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.

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

Medieval Pic: Hive picture from Northern Italy

Detail of a miniature of beehives with bees. Northern Italy. (Lombardy)

From the British Library

Cover me! I'm going in!

Simple beauty...

Burr comb at Four Weeks

Burr comb on the inner cover. 

Burr comb is when the bees build comb outside of the frames such as on the inner cover.                 

Honey bees working on a frame at four weeks after installation

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).

Good Advice for Life and in the Bee Yard

Found on the Gold Star Bees Facebook page

Medieval Bee Pic #1

Bruegel - 1568

Experts cannot agree if this picture is depicting beekeepers or thieves. What do you think?

Modern Bee Pic #1

A full frame of capped honey...