Medieval Beekeeping – A Glance Into the Historical past of Beekeeping

Honey searching or the opportunistic stealing of honey from wild bee colonies was once the defining feature of medieval beekeeping. The start of true beekeeping was once the advance of synthetic chambers for honeybees to build comb the place the queen may just lay eggs, and the employees may just acquire honey. The Egyptians had mastered apiculture through 2450 BCE, and two thousand years later, beekeeping with horizontal hives had unfold all over the place the Mediterranean area. 

From the thirteenth century onward, the artwork of beekeeping become a vital a part of medieval existence. Honey was once the primary product. Then again, any other product from bees won extra significance because the candle -made from beeswax, become a mainstay of medieval tradition. Beeswax was once the principle subject material for making candles utilized in spiritual ceremonies. It’s no surprise that monasteries become ardent beekeepers just because they wanted beeswax for candle making.

In fact, many monastic orders noticed the upkeep of bees and the accumulating in their honey with the intention to generate money along with the manufacturing of meals and candle wax. Monasteries are credited with pioneering trendy beekeeping practices in England, France, Germany, and maximum of Europe.

Beekeeping within the Center Ages

Through the Center Ages, beekeeping was once well-established all through the hotter Mediterranean area. In chillier spaces, beekeeping confronted vital difficulties. Then again, through Europe’s Center Ages, honey and beeswax had develop into necessary commodities for industry, and beekeeping in skep, log, field, and tree hives flourished to satisfy the call for.

As beekeeping become extra in style, “bee forests” evolved, most often owned through the aristocracy or the Church. Those “forests” would have between 100 to 500 tree cavities, and honeybees occupied as much as 20 of the ones cavities directly. As a result of there was once a large number of forage, the choice of cavities was once now not limited. In medieval Europe, bee forests had been the most important to the native economic system.

The beehives had been, on the other hand, unfold out all through the wooded area, making upkeep time-consuming. Prior to now, beekeepers would incessantly reduce down the nesting tree and transfer the nest to a extra handy location. A wooded apiary could be created with the log resting at the flooring or a stone slab. Those hives had been incessantly embellished with intricate artwork and carvings.

How huge had been Medieval Beekeeping Operations?

Maximum medieval beekeeping was once performed on a small scale, with a couple of hives as a part of a farm, however some skilled beekeepers had over 100 hives. Within the Center Ages, beekeeping evolved to be an economically, socially, and culturally vital apply in a lot of Europe. Christian spiritual custom in Europe drove consistent call for for beeswax, whilst honey was once the one extensively to be had sweetener ahead of large-scale sugar imports. Consequently, beekeeping become crucial a part of the agricultural economic system, attracting the participation of a variety of teams all through Europe, from peasants with a couple of hives for small-scale manufacturing, to specialised beekeepers generating for a thriving global industry.

Through the seventeenth century, many non-public voters had begun to control and harvest their beekeeping endeavors. Through this time, beekeeping wisdom had complicated to the level that it was once imaginable to develop into a certified beekeeper. Beekeeping become a identified occupation, and guilds had been shaped. Through this time, honey had develop into a staple in getting ready “candy treats” and cooking sauces.

Significance of Honey all through the Medieval Duration

Honey and beeswax had been each in prime call for within the fourteenth century. Honey was once the one meals sweetener till sufficient sugar cane may well be sourced from different puts (the New International). Then again, beeswax was once the extra treasured product. Because of the price connected to honey and beeswax, skep (the beehive again through then) robbery was once a continuing factor. They had been sufficiently small to be transportable, and several other of them had been generally stored in combination, therefore stealing was once simple.

Honey was once basically used as a meals flavoring. It was once used to taste ale and sweeten the porridge that many of us started their days with. This was once, certainly, the preferred use for honey. Steadily, honey was once blended with vinegar and used as a preservative for meals. Combs had been eaten as meals as effectively.

Honey has antiseptic homes and has historically been used to assist in wound therapeutic. This utility of honey is easily documented and remains to be related these days.

Makes use of of Wax in Medieval Occasions

Wax was once considerably extra treasured than honey. Each had been imported and harvested in England, however transporting honey over long distances wasn’t profitable as a result of buyers wanted to make more cash from it than they may from wax.

Candle-making was once the most obvious utility for wax. Beeswax produces odorless and natural gentle, which was once particularly necessary in monasteries and church buildings, and is the reason why monasteries had been main in beekeeping. The royalty additionally wanted candles in huge amounts and a few royal estates had been additionally at the vanguard of beekeeping to gather beeswax for his or her candle-making wishes. Then again, the monasteries and monarchical states may just most effective once in a while meet the call for for beeswax, as their efforts at beekeeping had been most effective every now and then a success. A large number of wax was once imported into England from the continent to satisfy the call for for wax candles through royalty, monasteries, and nobles.

Wax, like honey, has medicinal makes use of and was once utilized in treating a throat abscess, amongst different issues. Pilgrims left wax figures at shrines they visited as a gesture of thank you or as a mirrored image in their prayers. Wax may well be formed to constitute a saint or the cause of the pilgrimage.

The king, his nobles, and the spiritual leaders used wax for any other necessary function. The wax was once extensively utilized for the authentic sealing of paperwork, each secular and spiritual in nature. The wax was once blended with resin, melted, and connected to paperwork, and then the king, nobles, and spiritual individuals reminiscent of bishops inserted their seals to turn their settlement to no matter was once within the report.

Fees for Beekeeping in Medieval Occasions

As a lot of the Center Ages handled taxation and fee, it must be famous that assets homeowners had been rather conscious that folks’s bees had been sporting off nectar from their fields and gardens. Landowners steadily amassed a price for honey or beeswax if they may apply the bee’s house. Directors of counties and cities all through this era had been mandated to gather charges for beekeeping rights over wild acreage of their jurisdiction.

Apparatus used for Beehives all through the Medieval Duration

Just about each area had its personal taste of bee housing, which was once most often manufactured from pottery, wooden, or cork. Usually, on the other hand, Medieval beehives had been conical baskets referred to as skeps. The phrase derived from the Anglo-Saxon “Skeppa,” which accurately way basket. They may well be comprised of lengthy straws that have been coil-stitched with blackberry briar or from woven wicker bands with a daub or clay dust end.

The skeps had been upside-down conical baskets with small holes permitting bees to go into and go out. The skeps had hinged doorways or open backs that may be lined till the honey was once got rid of. Skeps had been generally stored sheltered since bees don’t like dangerous climate. As a way of preserving bees, skeps had been a long way from highest as they may now not be tested for wax or honey with out traumatic the bees.

Skeps had been steadily secure within the wintry weather through hackles or pointy-shaped straw tents. In the chillier north, skeps needed to be padded with layers of straw and bark to stay the bees alive over the wintry weather. They had been generally constructed on a layer of wicker, steadily within the form of a cone; clay and different fabrics insulated the outdoor.

1. Hole Logs

Bee swarms had been every now and then preserved in hole logs in additional far off places, reminiscent of East Germany and Poland. Hole logs had been historically carved into decorative bureaucracy through Polish beekeepers all through the center ages, incessantly within the type of girls dressed in huge skirts.

The primary hives in England had been built the usage of versatile wooden (like willow or hazel) that was once weaved round a circle of stakes that related on the best. They had been then lined in “cloom,” which is a concoction of rainy cow or ox dung and gravelly soil ashes. This combination set solidly, waterproofing the hive and sealing it, with just a few small holes for the bees to transport out and in.

2. Beehives

Beehives had been additionally made the usage of wicker, straw, and reed, twisted into ropes coiled in circles, and stitched with blackberry briars. Those coiled fabrics made the primary “skeps.”

Find out about stone homes referred to as “bee boles” had been additionally crafted for the honeybees in Britain, France, and Belgium. The boles had been steadily set in a lawn or orchard for the bees to pollinate the end result of the bushes.

The siting of beehives was once brief and may well be moved to keep away from unforgiving environmental adjustments. In Iberia, as an example, a chilly spring or an far more than fog fostered the switch of beehives. In Aragón, a area in Spain, it was once mentioned that one needed to shift hives a minimum of part a league (2.8 km.) for bees to not fly again to their unique placement). Periodic conflicts with plants or vineyards may just additionally stimulate the location of hives in numerous settings in a given zone, whilst long-range transhumance to triumph over wintry prerequisites was once additionally undertaken.

Apparatus Variance through Area

The apparatus required to generally tend to bees and extract honey and wax in a similar fashion various in keeping with area, reflecting variations in hives and apicultural apply. A number of specialised gear had been used to harvest beeswax and honey in Iberia, southern France, and Italy, together with a big spoon-shaped instrument that was once watered so honey may just simply slide into it. Getting rid of honey in this sort of approach may just function a provisional measure to permit new house for manufacturing, however chopping off combs required longer knives, as depicted within the Exultet rolls of southern Italy. 

Some hives required much more specialist apparatus: with regards to hives product of wood frames, the latter needed to be got rid of with what was once described as a tempanador in Spanish, a chisel. Nevertheless, resources are normally much less explicit at the apparatus, and consult with broader ‘utensils’ (utensilios) in Castile, or just to the ‘apparatus.’

Use of Smoke in Medieval Beekeeping

Beekeepers within the heart ages extensively utilized smoke and quite a lot of gear to facilitate the benefit of gaining access to the beehive. The use of smoke to ‘calm’ the bees makes them much less competitive and makes it more straightforward for a beekeeper to paintings across the hive with out getting stung. Torches had been first used to introduce smoke into hives. As time handed, beekeepers followed new ways. The smoke was once blown into the hive through an assistant the usage of open pots or incense burners.

Through the center ages, gear for smoking hives had been briefly evolved to direct the smoke into the hive higher. The so-called “smoker pots” incessantly had a number of handles, a feeding mechanism for the hearth, and holes alongside the edges the place the smoke would possibly break out. Within the spaces bordering the Mediterranean area, those pots had been steadily manufactured from clay. In some monasteries, smoldering barley or wheat shares later hemp) had been positioned within hives to “sedate” the bees as a way to take away combs in a position for harvesting.

Protecting Clothes for Medieval Beekeepers

Protecting clothes was once most commonly remarkable. Honey harvesters, particularly the priests tending monastery apiaries, wore heavy gowns that helped give protection to their our bodies. The improvement of protecting “basket mask” afforded coverage to the face and heads of the ones dealing with bees. Those units would evolve into the similar facial veils utilized by trendy beekeepers these days.

There have been pointers that the beekeeper had to adhere to as a way to keep away from scary the bees once they ventured out to harvest honey or blank the hive. Beekeepers tending the hives had been recommended to abstain from sexual members of the family a minimum of an afternoon ahead of getting to a hive. They had been additionally required by no means to way a hive when inebriated and most effective way the hive after a radical wash. Beekeepers had been to additionally abstain from all edibles with a robust taste, reminiscent of pickled fish and the entire liquids accompanying them, and likewise from the acrimonious stench of garlic and onions and all different equivalent issues.

Beekeepers had been additionally urged to take roasted fenugreek flour, blended with olive oil and wild mallow decoction till it has the consistency of honey, follow it generously to their face and any uncovered flesh, take it into their mouths, and blow into the beehive 3 or 4 instances.

Harvesting Honey in Medieval Beekeeping

Honey harvesting was once extra of an artwork, and explicit steps had been adopted, with each and every area having its personal really helpful movements. Honey harvesting was once kind of a rite with very elaborate steps to be adopted. It was once believed that failure to apply the stairs defined in each area’s folklore would imply the bees would fly away and now not go back. A number of medieval beekeeping writings recommended that honey be harvested thrice a 12 months: at the beginning of Would possibly, on the other hand within the summer season, and in any case in autumn, round October, simply ahead of the onset of wintry weather.

It was once advised that the harvester must now not remove the entire honey, in a different way, the bees would develop into offended and forestall operating. A minimum of a 10th of the produce of the honey all through the primary two harvests could be left for the bees, whilst all through the 3rd harvest coinciding with the beginning of wintry weather, two-thirds could be left for the bees to allow them to continue to exist the wintry weather. 

As may well be anticipated, the output of honey according to hive depended at the dimension of the colony and the provision of foliage. Then again, manufacturing was once related to these days’s output, if now not extra, as a result of the provision of foliage all through the ones instances. The high quality of honey was once no doubt of awesome high quality as there have been no chemical sprays on foliage, not like these days, the place bees feed on foliage on which chemical compounds have steadily been sprayed.

High quality specs for honey had been additionally described in lots of texts. In step with many texts on honey processing, excellent high quality honey must be translucent and light yellow in colour, be clean to touch, stay in a protracted string when pulled, readily raised to some extent and sluggish to sink again and thick when it reluctantly separates, and it must have a excellent aroma.

Medieval Handle Bees

Through the Center Ages, beekeeping was once a crude affair when in comparison to trendy instances. The science of beekeeping was once present process speedy construction, with priests particularly cataloging the actions and behaviors of bees as they seen them. You will need to be aware that many of the practices that trendy beekeepers use these days originated all through this era. The strategies of taking good care of bees additionally depended at the area, with practices differing between the chillier Northern Europe and the hotter southern Europe.

Conserving bees over the wintry weather was once now not an issue within the Mediterranean, the place it was once hotter. Then again, it was once a major bother in northern Europe, particularly all through the wintry weather. Many bee colonies didn’t continue to exist the tough winters as little meals was once supplied.

Honey was once the bees’ wintry weather meals, however the beekeeper deliberate to reap it. One answer was once to wintry weather over just a make a choice few hives. Beekeepers amassed wild swarms within the early summer season, and through September, they selected which hives appeared maximum viable. Those fortunate bees stored complete honeycombs and had their skeps wrapped for wintry weather; they may continue to exist the chilly any place south of the Arctic Circle. However many of the bee swarms had been killed off with thick smoke. Through this system, the medieval beekeeper smartly have shyed away from the issue of having stung whilst disposing of honey, for the reason that bees had been already lifeless when the wax was once sliced off and honey poured out.

Nations with the Maximum Medieval Beekeeping

Maximum beekeeping strategies had been evolved in Russia, Poland, Germany, and the Baltic area, anywhere the local weather was once heat. Beehives had been secure in wintry weather through disposing of them to enclosures and preserving them heat. The bugs produced little or no, so most harvesting went from spring to early Fall in lots of Nations.

Within the Center Ages, priests at monasteries and abbeys, caring for the bees, steadily stored data and drew illuminated photos of bees within the copied spiritual works. Most of the trendy strategies of taking good care of bees have their beginning within the practices evolved through priests.

Bees had been additionally fed when the foliage was once quick, specifically all through harsh climate. As meals for younger bees, wine blended with honey and leaves of many-flowered savory (to stop bees from drowning) was once ready and made to be had to the bees. To feed colonies all through excessive chilly or scorching climate, raisins and many-flowered savory had been finely grounded in combination and in conjunction with barley desserts and given to the bees.

Beehive Hygiene and Cleansing in Medieval Beekeeping

When the primary ten days of spring handed, bees had been pushed out to their pastures with the smoke of dried cow dung; then, the hives had been swept and in a different way wiped clean to eliminate cobwebs and different grit. It was once particularly necessary to take away cobwebs as they’re a disadvantage to motion throughout the hive. If there have been many combs within the hives, unhealthy-looking ones had been got rid of to do away with overcrowding.

In lots of puts, specifically in northern Europe’s chillier areas, beekeepers broke open their skeps within the spring after killing the bees previously, generally with sulfur smoke. Within the apiaries run through monasteries, the priests then fervently prayed for brand spanking new skeps to be repopulated through new colonies. There wouldn’t be an opportunity for a brand new colony to shape ahead of wintry weather if the honey and wax had been extracted any later within the 12 months. The bees would die if they didn’t have an opportunity to make wintry weather feed.

Conclusion

Lately, due to the practices evolved in earlier period and thorough to the Center Ages, the honey or beekeeping business is flourishing. Beekeeping in medieval instances differed from the fashionable beekeeping we’re used to. A very powerful product from hives was once on the other hand now not honey however beeswax that was once used within the candle-making business. Then again, honey was once additionally extensively used as a meals sweetener and as a preservative in addition to a drugs for abscesses, wounds, and different diseases. It’s noteworthy that many of the trendy beekeeping practices these days emanated from this era, specifically from the works of priests from monasteries that practiced medieval beekeeping as a big job.

References

1. Anna Markland. (2021, October 18). Medieval beekeeping. Anna Markland. Retrieved December 13, 2022, from https://www.annamarkland.com/publish/medieval-beekeeeping
2. Beekeeping. Stronghold Country. (n.d.). Retrieved December 13, 2022, from https://www.stronghold-nation.com/historical past/ref/beekeeping
3. Dr. Fani Hatjina. (n.d.). Beekeeping within the Mediterranean from antiquity to the current. Retrieved December 13, 2022, from https://www.evacranetrust.org/web page/beekeeping-in-the-mediterranean-from-antiquity-to-the-present
4. Medieval beekeeping. Inexperienced Guy Honey & Avalon Candles. (2019, August 30). Retrieved December 13, 2022, from https://www.greenmanhoney.co.united kingdom/medieval-beekeeping
5. Thomas Wildman, A Treatise at the Control of Bees (London, 1768, second version 1770).