Wandering Beekeepers

Wandering Beekeepers


THE traditional manner in which the ancient races furnished the bees with new pastures, when their natural surroundings did not afford a sufficient supply of nectar, is highly interesting. The old "tillers" of Egypt placed the hives on boats and drifted along the Nile to provide the bees with fresh flowers which grew on the banks of the receding river, especially on its expansive delta. There was hardly any other pasturage for the bees in Egypt; there were no forests or meadows with wild flowers. Ancient Egypt had, by all means, less vegetation than present-day Egypt, because a considerable number of plants have been imported during the past thousands of years. On the other hand, the lotus, brought in all likelihood from India, and considered sacred, was more extensively cultivated than it is today, when it is nearing extinction. Lotus honey was in great favor in ancient Egypt.

The inhabitants of Lower Egypt well knew that the blooming of fruit-trees and flowers of Upper Egypt preceded theirs by several months. Toward the end of October, the villagers embarked on boats or rafts, packed with pyramided hives, and conveyed them down the Nile into Upper Egypt, just at the time when the inundations had subsided and the flowers had begun to bud. The bees soon exhausted the supply of nectar two or five miles around a new locality; then the floats were moved to another station and remained there as long as it proved desirable. These wanderers returned to their homes about February, the hives well-stocked with honey, gathered from the orange blossoms of Said and Arabian jessamine. The hives were carefully numbered and delivered to their respective owners. Niebuhr reported seeing such a flotilla of four thousand hives on the Nile.

We learn from the Zenon papyri that the Egyptians had wandering beekeepers even on land. These papyri, originating from the third century B.C., were discovered in 1914 by peasants digging for antiquities on the site of ancient Philadelphia on the edge of the Fayoum. Zenon was a high official of Apolloneos who sent him to Philadelphia when Egypt was under Greek influence. In one of the papyri there is an appeal of the beekeepers to Zenon, entreating him to return the donkeys which they had lent him and which they needed at once to bring home their hives from distant fields. Some farmers threatened the beekeepers that they would ruin the hives because it was necessary to burn the brushwood and inundate the fields. "The donkeys were loaned for only ten days" —said the petition—"and now it is eighteen days and the donkeys have not been returned." They begged Zenon to deliver the donkeys with the assurance that after the hives had been brought home they would be immediately returned in case he needed them. "We pay a large tax to the King and if the donkeys are not restored at once the tax will be lost. May you prosper"

The Greeks imitated the custom of the Egyptians. Columella describes how the inhabitants of Achaia took their hives overseas as far as the Attic peninsula to avail themselves of the benefits of its wonderful pastures. Solon mentioned bee-caravans and bee-floats in 600 B.C., and his laws demanded that each group of hives should be kept three hundred feet apart. It would not be surprising if the Egyptians journeyed as far as Greece with their hives. The ancient Greeks called the Egyptian bees "cecropic" bees. Cecrops was an Egyptian, who, about 1500 B.C., wandered to Greece and probably introduced apiculture.

The Romans, in the third century, took their hives with them to old Alemannia, and drifted down the Rhine. Wandering bee-keepers have been known since earliest times. Pliny reported that when the local sources of honey were exhausted, the inhabitants of Hostilia, a village on the Po, placed their hives on boats and sailed during the night five miles upstream, where next day the bees helped themselves in their new location. The temporary stations were changed each night, until the bees had collected so much honey that the boats were heavily laden. Then the villagers drifted downstream, homeward-bound. The French "bee-barges," with a capacity of sixty to a hundred hives, were frequently referred to. The Provence and the forests of Orleans were covered during certain seasons with visiting hives.

The same antiquated custom prevailed in the Mississippi Val-ley, starting from New Orleans. The blossoms of the river-willows yielded excellent virgin honey. Perrine, of Chicago, traveled in a large boat up the Mississippi from New Orleans to St. Paul, anticipating that the shores, after the flood had receded, would supply ample pasturage for the bees. The scorching heat, how-ever, ruined his plans; he was even compelled to pour water over the hives, which alone destroyed many colonies.

That this procedure was known also in England is shown by an article published in the London Times, 1830: "As the small sailing vessel was proceeding up the Channel from the coast of Corn-wall and running near land, some of the sailors noticed a swarm of bees on the island; they steered for it, landed, and after they succeeded in hiving the bees they took them on board and proceeded on their voyage. As they sailed along the shore, the bees constantly flew from the vessel to the land to collect honey and returned again to their floating hive; and this was continued all the way up the Channel."

On land, the hives were placed on wagons and when the combs were filled, the traveling beekeepers returned home. In Pales-tine, the orange groves of Jaffa offered a rich pasturage. The hives were carried by night on camels, sixteen hives to a load. Such journeying was called "giving the bees a pasture." In medieval Spain, they had similar customs except that the hives were trans-ported on mules. The Russians and Armenians around the Black Sea traveled like nomads, migrating with thousands of hives, pitching their tents where abundant wild flowers were to be found. Such bee-caravans, ambulatory establishments like gipsy-hordes, are often described in Greece, Italy, Germany, Austria and France. In Scotland, they conveyed the hives on carts to the Highlands, when the supply of nectar in the Lowlands was exhausted.

They closed the entrances of the hives with wire screens which secured ample ventilation. The luxuriant blooms of the mountain-heather, which last over two months, supplied plentiful nectar to the bees in the autumn when no other flowers are available. The shepherds and gamekeepers took the hives under their protection for a modest quittance; as a rule, a shilling a hive. Wandering beekeepers were also known in Switzerland, where the hives were taken to the valleys when the buckwheat, which produces excellent honey, was blooming. In the Lüneburger Heide, nomadic troupes of beekeepers were traditional, especially in the springtime and late summer. The ancient laws well protected them.

This almost archaic practice still seems to prevail in the United States. Many beekeepers make the bees work the year round. Early fall they truck about two hundred hives to a load to the winter pastures of wild flowers and orange groves of Florida. By May, when they return homeward, the colonies have multiplied considerably and produce a double crop of honey.