Ever since the Stone Age we Europeans have kept bees in straw beehives known as skeps, made locally, to house a swarm.
They were sheltered from the weather, often under the eaves of the thatched cottages.
Then the American pastor Rev L.L. Langstroth devised the moveable frame hive, based, it is rumoured, on a Champagne crate.
At a stroke he displaced eons of sustainable beekeeping triggering the industrialization of a country craft with a system that required machine shops and chemical works
- to manufacture the hives and their frames,
- to extract the honey, and
- to synthesize all manner of pharmaceuticals
merely to keep hitherto unknown pests and diseases at bay - where before all that was required was a straw basket to house the bees and a straining cloth to filter the honey.
The wax being made into candles for the home and the Church.
For 42 million years the bees had maintained clean and healthy hives.
All the brood diseases so prevalent today did not exist until that meddling minister upset their ecosystem.
Inside the insulation of a straw skep the bees were able to maintain the same, very warm temperature as birds [under their feathers].
The antiseptic gum propolis coated the interior and plugged any gaps so keeping their hive in a clinically, clean condition.
The antiseptic gum propolis coated the interior and plugged any gaps so keeping their hive in a clinically, clean condition.
Langstroth,Dadant, Voirnot and others, housed their bees in overlarge and draughty boxes.
In these manufactured boxes, moveable frames holding the combs, allowed the beekeeper to look at the structure of the hive.
The constant careful temperature rgulation was now impossible when the beekeeper opened the hive each month, disrupting the smooth running of the bees environment, for even on the hottest day, the hive cooled down with the lid off and the combs exposed.
Bees would have to consume honey to warm up the chilled brood.Even today when the male drones are regularly culled it is not realised [except in France] that the big drones are actually sitting on their eggs like a chicken.
The constant careful temperature rgulation was now impossible when the beekeeper opened the hive each month, disrupting the smooth running of the bees environment, for even on the hottest day, the hive cooled down with the lid off and the combs exposed.
Bees would have to consume honey to warm up the chilled brood.Even today when the male drones are regularly culled it is not realised [except in France] that the big drones are actually sitting on their eggs like a chicken.
How simple it was in days of yore when a fresh swarm hived at the "lime tree bud bursting" season produced fresh virgin combs and the honey harvested at the Autumn equinox!
Such a simple way of life with countless warm tranquil hives has slipped away into history.
Now beekeepers pay dearly for their hobby.
Bee pests and diseases are flown around the world in hours.
Where once gentle docile bees were local to their district, now with the importation of Foreign Queens the bees have become a dangerous,vicious mongrel mixture.[except in Germany where imports are forbidden].
When the bees were visited at the Spring and Autumn Equinox's they were quiet and content. Interfering beekeepers merely provoke anger and hostility so now the ancestral, symbiotic covenant between insect and human has been well and truly broken!
Of course it is now illegal to keep bees in the old way: instead the hives are all undergovernment surveillance and the evil products of the chemical industry are poured onto the unfortunate industrialized bees.
Such a simple way of life with countless warm tranquil hives has slipped away into history.
Now beekeepers pay dearly for their hobby.
Bee pests and diseases are flown around the world in hours.
Where once gentle docile bees were local to their district, now with the importation of Foreign Queens the bees have become a dangerous,vicious mongrel mixture.[except in Germany where imports are forbidden].
When the bees were visited at the Spring and Autumn Equinox's they were quiet and content. Interfering beekeepers merely provoke anger and hostility so now the ancestral, symbiotic covenant between insect and human has been well and truly broken!
Of course it is now illegal to keep bees in the old way: instead the hives are all undergovernment surveillance and the evil products of the chemical industry are poured onto the unfortunate industrialized bees.
Which in of course kills vast numbers of them.
Touché Reverend! what glorious irony!
However, Even the darkest cloud has a silver lining - Organic beekeepers who dont use chemicals in their hives have hardly suffered.
The entire Beekeeping industry went down a dead end 100 years ago.
The entire Beekeeping industry went down a dead end 100 years ago.
Those venerable insects have been most patient with us humans.
