Beekeeping

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Bee_on_Geraldton_Wax_Flower.JPG

Romans• Pliny wrote about beekeeping in about 50AD• Wrote about wax, and propolis• Described a transparent (Observation) hive• The Mead consumed by the Celts!• “Bees are the smallest of birds, and are born from the bodies of oxen”

• Virgil wrote about beekeeping in about 40BC • Keep hives:

– Near water– Out of the wind– Away for lizards, moths, and birds

• Emphasized the hives ruler• Praised Bees for their abstension from Sexual intercourse• Spontaneous Generation?

The Bible

• In Exodus, Cannan is referred to as “The land of milk and honey.”

• King Solomon: "My son eat thou honey, because it is good, and the honeycomb which is sweet to thy taste".

• Samson : “..and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion: and, behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion.”

Greeks

• 384 BC, Aristotle wrote much about beekeeping.

• Foulbrood

• First to note that honeybee's don't visit flowers of different kinds on one flight, but remain constant to one species.

India, 500BC

3000 BC we have written records on migratory beekeeping up and down the

Nile river in ancient Egypt.

Tablet from a Beekeeper pleading for someone to send donkeys to transport his

hives before the floods took them!

Apis Mellifera Nest

A. Florea Nest

A. Dorsada Nests

Royal Jelly in a Queen Cell

• Wild Bees build their honey combs about 1 and 3/8 inches apart.  Honey comb is about one inch wide, so this left a 3/8 inch passageway between the combs.  

• Some beekeepers built hives that forced the bees to build combs along "top bars" that were spaced about 1 and 3/8 inches apart.

2011 – You!

Welcome to Beekeeping!