THE HISTORICAL BEE . . .
Left, a rock painting shows man on ladder
pries comb from a hanging hive, while the
bottom figure catches the falling chunk. This
is from the late Neolithic period, central India.
Bottom left: A gold plaque with winged bee
goddess, Camiros Rhodes, 7th century BC.
Centre, an Eqyptian wall carving depict-
ing hooded beekeeper and his buzzing
minions. In ancient Egypt, the bee was an
insignia of kingship.
Right, a bee embossed Greek coin, the
Drachm of Ephesos, from 200 BC
F
or more than 10,000 years
, humans have
eagerly consumed honey, originally collecting
it from wild bees. Cave paintings in Spain show
women gathering honeycombs, using tall
ladders to reach the bees’ nests and carrying
the honey away in baskets.
In ancient cultures, people used honey as
both a medicine and a food. Egyptian medical
prescriptions from 5,000 years ago recommend
herbal mixtures with honey for treating a variety
of conditions, ranging from headaches to
cough, as well as to sweeten other, more bitter
remedies, making them easier to tolerate.
(Compliance with doctors’ orders was an issue
even during those times.)
Honey was not only ingested as a medicine
historically, but applied topically as well, even
on open wounds. Honey has strong history as a
folk remedy, and it is now an accepted medical
treatment, especially in New Zealand.
The beads of sweat says it all!
You are probably wondering about...the
feather. This ‘all natural’ cowboy really
trusts his bees as he carefully brushes bees
from the frame so he can extract the honey.
A beekeeper in Brazil made this custom
bee outfit for his donkey.
A beekeeper in northeastern France was
surprised to find this blue honey! The
puzzle was solved when it was discovered
bees had been feeding on blue sugar shells
from the nearby M&M plant.
Bees in the Middle East catch a ride on the
front seat of a pickup.
‘Bee’lieve it...
or not
Managing the colony
The bees are smoked from the hives during harvest, and when they come out of their
stupor, they buzz amok around the paddock, working to re-establish their colonies.
Commercial beekeepers have a clean, empty super with fresh frames, ready to place
immediately as the honey laden boxes are collected. Home beekeepers generally
install barriers to prevent the bees from returning to the super until the frames are
emptied and returned. The queen’s brood box remains untouched, however.
After processing the honey (home beekeepers usually crush the comb and gravity
strain the honey), the beekeeper reunites the super with the queen’s lower broodbox.
One can imagine how messy and sticky everything might be, from dripping honey,
waxy propolis scraps, and sweet wax coated tools.
The savvy beekeeper knows that the bees will be attracted to these goodies, for all
can be recycled. Even the neighbours’ bees get wind of this sweet opportunity. Bees
will rush to eat the honey, and also reclaim other materials and repair the hives. They
perform most of the hive clean-up very quickly.
Some beekeepers restore frames having damaged combs with a preprinted wax base
that has the correct size hexagonal cell pattern. The bees will build on this. The more
the beekeeper helps, the more time bees spend making honey.
LIFESPAN AND THE OVERWINTERING COLONIES
The average lifespan of a queen is three to four years; drones usually die upon mating
or are expelled from the hive before the winter. The worker bees may live only a few
weeks in the summer and several months in areas with an extended winter.
To help overwintering bees survive the cold, beekeepers leave an ample amount of
the colony’s stores of pollen and honey (bees make up to 3 times the honey the hive
would need) or provide a sugar water mixture as a substitute. There is a complex
science of managing honey stores to ensure healthy colony survival rates, to coincide
with brood hatching dates, to produce the most bees for the prime flowering months.
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