Bee-Keeping For Beginners And Others

By E. L. B. James

This antique text contains a detailed guide to bee-keeping, and will appeal to the more advanced beekeeper as well as to the novice. This book is divided into three parts: the first guides the novice from the time when he first decides to take up the craft until the end of his first season; the second deals in detail with the year's work in the apiary, showing how the various problems that confront the bee-keeper in the second and subsequent years should be met; whilst the third, in addition to dealing with diseases and other miscellaneous subjects, contains the formulae and other useful information which more advanced bee-keepers will find of interest. The chapters of this book include: 'The Honey-Bee', 'Natural History', 'The Inhabitants of the Hive', 'The Queen', 'The Workers', 'The Drones', 'Parthenogenesis', 'Metamorphosis', 'Bees and Honey', 'Hives', 'Bee-Keeping in Antiquity', 'The Bee Space', 'British Types', 'The National Hive', 'American Hives', 'Frame Sizes', 'Races of Bees', etcetera. This antique text is being republished here with a new introduction on bee keeping.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ramsay Press
• Release date: Dec 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781528763462

Book preview

CHAPTER I

THE HONEY-BEE

Natural History. The Inhabitants of the Hive. The Queen. The Workers. The Drones. Parthenogenesis. Metamorphoses. Bees and Honey.

Natural History

IT is surprising how many people are unable to recognise the honey-bee, and imagine that bumble bees seen in their gardens are the producers of the honey that graces their table, also the hard working honey-bee, because of its not dissimilar size, is frequently mistaken by the uninformed for a wasp and, unfortunately, despatched as if it was one of these pests. Therefore, it will not be inappropriate to begin this treatise with a description of the position in the animal kingdom occupied by the honey-bee.

Although there are many different types of bees of the Bombus or Bumble bee variety in the British Isles, it is only with the honey-bee, Apis mellifica, that we are concerned. All bees belong to the Arthropoda division of the animal kingdom, which includes such diverse creatures as lobsters, crabs, scorpions, wasps, and insects. This division can be recognised’by the fact that its members have no internal skeleton, their flesh, muscles, and internal mechanisms being enclosed in a hard covering or shell of a substance called chitin.

Arthropoda is again divided into a section known as Insecta, and the honey bee falls into a further division called Hymenoptera, i.e., a division of Insecta whose members have two pairs of wings.

The honey-bee has three main parts to its body, the head which carries a pair of antennae or feelers, the eyes, tongue and mouth parts and a pair of mandibles; the thorax carrying the wings, three pairs of legs, and the thoracic spiracles, the external openings of the breathing tubes or lungs, of which we shall hear much more later; and the abdomen which is made up of six tapering telescopic segments, which carry the abdominal spiracles and, in the queen and workers, the sting, and in the former’s case, the generative organs.

The Inhabitants of the Hive

In a colony of honey bees there are present three types of bee, the queen, some 50,000—75,000 workers, and during the summer months, 200—300 drones. The queen is the only perfectly developed female, and her sole function is to produce eggs, of which she may lay from 2,000—3,000 per day, if of a prolific strain, during the height of the season. She is the mother of the entire colony, and is therefore its most important member. The queen, after fertilisation by a drone, can lay two types of eggs, those which will eventuate into workers, and the others into drones. In certain circumstances, when necessary, the workers can rear a queen from an egg that would normally produce a worker bee, by giving the resultant larva special food in distinctive environment. Both the queen and the workers possess a sting, the former only using it against a rival queen, whilst the worker uses hers in defence of the hive.

The workers are sometimes incorrectly described as neuters; they are, in fact, undeveloped females, possessing rudimentary ovaries. In certain circumstances, some do lay eggs, but workers, being incapable of impregnation, normally only produce drones, but on certain rare occasions may produce a female parthenogenetically. Worker bees carry out all the duties of the hive, according to their age, acting as house cleaners, nurses to the young brood, water, pollen, and nectar gatherers, wax secreters and comb builders, ventilators of the hive, and the sentries and warriors who protect the home.

The workers are equipped for all the tasks they have to perform, having a honey sac in which to carry nectar or water, a tongue with which to gather liquids, combs for gathering pollen, and corbiculae or baskets on the rear pair of legs in which to carry it after it has been compressed into pellets. Wax pockets are situated between the ventral segments of the abdomen, and tools are carried on the legs with which to handle the wax scales prior to moulding them with the mandibles into the hexagonal cells which make up the honey combs that serve as nurseries for the brood, and storage space for nectar and pollen.

The drones are the male bees, and are produced in spring and summer, for the sole purpose of ensuring that any virgin queens that may be raised will be fertilised. They are incapable of doing any work, and at the end of the summer, when no longer needed, are turned out of the hive to die.

Parthenogenesis

The bee goes through the usual three stages common to insects prior to attaining the fourth stage, that of imago or perfect insect, the three stages being those of egg, larva or grub and pupa or nymph.

It has been shown that the queen can lay two types of egg, one which will produce a worker, and another that will eventuate into a drone. This is due to the fact that when a queen mates, the semen from the male does not fertilise the eggs in her ovaries, but enters a little sac at the base of her abdomen, situated just below the point where the ducts from the two ovaries join to form the passage to the vagina. Thereafter, if the queen lays an egg that is to produce a drone, the egg passes out through the oviduct without coming in contact with the spermatheca, whereas, if the egg is to produce a worker, a valve is opened on the spermatheca, and as the egg passes, so it receives some spermatozoa that have been stored in the spermatheca ever since the queen mated.

PLATE I ITALIAN BEES

FIG. 1

THE QUEEN

FIG. 2

THE WORKER

FIG. 3

THE DRONE

Thus, the worker is the product of an egg that has been fertilised by some of the male element which enters the egg through the micropyle at its top end, and the drone is the product of an egg which contains none of the male element. The drone is therefore produced parthenogenetically, and is fatherless, though he himself may become the father of countless thousands of workers.

When once a queen has been fertilised, she remains fertile for the rest of her useful life, which may be three years. Queens have been known to live for five years, but usually after the second year her fertility decreases, due to the supply of spermatozoa in her spermatheca becoming exhausted.

It was thought until recently that a queen mated but once in her lifetime, but recent observations tend to disprove this theory, and she may, in fact, leave the hive more than once on a wedding flight. Whilst the drone has no father, he has a maternal grandfather, and he therefore stands in relationship to workers and queens bred from the same mother as an uncle and not as a brother. It is important to remember this when breeding bees.

It will be seen that the relationship between the males and females of the honey-bee reduces the risk of too close inbreeding. This may well be nature’s way of maintaining stamina which might be adversely affected if brother mated to sister over many generations. Due to the Parthenogenetic birth of the drone, amongst bees there is no such relationship.

Metamorphosis

The times taken from the laying of the egg, to the emergence of the imago, are as follows, shown in days:

Sometimes the queen may emerge on the fifteenth or as late as the seventeenth day, depending upon conditions of temperature.

Bees and Honey

We are all very apt to regard bees as being with us only to produce that delicious and health-giving sweet, honey, for our enjoyment. This is not the case, in Nature’s scheme of things the honey-bee’s prime function is to ensure the perpetuation of fruits, certain crops and flowers : that she produces surplus honey in the process for the bee-keeper, is purely coincidental.

In order that fruits, etc., can reproduce their kind, it is necessary that the male fertilising pollen dust be transferred to the female element of the flower or blossom so that seeds may be formed. In the case of some species, the pollen is borne by the wind, but fruits, the leguminae and other important crops rely on the pollination being carried out by insects, the principal agent being the honey-bee. In order to attract the bee to fulfil this function, the flowers produce a sweet, watery substance known as nectar. This, when processed by the bee, becomes honey which is its staple diet, and in visiting the flowers for its collection, the hairs which cover the bee’s body collect the pollen from the male organs of the blossom and, as she brushes against the female, element in other blossoms whilst in search of nectar, so the fertilising dust is transferred, and the bee fulfils its main function. After being collected by the foragers this raw nectar is stored in the honey combs where it is ripened and eventually sealed over with a wax capping. Nectar or, when it is ripened, honey, forms with pollen and water the three items of food required by bees to keep themselves throughout the year and to feed the young larvae during the months when brood is being raised.

The season when nectar is available for collection varies in different parts of the country, according to whether spring is early or late and the types of flowers and blossoms that are grown locally. Roughly, however, it may be said that the first nectar available in any quantity is from the fruit blossoms in late April and that, with the exception of heather districts, the nectar flow ends in late July. It will be seen, therefore, that in addition to collecting nectar for their daily needs from April to July, sufficient must be stored to last through the autumn and winter months until such a time as nectar shall again be available in the following spring.

In a normal season during the months of May—July, the amount of nectar gathered usually exceeds the daily consumption, consequently this accumulation is stored for use at some later date. Due to the great energy and acquisitive instinct of the bee, a colony does not cease storing as soon as sufficient honey has been stored to last from autumn until spring, it goes on gathering and storing just so long as there is any nectar available.

It is this strong acquisitive instinct that enables man to enjoy the delights of honey without any detriment to the bees, as under modern systems of management and with modern equipment, bees are able to store large amounts of honey in excess of their annual requirements. It is this amount, over and above the needs of the bees themselves, which is known as surplus, and is removed by the bee-keeper from the hive for his own use, the amount of surplus depending upon the locality, the weather, the strain of bee and, last but not least, the skill of the bee-keeper.

By and large, the average surplus per colony throughout the country may be taken at 50 lbs., though in some seasons in favourable districts, over 100 lbs. per colony is not unusual. This surplus is reckoned after allowance is made, in the autumn, for the amount necessary to last the colony through the autumn and winter until the following spring, i.e., 40 lbs. of honey at least.

It is only by understanding the natural laws which govern the life of the bee colony that the bee-keeper is able to secure a bigger surplus, upon the obtaining of which depends the size of his profits. Bees cannot be driven in a direction which is opposed to that in which the laws that rule their existence compel them to go, but with a knowledge of these laws the bee-keeper is able to guide his bees along the paths which he wishes them to follow to the advantage of both—surplus honey for the bee-keeper, security, health and prosperity for the bees.

In order to see how this desirable achievement can be attained, it is necessary to examine the life of a bee colony when living in its natural state, operating under natural laws, without the interference of man.

CHAPTER II

A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF A BEE COLONY

Autumn. Winter. Spring. Summer. Swarming. The Swarm. The New Home. The Old Colony. Casts. Rehabilitation. Swarming and Honey Production

IN their natural state, honey-bees may be found living in such places as hollow trees, church towers, the space between the outer and inner walls of a house or shed; anywhere in fact where shelter from wind and rain can be obtained. That man has, from times of antiquity, induced them to live in beehives, does not mean that bees have been domesticated in the sense that man has domesticated cattle, dogs and other homely animals. The bee’s instincts, behaviour and modus vivendi are the same whether they are wild or domesticated but by keeping bees in modern hives their activities can be controlled. This enables the bee-keeper to anticipate his bees’ requirements and thus to keep them in the condition whereby the surplus produced will be far greater in relation to the amount of honey required for their own consumption than would be the case if they were left to their own devices.

Let us consider a colony for example, living in a hollow tree trunk, and see how it would fare in its natural habitat if not interfered with by man during the period of a twelvemonth.

Autumn

This colony in August after the main nectar flow is over, would probably consist of some 50,000 worker bees, the queen, and perhaps a couple of hundred drones. They might be occupying eight or ten waxen combs hanging some twelve to twenty inches in length, down the hollow of the tree trunk, spaced approximately 1 1/2 ins. from centre to centre being attached along their tops and sides to the inside of the tree trunk.

The combs contain two types of cells, each of which is hexagonal, built out from both sides of a midrib, each cell having a slight upward tilt from the horizontal. The two types of cells consist of those in which worker brood is reared and in which pollen and honey is stored, measuring five to the inch; the other type, of which there are only about four or five hundred in a colony, are larger, and measure approximately four to the inch. These are used for rearing drone bees, but sometimes may also be used for storage if the colony is pressed for space.

The main nectar flow being over, and winter approaching, the bees now begin the autumnal slaughter of the drones. They are herded together away from the open honey cells, and food is withheld from them by the workers, so that in their weakened state they are easily dragged forth and cast incontinently from the entrance. Being prevented from re-entering, they soon perish from hunger and cold in the chilly autumn night. What a change is this from the heyday of the summer, when all was bright, and plenty of food was always available for these clumsy, blustering jolly fellows. Then, when they were welcomed in the hive, in order to ensure the matings of any virgin queens that might be raised, nothing was too good for them, but now, their usefulness over, they are of no account, they are only consumers, and as such are begrudged their keep during the long winter days, so they must go, and go they do.

PLATE II

SECTION THROUGH COMB

A = Sealed Honey.

B = Pollen.

C = Egg, 1st day.

D = Egg, 2nd day.

E = Egg, 3rd day.

F = Young Larva.

G = Mature Larva.

H = Larva Spinning.

I = Worker Pupa.

J = Drone Pupa.

PLATE III

Aa=Cell Base on front of Septum.

A=Cell Walls on front of Septum.

1-6 Cells in Contact, A.

7-9 Bases on back of Comb, in contact with Aa.

Throughout August and early September all the cracks and crannies in the trunk around the combs are gummed up with propolis, a glue collected from the buds and trunks of trees, so that the home may be draught and rain proof. The queen has been gradually reducing the quantity of eggs she lays per day, until by late October she probably ceases altogether, and the bees form their winter clusters in a torpid, almost motionless condition. They cannot be said to hibernate, for movement of the cluster goes on as the bees move from one part of the combs where food has been consumed, to a fresh portion where further sealed stores are available for use.

Winter

It is this gradual consumption of stores that keeps the cluster warm—warmth being necessary, though bees are cold-blooded. In this condition, maintaining an average temperature of about 43 deg. F., the bees can survive the hardest winter, providing they have adequate stores and are dry.

As the cold weather comes along, fewer and fewer bees will be seen to fly, though pollen is gathered as late in the year as early November in some mild seasons. During the cold weather, no bees will be seen to enter or leave the nest, but when, as sometimes is the case, a warm sunny day occurs in late December or early January, some bees will be seen taking a cleansing flight; unless they are suffering from dysentry they never defcecate in the hive.

As the days lengthen in late January or early February, the queen, under the stimulus of special food provided by the workers, begins to lay a few eggs in the centre of the cluster, and this continues, the patch of brood gradually increasing as the days get longer. Normally the life of a worker bee in the height of the summer when there is much work to be done, lasts only some six weeks when she dies, literally worked to death; but those born in late summer and in autumn live through the winter to carry on the work of the colony in the early spring. A bee may therefore be said to be as old as its glands, and those born late in the year, living through the winter months with no foraging to do and little or no brood to rear, start the beginning of the spring with their glands still youthful, and so are able to carry on the work of the hive until their place is taken by bees resulting from those eggs laid in the early months of the year.

Spring

With the warmer weather which comes at the end of March or early April, brood rearing quickens its pace. Nectar is available in profusion in some districts from such sources as fruit blossom, dandelions, and other early flowers; and pollen is collected with eagerness from crocus, hyacinths and the pussy willow catkins; whilst yet another valuable commodity is eagerly sought, water, to thin down the thick honey from the previous season with which, with the addition of pollen, the food for the larvae is prepared by the nurse bees.

With the advent of May the births will be exceeding the deaths many times over, and the hive becomes overcrowded, hot and uncomfortable. The income of nectar and pollen also exceeds the consumption, and the combs are rapidly filling up, so that soon the queen, reaching the peak of her egg laying, finds herself cramped for room in which to deposit her eggs, as the stores have begun to encroach on the space normally available to her for ovipositing.

If there is any space available in the bee tree in which additional combs can be constructed, clusters of workers will festoon themselves in these spaces or, if there is space in which to extend the existing combs downwards, they will cluster in strings from the bottoms of these combs and will remain quite quiet whilst small scales of wax are produced by the wax glands. When ready the scales protrude from the pockets with which the bee is equipped between the ventral segments of the abdomen. These scales are then removed and passed up the festoon of bees to those at the top who, with their mandibles, fashion the wax into new honey comb, thus increasing the comb capacity of their home for ovipositing and storage.

Summer

If we now examine the entrance to the colony, we shall see the busy whirl of foragers coming and going. Some return with their loads of nectar, and others with their burdens of pollen in variegated colours, moulded into pellets, one in the corbicula or pollen basket, on each hind leg. Others appear to be loitering around the entrance; these are the sentinels who examine each entrant, and chase away any intruder who may seek to gain access. Yet another task is performed at the entrance; some bees, varying in number from two or three to perhaps twenty or more, according to the conditions prevailing, are the fanners or ventilating bees. These remain stationary at the entrance, fanning their wings, so as to exhaust the hot, humid laden air from the hive in one direction, and to fan in a cool stream of fresh air from the outside. Yes, there is little that the honey-bee does not know about air conditioning.

During May drones will be on the wing and, with the size of the population of the colony rapidly increasing and combs becoming filled with pollen and honey, the colony soon finds itself overcrowded and the queen restricted in her egg laying unless the brood nest can be further expanded by the building of additional combs. Even where there is sufficient room to expand in this way, the extra space is probably insufficient and owing to overcrowding, conditions become unbearable, the temperature inside continuing to rise in spite of all the efforts of the fanners at the entrance, whose numbers will have been augmented as the temperature has risen.

Though these conditions of lack of comb space, overcrowding and high internal temperature are not the sole causes of swarming, they are certainly contributory factors, and if these conditions cannot be relieved, preparations will be made to swarm.

Swarming

However prolific a queen might have been, in some cases starvation in bad seasons, in others disease or the depredations of both man and animal, might cause the race to dwindle and eventually die out, were there not some way by which the entity, i.e. the complete colony, moved by what is called the Hive Mind, or its governing force, could increase by division. Swarming, therefore, is nature’s way of increasing and multiplying the number of colonies.

PLATE IV

QUEEN CELLS

A=Supersedure

B=Swarm

When the time comes for the colony to increase in this way, queen cells are started varying in number according to race of bee, from half a dozen up to perhaps thirty or more. Small cups of wax similar to and about the same size as an acorn cup are built on the face of the combs, usually near the bottom. In each of these the queen lays an egg, and as the resultant larva grows, so the cell is extended until it hangs from the comb looking very much like, and about the same size as an acorn. (Plate III, Fig. 1, and Plate IX.) In three days the egg hatches, and the larva is fed continuously on a special food, evolved by the nurse bees, which is known as Royal Jelly. This special food, together with the specially constructed large cell in which the larva is reared, produces a queen instead of the worker bee that would have resulted under the conditions of normal feeding and environment. At the end of five days feeding stops, the larva is fully grown and it begins to spin around itself its silken cocoon, when the workers seal up the cell. After remaining in her pupal state for seven or eight days, the young virgin queen is ready to emerge.

PLATE V

A SWARM

Photo. by M. L. James.

Swarms do not always select a convenient place like that depicted on which to settle, sometimes choosing a branch of a high tree that is difficult to reach. Swarming bees do not often show any desire to sting. Having filled themselves with honey before leaving the hive they are usually in good temper.

These queen cells are started prior to swarming in order that the colony, when the swarm has left, shall be provided with a successor to the old queen who leaves with the swarm, so that the old colony will in due course become a complete entity again.

The Swarm

Swarms usually leave at the time the first queen cell is sealed over, but several days before this comes about the workers withhold the special stimulating food from the queen and her egg production is restricted. This is done so that the queen’s weight is lightened and she is thereby enabled to fly with the swarm, for it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a queen in full lay, heavy with eggs, to take off and become airborne when the swarm issues.

As the first queen cell is sealed, and about the middle of a warm day, roughly half the population gorge themselves with honey, so as to have adequate stores with them with which to begin housekeeping in their new home. All being ready they, with the reigning queen, pour from the tree and, in complete abandon, circle round it. After flying around like this for some few minutes they can be seen gradually concentrating in one direction, probably over some bush or the branch of a tree. Soon some of the bees will settle on the selected clustering place and eventually, the numbers increasing, the cluster grows bigger until it assumes a long triangular shape, hanging down from the point at which the swarm settled.

When all the flying bees have clustered, the swarm remains for a period which may vary from a few minutes to several hours, before flying off to a hollow tree or some other suitable habitation found by scouts that have been sent out, either before the swarm issued or whilst it was clustered.

The New Home

On arrival at its new home the wax builders set about building combs; the foragers immediately begin collecting pollen and nectar; the queen is stimulated to lay and as soon as the comb building commences she begins to fill the cells with eggs. The honey brought with the swarm is sufficient for their immediate needs, and when in three days time the eggs begin to hatch into hungry larvae requiring constant feeding, there will then be some fresh nectar brought in by the foraging bees and stored in the combs.

The swarm will thus become established as a new colony, and in a normal season builds up to store sufficient honey to carry it over the winter until the following spring, when nectar is again available in the fields.

The Old Colony

In the meantime, what of the parent colony? It will have lost its queen, and about half the workers. It will, however, have retained all its brood, its drones and its stores. It will have, in addition, several queen cells occupied by’embryo queens in various stages of development, the most mature one due to emerge on or about the seventh or eighth day after the swarm issued.

Casts

There are two courses now open to the workers. Firstly, if the colony has not been sufficiently depleted in numbers by the issue of the swarm, another smaller one may be allowed to leave, in this case headed by the first virgin queen to emerge, or secondly, they may decide that no more swarms, or casts, (as swarms subsequent to the first or prime swarm are termed) are desirable.

In the first case, the first virgin to emerge will endeavour to destroy those still in their cells, for no queen normally tolerates a rival, whether virgin or mated, in the hive. But the workers prevent this destruction and also prevent the mature virgins in their cells from emerging by plastering wax at the ends of the cells as fast as their occupants attempt to gnaw their way out.

The emerged virgin then leaves the hive with a cast, a new home is found as in the case of the prime swarm, and in due course the virgin flies to mate with a drone, and then settles down to her maternal duties.

In the second case, if the swarmed colony decides that no casting is necessary, the first virgin to emerge is allowed to reach the queen cells when, assisted by workers, she tears down that portion at the side of each cell where the occupant is not protected by the hard skin of the cocoon, and stings its defenceless inmate to death. After accomplishing these executions the virgin queen remains in the hive for a few days, feeding on both honey and pollen, building up her strength until on a warm, sunny, windless day, she will fly forth to mate, after which she returns to take up the task abandoned by the old queen when she left with the prime swarm some fourteen days previously.

Rehabilitation

The object of the Hive Mind when preparations for swarming were made, will now have been achieved. The colony will have fulfilled the natural function of procreation, the population of the hive will have been reduced to comfortable proportions, and by the time the new queen starts to lay, there will be adequate room in the combs for ovipositing, for no eggs will have been laid for a fortnight and many of the cells will have been vacated by emerging brood. With a fortnight’s cessation of egg laying, and the consequent reduction in the consumption of stores used for brood rearing, supplies should be adequate to enable the colony to cope with the increased egg production of the young queen.

The colony which was in an unbalanced state during the period it was queenless, encouraged now by the presence of a young, vigorous queen, begins work again in earnest bending all its energies towards building up its population depleted by the departure of the swarm and the consequent cessation of egg production. It is, therefore, in condition to take advantage of the main nectar flow in July and, providing the weather is propitious, stores more than enough to see it safely through the period of dearth and rest until the following spring.

Should the colony have been short of stores when the swarm issued and, if the weather is unpropitious for foraging or nectar secretion in June, July and August then, unless in a heather district when the situation may be saved at the last moment, there will be a grave risk that the colony may not survive the winter. It is to guard against this contingency that Nature has endowed Apis Mellifica with the swarming instinct: without it the genus might die out; it could not, in any case, multiply.

Swarming and Honey Production

It will be apparent to the reader that when keeping bees for honey production swarming, whilst not always detrimental, can cause considerable loss if the bee-keeper is not at hand to capture the swarm when it issues, furthermore a colony which does not swarm, normally produces more surplus honey than does a swarmed colony together with its swarm, when worked as separate entities, unless the swarm should issue early in the season, say, before the middle of June.

Swarming, if it is not controlled, is therefore one of the biggest problems that faces the bee-keeper. Under the chapter headed Swarming it will be shown how swarming, if it cannot be entirely eliminated, can be controlled to within reasonable proportions, and how swarms that issue early in the season can be used to increase the number of colonies in the apiary, with little loss in the surplus honey that could have been expected had the colony not swarmed.

CHAPTER III

HIVES, HISTORICAL

Bee-keeping in Antiquity. The Bee Space

Bee-keeping in Antiquity

BEFORE the beginner procures his bees he will require a hive in which to house them, and here he at once comes up against a problem. Having secured some appliance manufacturer’s catalogue, he will see advertised many different types of hives, and if he asks the opinion of any two bee-keepers each of them is quite likely to give entirely different advice regarding which type to select. Before coming to a decision it may therefore be as well to see how the modern type of hive was evolved.

Bees have been kept for the honey they produced since time immemorial; they are mentioned in the Bible, and by Virgil in his Georgics. In those days they were kept, as they still are in primitive countries, in clay pipes some three feet long and six to nine inches in diameter, plugged at one end to form a weather proof container.

In the British Isles, up to some ninety years ago, bees were kept in straw skeps, which are still used by some village bee-keepers in remote parts of the country. The skep provided a warm comfortable home but, as in clay pipes, the combs being fixed, it was necessary to kill the bees in order to remove the honey; they were too small and encouraged swarming, and the honey obtained from them was of poor quality as regards cleanliness and purity.

The skeppist at the end of the season took up his heaviest skeps and placed them over a