WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: Beekeeping 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:06.239 Happy Saturday. Since we got a little bit about beekeeping 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:10.320 in this week's installment of Unearthed, we're revisiting our episode 0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:14.480 on the history of beekeeping today. This episode traces the 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:17.759 history of beekeeping up through the development of the Langstroth 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:20.480 hive in the nineteenth century. But to be clear, the 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:23.319 beekeeping and bee hunting methods that we talk about in 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:26.400 the earlier parts of the episode are still practiced today 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:29.840 all around the world. This episode originally came out on 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:36.480 May eleventh, twenty twenty. Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:46.960 in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.880 to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:54.920 I'm fond of bees, me too. Yeah, I don't know 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:57.800 if I've mentioned that on the show before. I don't know. 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:00.880 I spent way too much time, Yes, Dad ushering a 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:02.960 bee out of my garage so I could close the door. 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:08.360 So this is especially timely. Yeah, you know, continuing the 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:11.200 theme of wanting to do some episodes that feel like 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:16.600 they are not catastrophically upsetting because of the state of 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:21.399 the world. I really like bees and beekeeping as you 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:24.360 might think of it today. With square hives and the 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:26.600 beekeeper in the white suit with a big veiled hat. 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:32.080 I mean, that's a relatively recent invention, but beekeeping has 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:35.280 a practice has existed for thousands of years. Basically all 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:39.800 over the world. Every continent except Antarctica has native bee 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:42.880 species that store at least some honey in their nests, 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:46.679 and almost without exception, people who have lived near these 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:49.880 bees have developed methods to keep them and manage them, 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:52.480 either in their nests out in the wild, or in 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:55.240 hives that are made for that purpose. So this is 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:58.720 really a global story. It's one that has lots of 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:02.160 pieces that overlap and lots of different methods being practiced 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:05.040 at the same time. So, for example, if you're listening 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:07.800 to the episode and we're talking about methods of tracking 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:10.560 wild bees that are about two thousand years old, and 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:14.360 you're thinking, but wait, weren't people keeping bees in hives 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:18.160 by that point. We will get to that part two. Also, 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:19.960 we're using the past tense for a lot of this 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.000 episode because we're talking about techniques and practices that started 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:25.200 way in the past. But in a lot of cases, 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:29.240 these same things, including hunting bees and keeping bees out 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:31.360 in the wild, like they're all, they're still practice today. 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:34.440 They did not go away. So most of humanity's beekeeping 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:38.160 efforts have involved social bees that store honey in their nests. 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:41.440 Today that tends to be one of various subspecies of 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:45.640 the western or European honeybee or APIs melifera, but there 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:47.920 are lots of other bees that also store honey, and 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.800 they are part of beekeeping history too. The giant honeybee 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:55.480 or APIs dorsata, is native to southern and Southeast Asia. 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:58.959 Most tropical regions of the world have their own native 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:03.520 species of stingless bees. That name is something of a misnomer. 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:07.359 Most stingless bees do have stingers, but those stingers are 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:10.959 smaller and they don't usually have structures for injecting venom. 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:15.680 Other bees, including bumble bees, also store some honey, but 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:19.360 in much smaller amounts, and there are also honey storing 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:23.400 insects besides bees, including some species of wasps and ants. 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:27.480 People have harvested and used the honey and other resources 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:30.800 that all of these insects produce and store in their nests, 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:33.480 and in some cases they've kept these insects in one 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:36.160 way or another, But for the most part, today we 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:40.440 are focusing on honeybees, giant honey bees, and stingless bees, 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:43.960 which have historically made up just the vast majority of 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:47.640 bee keeping efforts around the world. I'm thinking of the 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:51.400 eddyizard line. If bees make honey, do earwigs make chutney? 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.120 Bees have been on earth for longer than humans have. 0:03:56.520 --> 0:04:00.240 Fossil evidence shows that flowering plants existed at least least 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:04.560 one hundred million years ago during their Cretaceous period, so 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:07.640 did insects that fed from the pollen and nectar found 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:12.080 in those flowers. The oldest fossilized bee honey is about 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:16.719 fifty million years old. Of course, there is no written 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:19.760 record of this, but based on the behavior of other primates, 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:23.800 it is incredibly likely that our earliest ancestors found and 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:26.720 raided these nests as soon as they realized that they 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:30.400 were there. So yeah, it's it's not a far logical 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:34.200 leap that basically as soon as hominids were like there 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:38.000 is something sweet and delicious over there, that they would 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:39.800 have figured out how a way to get at it, 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:43.520 and then the brood, like the immature bees that are 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:46.360 in the honeycomb, like they're a source of protein. There's 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:47.960 a lot of stuff you can get out of nests 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:52.360 that people were clearly getting way back before recorded history. 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:58.400 Our first documentation of humans interaction with bees goes back 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.240 to rock and cave art from the Mesolithic period, and 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:05.400 that period started about twenty thousand years ago. This artwork 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:09.400 exists in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia, and it shows 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:13.119 people in a variety of situations. The exact details vary 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:15.919 based on what kind of bees lived in a particular 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:19.279 area and what people did to hunt them and harvest 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:23.440 their nests. For example, in places where bees nest in cavities, 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:27.080 figures are shown on ladders next to holes surrounded by 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:30.600 flying insects, while others in the scene are holding things 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:33.800 like buckets or what may be smokers to pacify or 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:37.720 drive away those insects. In places where giant honey bees 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.640 nest out in the open, people are climbing ladders or 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:44.679 scaling cliffs to get to the exposed combs. There's also 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:47.919 a painting at the Chatakuk Archaeological site in what is 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:51.040 now Turkey that dates back to about sixty six hundred 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:55.799 BCE which appears to show honeycombs with immature bees inside 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:59.520 the cells that suggests that the people who made the 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:02.680 art have a lot of first hand familiarity with bees 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:06.719 and their nests. There's also some Mesolithic cave art showing 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:11.000 bee's importance to other animals. One rock painting in eastern 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:14.640 Spain shows what appears to be an animal's paw reaching 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.800 toward a hole that has flying insects around it, so 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:20.320 that's most likely a bear trying to get it a 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:23.000 nest of honey. And we have evidence of some of 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.720 the things that people made using what they harvested from 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:30.360 bees nests. For example, archaeologists have dated artifacts made using 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.719 the lost wax process to about thirty five hundred BCE. 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:37.320 These artifacts, which were made in the region around the 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:39.880 Dead Sea, were made by creating a model out of 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:42.960 beeswax and then making a cast of that model using 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:46.760 sand or clay. The wax would burn away or be lost, 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:48.880 which is where it gets its name when the mold 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:52.039 was fired, and then molten metal would be poured into 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:55.960 the space in the mold. Humanity's first honey and bee 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:59.680 hunts were probably pretty opportunistic. People would happen upon a 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:03.240 nest of bees somewhere and rate it, probably without a 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:05.800 lot of protection from stings or, in the case of 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:09.479 stingless bees, from things like bites or irritating substances that 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:13.880 they carry on their legs. Early opportunistic bee hunts probably 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:17.080 also didn't do a lot to protect the bee colony 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:20.320 that was being rated. People would carry away everything that 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:23.280 they could from the nest, and when the human population 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:26.920 was pretty small and bee colonies were really abundant, there 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:30.320 still would have been lots of unaffected colonies so that 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:34.000 the bees themselves survived as a species. As soon as 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:38.200 societies developed the concept of personal property and laws related 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:42.040 to that property, there were also laws about who owned bees. 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:45.920 These laws included things like the ownership of nests on 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:49.840 a person's property, the ownership of swarms that hadn't yet 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:53.320 found a new nesting site, how nests had to be 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:57.120 marked to show who owned them, and punishments and restitution 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:01.000 to be paid if someone harmed someone else's bees or nests. 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:03.920 And of course, on a more general note, there are 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:08.080 references to bees, bees, wax, and honey all over literature 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:11.360 all over the world, going back to the earliest uses 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:16.440 of written language. Over time, opportunistic bee hunting and just 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:18.760 sort of taking advantage of bees that were already there 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:23.920 evolved into a more intentional process, with people methodically looking 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:27.640 for bees and their nests instead of basically harvesting nests 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:30.600 as they happened to find them, and this essentially happened 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:34.720 everywhere on Earth that had both people and honey storing bees, 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:38.080 with the only exceptions being in places that developed religious 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:42.200 prohibitions against harming insects or depriving them of their honey 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.760 or their brood. The exact steps involved in hunting bees 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:48.960 depended on what kind of bees lived in a particular area, 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:52.640 but in general, people started by watching for bees, either 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:56.200 at water sources or near flowers. In about the year 0:08:56.280 --> 0:09:01.400 fifty CE, Roman writer Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella described it 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:05.120 this way quote, First we must try to discover how 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:07.920 far away they are, and for this purpose liquid red 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:11.760 ochre must be prepared. Then, after touching the backs of 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:14.360 the bees with stocks smeared with this liquid, as they 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:17.560 are drinking at the spring waiting in the same place, 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:20.079 you will be able to more easily recognize the bees 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.360 when they return. If they are not slow in returning, 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:26.160 you know that they dwell in the neighborhood. But if 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:28.920 they are late In doing so, you will calculate the 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:32.840 distance by the period of their delay. So bees obviously 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:35.880 are small they move fast, so it can be hard 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:39.040 to track a bee, even for an experienced bee hunter. 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:42.520 So people also figured out ways to make it easier 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:45.920 to follow a bee back to the nest. In some cultures, 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:48.880 people have physically attached something to the bees to make 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:51.920 them more visible, like a very fine thread, or a 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:54.840 piece of grass or a little bit of paper. This 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:57.480 idea is so charming to me, but also I'm like, man, 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:00.680 how challenging it must be to just attack something to 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:05.400 a bee while it's drinking some water. This would both 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:07.959 make the bee easier to see by basically sticking a 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:10.920 little flag on it, and then also slow the bee 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:13.480 down as it tried to carry this extra weight while 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:16.319 it flew back to the nest. People also figured out 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:18.880 ways to take advantage of the fact that bees generally 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:21.520 fly in a straight line when going back to their nest, 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:24.800 So if you collect several bees in a portable box 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:27.360 or trap, you can let them out one at a time, 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:31.360 following each bee until you lose sight of it. Kalumela 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:33.559 has more detail about how this was done in the 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:36.840 Roman Empire writing quote, the joint of a reed with 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:39.240 the knots at either end, is cut, and a hole 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:42.120 bored in the side of the rod thus formed, through 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:45.240 which you should drop a little honey or boiled down must. 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:49.120 The rod is then placed near a spring. Then when 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:51.480 a number of bees attracted by the smell of the 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:54.480 sweet liquid have crept into it, the rod is taken 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.120 away and the thumb placed on the whole, and one 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:00.800 bee only released at a time, which, when it has escaped, 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:03.680 shows the line of its flight to the observer, and he, 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:06.600 as long as he can keep up, follows it as 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:09.800 it flies away. Then when he can no longer see 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:12.120 the bee, he lets out another, and if it seeks 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:15.360 the same quarter of the heavens, he persists in following 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:19.080 his former tracks. Otherwise, he opens the hole and allows 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:22.120 them to emerge one after another, and marks the direction 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.480 in which most of them fly home, and pursues them 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:28.480 until he is led to the lurking place of the swarm. 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:32.040 Kalamela describes using a piece of reed for making this 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:35.920 bee tracking trap, but other cultures have used this same 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:41.079 basic process, making their traps out of other materials, including antlers, horns, 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:44.080 and crafted boxes made of something like wood or metal 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:48.360 that were created specifically for that purpose. Historically, people have 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:51.480 also observed other animals to figure out where bees might 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:55.800 be nesting, particularly animals like bears and honey badgers, which 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.680 are also known to be fond of honey, and in 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:01.760 parts of tropical Appa and Asia, there is also the 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:05.840 honeyguide bird. These are birds that are fond of eating beeswax, 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:08.760 and bee larvae, but can't easily get into the nest 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:12.160 without help, so after finding a nest, the honeyguide will 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:14.760 try to attract the attention of a mammal like a 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:18.560 badger or even a person. For at least five hundred years, 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:22.360 people in some parts of Africa, including Tanzania, Zambia, and 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:26.320 Mozambique have developed calls to basically let the honey guides 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:28.320 know that they are ready to go on a hunt. 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:31.520 And exactly what that call sounds like varies from place 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:35.880 to place. That's a relationship between honeyguide birds and people. 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:39.960 Delights me. Oh same, It's so cool just in general. 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:41.880 The fact that the bird was like, I want to 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:44.439 get in this nest. I can't by myself. I'm gonna 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:48.640 flap my wings around and make noise attention of something bigger. 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:52.839 So as people moved from harvesting nests that they happen 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:56.600 to find to intentionally searching for them, they also move 0:12:56.720 --> 0:12:59.520 from just harvesting the nests when they found them to 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:03.040 ten those nests in the wild. People have done things 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:06.040 like wrapping bee trees to insulate them in the winter, 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:10.720 keeping the nests entrances clear, enlarging a cavity where the 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:13.880 bees were nesting to make more room, or hollowing out 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:17.559 similar cavities nearby with the hope of attracting a swarm. 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:21.840 People have also improved wild nests to make it easier 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:25.840 to access their contents, things like adding little doors into 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:28.160 a tree that a person could reach into and then 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:31.679 close the door behind them, or building steps and ladders 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:35.360 to reach nests that are in high places. Eventually, people 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:39.560 also started building structures specifically with the hope of attracting bees, 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:43.840 including in places where the bees couldn't have survived otherwise, like, 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:47.400 for example, building thick walled cavities at oases in the 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:51.400 Sahara Desert with the hope of sustaining bee colonies inside 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:54.360 the walls. That gets a little closer to the way 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:57.760 most people think of bee keeping today with purpose built 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:01.840 enclosures to house bees in a specific location, and we'll 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:14.280 get more into that after a sponsor break. In a 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:18.280 very general sense, a beehive is any man made enclosure 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:21.120 for housing bees, and people have been keeping bees in 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:25.360 hives for a really long time, overlapping all that bee 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:28.920 hunting that we just talked about earlier. This possibly goes 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:32.160 back all the way to the very beginnings of agriculture. 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:35.400 A paper published in the journal Nature in twenty sixteen 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:39.720 describes bees wax lipid residues that were found in Neolithic 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:43.440 pottery samples from Europe, the Near East, and northern Africa, 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:47.120 and these findings suggest that the pots might have been 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:50.840 used as hives, although it's also possible that they were 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:53.720 used to store wax that people had harvested out in 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:56.880 the wild. We do know that people were keeping bees 0:14:56.920 --> 0:14:59.600 in hives in the Nile Delta by about five thousand 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:03.480 bees An ancient Egyptian art is full of depictions of 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:07.800 bees and hives and beekeeping. One relief dating back to 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:10.680 the Fifth Dynasty, which started around twenty four to sixty 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:15.160 five BCE, shows beekeepers at work in an apiary, suggesting 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:18.480 that beekeeping was well established in ancient Egypt at that point. 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:22.520 Honey bees also have a place in Egyptian mythology as 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:26.040 being transformed from the tears of the god Raw after 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:29.440 they fell to earth. The first written depiction of a 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.720 beehive in China dates back to about three hundred BCE, 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:36.640 although the first Chinese references to honey as medicine are 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:40.680 ten times older than that. In Mesoamerica, people started keeping 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:44.880 stingless bees in hives made out of calabash gourds somewhere 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:48.320 between three hundred BCE and three hundred cees, so in 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:49.880 a lot of different parts of the world this goes 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:52.960 back for thousands of years. These first bee hives tended 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:57.320 to be pretty simple. Most were horizontally oriented cylinders with 0:15:57.360 --> 0:15:59.920 a small opening at one end that was big enough 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:03.360 for bees to pass through most of the time, but 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:06.520 not always. The other end had some kind of removable 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:09.960 covering to allow people to harvest from the hive, sometimes 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:12.560 after using smoke to drive the bees away from that 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:16.120 end of the hive first. In some regions, these hives 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:18.960 were like a long, narrow pot placed on its side, 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:21.600 with a removable covering at one end that had a 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:23.680 hole in the middle for the bees to pass through. 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:27.360 Around the world, these horizontal hives were made using a 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:31.680 variety of materials. Hollow logs, including logs that had been 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:34.440 cut from trees with the bees already inside and then 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:38.360 taken somewhere else, straw or grass mats rolled into a 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:43.080 cylinder and then covered with mud or clay pottery. Sometimes 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:47.360 people scored the interior of pottery cylinders with shallow lines 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:49.960 that were cut into the surface, both to give the 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:53.000 bees a roughened anchor point when they started to build 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:55.920 their honeycombs, and also to encourage them to build those 0:16:55.920 --> 0:17:00.000 combs in a particular direction. Other hive designs followed from 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:03.880 these basic horizontal cylinders. Some were similar to the ones 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:08.479 we just described, but rectangular rather than cylindrical. Others were 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:12.960 vertically oriented rather than horizontal. The giant honey bees that 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:16.760 are native to parts of Asia don't nest in enclosed spaces, 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:19.800 so in that part of the world people attach slanted 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:23.439 boards to trees as anchor points for honeycombs. These are 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:26.560 known as rafters because of their resemblance to the rafters 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:28.840 in the roof of a house, and it is not 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:32.120 just a matter of sticking them to a tree. Beekeepers 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:36.200 have to account for wind, sunlight, surrounding foliage, and more 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:39.040 when selecting the exact right spot to hang a rafter. 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:42.960 In some places, particularly in Western Europe, people have also 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:46.040 kept bees in skeps that are woven from things like 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:50.440 straw or wicker. These look pretty much like upside down baskets, 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:53.679 with the open mouth resting on a flat surface and 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:55.879 a small opening on the side that acts as a 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:59.200 doorway for the bees. Especially in places where the weather 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:02.920 was cool and damp, like for example, in England, steps 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:06.000 were usually kept in little shelves or shelters that offered 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:08.879 some kind of protection from the elements. Most of the 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:11.880 time a skeep is harvest by lifting it up off 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:14.040 of that flat surface that it rests on and then 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:18.000 removing the contents from underneath, but some steps also have 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:20.560 sort of a hinged lid up at the top. In 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:24.760 many cases, harvesting these fixed comb hives involved killing the 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:28.800 bee colony inside. In some cases, as many bees as 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:32.840 possible were shaken or drummed into another hive first, but 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:34.680 a lot of the time the loss of the hive 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:38.600 was just considered part of the process. People captured swarms 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:41.760 of bees in the springtime, tended the hive for a season, 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:45.760 and then harvested them before winter, starting that whole process 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:49.520 over again the following spring, or a beekeeper might leave 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:53.320 the hives that seemed most likely to survive the winter unharvested, 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:55.840 with the hope that they would swarm and fill empty 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:58.919 hives in the spring. So this was one of the 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:01.960 reasons why people started trying to figure out ways to 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:06.159 make bee hives that had removable colmbs to try to 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:09.440 preserve more of the bee colonies. If you could easily 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:13.600 remove just some sections of honeycomb without damaging the others 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:17.359 or the hive itself, that could preserve the colony. Also, 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:20.640 at least in theory, such a harvesting method might also 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:24.520 be easier and cause less agitation for the bees, maybe 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:28.440 leading to fewer stings on the beekeeper. The first hives 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:32.119 with removable combs were vertically oriented and opened at the top, 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:34.960 with a series of slats or bars placed over the 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:38.760 opening instead of one solid lid. People had figured out 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.639 that if you left some space between each slat, the 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:45.280 bees would build separate combs, one per slat, and then 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:47.879 you could remove a slat from the hive, taking it 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:50.920 in the attached comb out of the hive, while leaving 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:53.840 the rest of the combs untouched. One of the first 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:57.000 written records of a hive like this came from French 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:01.560 doctor Jacob Spon and English botan George Wheeler. They were 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:04.280 traveling together and saw them in use in Attica, Greece 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:08.280 in sixteen seventy five, so hundreds of years ago. Similar 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:12.880 systems also developed, apparently separately, in Vietnam. By the time 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:16.960 people started developing hives with removable combs, they had also 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:21.040 started developing beekeeping garments that were meant to minimize stings. 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:25.280 For much of beekeeping history, people didn't really have specific 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:29.159 bee keeping attire in places where the bees were stingless 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:33.439 or very gentle. It wasn't really needed in tropical regions 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:36.600 where people didn't wear as much clothing, Sometimes they removed 0:20:36.640 --> 0:20:39.440 what they did wear to keep bees from being trapped 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:42.640 in that fabric. In other places, people may have done 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:46.040 sturdy clothing with long sleeves and gloves, but it really 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:48.600 wasn't much different from what they would wear for other work. 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:52.480 By about the fourteen hundreds, though, people in Europe had 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:56.320 started making garments specifically for working with bees, which were 0:20:56.359 --> 0:21:00.000 intended to minimize the likelihood of getting stung. The details 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:03.879 depended somewhat on what was already fashionable in a particular place. 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:08.480 In France, for example, the first purpose made beekeeping garments 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:11.159 were hoods that covered the face with an insert that 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:14.560 was made of a mesh of horsehair or wire or 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:17.399 some other material that would offer some protection but also 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:21.480 offer at least some visibility. Was because hoods were a 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:25.320 little more common in terms of fashion in England, where 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:29.000 brimmed hats were in fashion. The first beekeeping hoods were 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:33.080 large hats with veils attached around that brim, and eventually 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:37.600 the standard outfit also evolved to include a blouse. In 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:41.680 seventeen ninety six, bee master John Keyes published a book 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:46.080 called The Antient Bee Master's Farewell or Full and Plane 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:49.399 Directions for the Management of Bees to the greatest Advantage, 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:53.639 disclosing further improvements of the hives, boxes, and other instruments 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:58.040 to facilitate the operations, especially that of separating double and 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:02.479 trouble hives or boxes. Also brief remarks on Shirach and 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:06.639 other distinguished apiators on the continent. Deduced from a series 0:22:06.680 --> 0:22:10.280 of experiments during thirty years. Oh how I love a 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:14.719 long title. HU. It has a chapter on bee dress 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:18.480 in which Keys advises making a hood by attaching bolting 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:20.840 cloth to the brim of an old hat, with the 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:23.520 brim cut down to two inches all the way around 0:22:23.600 --> 0:22:26.960 and the cloth hanging a foot in the areas around 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:31.480 the nose, chin, and neck reinforced with oiled linen. He 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:35.720 also recommends leather gloves, old stockings over the extremities, and 0:22:35.840 --> 0:22:39.040 an apron. If you're not familiar with bolting cloth, it's 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:43.440 like a pretty sturdy cloth that was woven to allow 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:47.159 for things like sifting with it. Keys also concludes this 0:22:47.240 --> 0:22:50.399 chapter by saying, quote, women should not meddle with bees 0:22:50.640 --> 0:22:54.080 without this bee dress, nor than without the addition of 0:22:54.119 --> 0:22:59.359 a man's coat. And I almost said breeches. Also, I 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:01.120 don't want it tell you to dress like a man, 0:23:01.240 --> 0:23:04.440 but it might be in your best interest, but I'm 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:07.919 not saying it. I love that quote a lot, like 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:13.680 I almost said breaching, almost, but maybe not. Keith's book 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:16.720 was just on the cusp of beekeeping as most people 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:19.240 might recognize it today, and we're going to get into 0:23:19.400 --> 0:23:21.800 that after we first paused for a little sponsor break. 0:23:30.600 --> 0:23:33.600 Starting in about the seventeenth century, a couple of things 0:23:33.640 --> 0:23:38.320 happened in tandem that radically changed beekeeping pretty much around 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:43.040 the world. One was that colonists started introducing European or 0:23:43.080 --> 0:23:46.680 Western honeybees into other parts of the world to which 0:23:46.720 --> 0:23:50.880