Shakespearean Bee

Signage from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

Pliny the Fabulous

If you've never had the pleasure of reading or perusing the natural history writings of Pliny the Elder, you're missing out. A friend recently sent this gem along, reminding me of how much I've enjoyed my past excursions with the great naturalist of yore.

"Honey comes out of the air....At early dawn the leaves of trees are found bedewed with honey.... Whether this is the perspiration of the sky or a sort of saliva of the stars, or the moisture of the air purging itself, nevertheless it brings with it the great pleasure of its heavenly nature. It is always of the best quality when it is stored in the best flowers."—Pliny (A.D. 23-79) 'Natural History', book 20

Check out Pliny's encyclopedia of natural life, circa AD 77.

View or download Vol. 3 of the Pliny's Natural History here. In this edition, he writes of insects (including bees), with chapter headings such as:

• The extreme smallness of insects
• Happy omens sometimes afforded by a swarm of bees
• The kinds of honey peculiar to various places

If this sort of thing is up your alley, consider joining the Yahoo listserve on Historical Honeybee Articles. It's a great list with wonderful archaic lit, articles, and news items of and pertaining to our friend the bee.

Google Bee (Old Beekeeping Books for You & Me)

A recent issue of American Bee Journal made mention of the availability of two newly reprinted beekeeping books by Applewood Books, publisher of a nifty variety nature books, farming guides, "floral and gardening" books, and many other topics in keeping with its mission to "build a picture of America through its primary-source materials." The charmingly titled volume pictured above is one of Applewood Books' many reprints of interest.

The two bee-related books Applewood has recently reprinted are: Beekeeping: A Discussion of the Life of the Honeybee (originally published in 1918) and The Honey-Bee: Its Nature, Homes, and Products (first published in 1884). Both can be ordered directly from Applewood's website which, while containing marvelous products, is (alas!) unpleasant to navigate and not exactly plush with information.

I should also mention that one of these titles—Beekeeping: A Discussion of the Life of the Honeybee—is available for free download on Google Books. Some pics from the book:
Here are a couple of other out-of-copyright beekeeping and bee-related books you can find on Google Books:

The Honey-makers (1899)

The Honey Bee: Its Natural History, Physiology, and Management (1843)

The Bee-keeper's Manual (1860)

This is just the beginning; a search of Google Books will yield more treasures than can be assimilated in three lifetimes. Enjoy!

The Bee Pasturage of Early Spring

It be the Spring Equinox today, so it's officially time to share this vintage ode to the springtime flowers from which bees forage nectar and pollen at this time of year.

"First the gray willow's glossy pearls they steal,
Or rob the hazel of its golden meal,
While the gay crocus and the violet blue
Yield to the flexible trunk ambrosial dew."

—from The Honey Bee: Its Natural History, Physiology, and Management,
by Edward Bevan (1843)

John Muir on Bees

Recently, we recommended an essay called "Locusts and Wild Honey" by our local hero, John Burroughs (1837-1921).

Today, we recommend writings by Burroughs' contemporary, John Muir (1838-1914). In particular, a chapter entitled "The Bee-Pastures" from a book called The Mountains of California.

Richly depicting a long since vanished California, with its "continuous bed of honey-bloom" so thick a walkers' foot "would press about a hundred flowers at every step," the essay is a balm on a cold winter day like today, when honeybees and their flowers seem like distant, thrumming dreams.

A favorite passage to whet your appetite:

"The great yellow days circled by uncounted, while I drifted toward the north, observing the countless forms of life thronging about me, lying down almost anywhere on the approach of night. And what glorious botanic beds I had! Oftentimes on awaking I would find several new species leaning over me and looking me full in the face, so that my studies would begin before rising."John Muir

John Burroughs

John Burroughs' Locusts and Wild Honey

Want to read a beyond-charming essay on honeybees? Look no further than 130 years back, to the great nature writer John Burroughs' extraordinary Locusts and Wild Honey. (This phrase may be familiar to the biblically inclined among you—the story goes that John the Baptist, in his poverty, fed on locusts and honey. Burroughs' title is a play on words, in celebration of the locust trees on whose blossoms the honeybee forage.)

Some samples:

The honeybee goes forth from the hive in spring like the dove from Noah's ark, and it is not till after many days that she brings back the olive leaf, which in this case is a pellet of golden pollen upon each hip, usually obtained from the alder or swamp willow.

***

It is the making of the wax that costs with the bee. As with the poet, the form, the receptacle, gives him more trouble than the sweet that fills it, though, to be sure, there is always more or less empty comb in both cases. The honey he can have for the gathering, but the wax he must make himself,—must evolve from his own inner consciousness.

***

I always feel that I have missed some good fortune if I am away from home when my bees swarm. What a delightful summer sound it is!

***

I love to see a swarm go off—if it is not mine, and, if mine must go, I want to be on hand to see the fun.

***

If you are not completely beguiled by now, there's no hope for you. But if you, like I, respond deeply to the 19th century charms of Burroughs' unabashedly enthusiastic bee-writings, check out this book. It's free on Googlebooks; can be downloaded to the iPhone app, Stanza; and is no doubt available in other free online venues as well.

Of course, nothing is perfect in this world...and while I'm happy to have Burroughs' gem free for the taking from Google, I had to laugh when I got to this page:

Some folks in the library world have raised concerns that, in its haste to scan every publication under the sun, Google is sometimes sloppy in its scanning practices. Evidence for that argument (in the form of fingerprints, no less!) can certainly be found here. But I won't let that minor imperfection mar the honeyed sweetness of finding this lovely book (and other works by John Burroughs) online, and being able to share these humble pleasures so easily with you.

And while we're on the subject, here's Woodchuck Lodge in Roxbury, New York, where Burroughs was born and spent the summers of his adulthood studying nature, writing, and entertaining famous friends like Henry Ford. Wren and I paid homage to Burroughs during our visit there last summer, and took this picture of his sweet spot on Mother Earth.

Superorganism

is one of my favorite words—it's so D.C. Comics!

So I was psyched this morning when my friend Eva brought this new book to my attention: The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies by Bert Holldobler and E.O. Wilson.

Sounds like a good read on the fascinating topic of swarm intelligence. A cool gift for the bookworm beek in your life.

Found Poem

MY FRIEND JOHN WRITES
I'm reading Don Quixote—
“In the fissures of rocks
and the hollows of trees
diligent and clever bees
established their colonies,
freely offering to any hand
the fertile harvest of their sweet labor.”
I wonder if they freely offered.

Echoes of Colony Collapse Disorder

Interesting in light of our current concerns about Colony Collapse Disorder to happen on this description of "spring dwindling" in A Thousand Answers to Beekeeping Questions by Dr. C.C. Miller, published 1931:

Dwindling.—Q. (a) Why do some colonies (having plenty of stores and a fairly good number of bees) start brood-rearing in the latter part of winter and get a good deal of capped brood and brood in all stages, and when cold weather comes they whole outfit dies? This is happening with me two seasons. (b) How can I avoid this thing?

A. (a) This seems to be a case of what is called spring dwindling. The cause is somewhat in doubt. It looks a little as if the bees were old, had more brood started than they could take care of, then died off with the strain of trying to provide digested food for the brood, sometimes swarming out with plenty of food in the hive. (b) I don’t know, unless it be to have colonies strong with bees not too old the preceding fall.

Bees, Livelihood From

From A Thousand Answers to Beekeeping Questions by Dr. C.C. Miller, published 1931:

Bees, Livelihood from.—I have been trying to decide on a move for several years; that is, in the keeping of bees. I had a slight experience of two years with bees, but just became greatly interested in them when I left the country to accept a position in the Postal Department in New York City. I still hold such a position, but my desire and love for bees have increased so much that I am contemplating a change to the country. My hesitation comes from the doubt whether I could make a good living from them alone should I devote my entire time to them. What is your opinion? Would it be wise and profitable to give up my position of $100 a month to lurch into beekeeping? I would not go in extensively at the start, but try and feel my way as I advance. Will you kindly give me advice I seek as to whether there is a profitable field in the keeping of bees as a business proposition?

A. Your question is one that is exceedingly difficult to answer. If it be a mere matter of dollars and cents, I should say that beekeeping is a good business to let alone, for the same amount of brains and energy that will make you a living at beekeeping will make more than a living at almost any other business. But if you have the great love for beekeeping that some men have, then it may be the part of wisdom for you to choose beekeeping in preference to any other business that would net you ten times as much money. For your true beekeeper doesn’t have to wait until he has made his pile before he begins to enjoy life, but every day is a vacation day, and a day of enjoyment.

But you must make a living. Can you make a living at beekeeping? I don’t know. There are a few who make a living at beekeeping alone. There are probably a few more of them who can. You may be one of them, and you may not.

It would not be advisable for you to cut loose from everything else and start in at beekeeping with the idea of making a living at it from the very start. If you have enough ahead so that you can afford to do nothing for a year or two, with a fair assurance that you could take up your old line of work at the end of the year or two, if you should so elect, then all right. For you must count it among the possibilities that the next two years may be years of failure in the honey harvest.

If you can take such a risk, perhaps you can grow into quite a business with bees, while still continuing at your present business. Indeed, that might be the best way. In a suburban home you could probably care for 25 or 50 colonies mornings and evenings. Or, you might have a roof apiary in the city. The profit from them would be all the while bringing you nearer the point when you could cut loose from everything else. After a year or two you could judge better than anyone else whether it would be feasible and advisable to try beekeeping alone.

honeybees = "the soul of summer"

Thumbing through Maurice Maeterlinck's The Life of the Bee tonight, I came upon this lovely bit of unabashedly enthused nature prose, and thought I'd share.

"The bees give their honey and sweet-smelling wax to the man who attends them; but more precious gift still is their summoning him to the gladness of June, to the joy of the beautiful months; for events in which bees take part happen only when skies are pure, at the winsome hours of the year when flowers keep holiday. They are soul of the summer, the clock whose dial records the moments of plenty; they are the untiring wing on which delicate perfumes float; the guide of the quivering light-ray, the song of the slumberous, languid air; and their flight is the token, the sure and melodious note, of all the myriad fragile joys that are born in the heat and dwell in the sunshine. They teach us how to tune our ear to the softest, most intimate whisper of these good, natural hours. To him who has known them and loved them, a summer where there there are no bees becomes as sad and as empty as one without flowers or birds."

Honeybees: Required Reading

Highly recommended: Elizabeth Kolbert's great piece in this week's New Yorker about honeybees, beekeeping and colony collapse disorder (CCD) . Here's an outtake:

"The literature of apiculture is vast and seductive; I learned one amazing thing after another. Honeybees are the only animals besides humans known to have a representational language: they convey to one another the location of food by dancing. When the queen lays an egg, she is able to choose its sex. Males, known as drones, perform no useful function except to mate. They are loutish and filthy, and the workers—sterile females—tolerate their presence for a few months a year, then systematically murder them. A single pound of clover honey represents the distilled nectar of some 8.7 million flowers. In a week, a productive hive can add seventy pounds of honey to its stores. Pretty soon, I had moved on to beekeeping manuals."

That's how it starts...you read a couple of bee books...you get obsessed with bees...the next thing you know, you have a couple of hives in the backyard...and you're even more obsessed with bees. On the New Yorker site, you can listen to Kolbert talk about her honeybees, too. In the interview, she provides a decent overview of the bee lifecycle and extraordinary social culture.

By the way, I think the drones are cute and sweet and get an unnecessarily harsh rap in the bee lit. I'll be writing more about drones in the fall, when the mass murder is set to occur. Not looking forward to that event at all, but expect it will make for stirring prose.