle over the skep to keep it in place. A gart is a hoop of metal (Alston, 30).

Beekeeper’s Hood (Part 1): History

This is the first part in a series of short articles on the beekeeper’s hood. The first two parts will be the history. The last parts will be my experience making one.

Beekeeper's Hood I Made

It was said, in Ancient Greece, that the bees asked Zeus for stingers to kill man because they stole their honey. To punish the bees for being so malicious, Zeus decreed that the bees would themselves die from stinging man. For centuries, man has been hunting bees and honey or keeping bees (Crane 1999, 35). Since then, man has needed protection from stings.

Before protective clothing, humans had to rely on other methods of protecting themselves from bee stings. These methods included moving slowly and deliberately, pulling the hair over the eyes, mouth and nose, not going into a hive during thunderous weather, and not going into a hive just after the honey flow (Crane 1999, 333).

Honey flow is a time when nectar is plentiful and bees produce and store lots of honey. This made things difficult for the medieval beekeeper. The most honey would be gathered after the honey flow, when the bees were the most protective of it. Beekeepers thus needed something to protect themselves with. 

Skep Beehives (Part 3 of 8): Wicker and Straw

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

Boy being stung by bees; Illustration in a Latin bestiary, England late 1100’s.

Wicker skeps were originally woven on a whorl of thin branches of a spruce or fir tree. According to Dictionary.com, a whorl is "a circular arrangement of like parts, such as leaves or flowers around a point on an axis." The branches formed the main stakes (Crane 1999, p241). Stakes were bent down during weaving and other stakes were added for support as the diameter increased. Wicker skep size and shape is determined by the size and shape of the whorl used.

Coiled straw skeps were made only where suitable materials were grown. These materials were reeds, grasses, or long-stemmed cereals. Long stems, such as bramble, were split with a tool called a cleave and used to join the coils. The tools used to make a coiled-straw skep are a girth and an awl (Crane 1999, p242).

Skep Beehives (Part 2 of 8): History of the Skep

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

The earliest known remains of a wicker skep were from 1-200AD. The example came from a peat bog near Wilhelmshaven on the North Sea coast of Lower Saxony. (Crane 1999, p251) Wicker and coiled straw basket techniques were known since Antiquity and could have been used as skeps then. The Germanic tribes west of the Elbe were the first to use the straw skep even before the Christian era (Fraser 1958, p11). The Germanic tribes brought the skep west towards the French Channel and north-west into Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Sweden. The Anglo-Saxons brought the skep into Britain (Fraser 1958, p12).

Straw skeps last longer than wicker because the dung and clay mixture used to protect the hive adhered better to straw rather than wicker (Butler, Ch 3). This is called cloaming or clooming (Alston, p11). Straw replaced wicker as a common material around 500 AD when the straw skep was introduced to Britain (Alston 1987, p12). Skeps were not common outside of Europe where differing climates would affect the types of hives used. There were no significant changes to the way beekeepers used skeps until post-1600's.

Skep Beehives (Part 1 of 8): Introduction

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

A miniature recreation I did

The skep is the universal symbol of bees, beekeeping, and honey. A skep is an inverted basket made of wicker or coiled straw used in period beekeeping for housing bees. The skep is over two thousand years old and is still used today in parts of Europe. There are many examples of skeps in period illustrations.

This is a miniature example of a straw skep I made. It is roughly 8" tall and 10" wide. Full-sized skeps would be approximately 18" tall and 24" wide. The model is too small to add the entrance or flight hole, though not all straw beehives had an entrance door. The beehive could be place on a wooden stand with a carved channel on it to allow bees to get in an out. The channel would be carved the length of the board to allow for better air circulation and to serve as a gutter so rain would not build up in the hive.