Pennsylvania's environment and forests made the land attractive to early European beekeepers who capitalized on its' environment decades before Pennsylvania's formal formation.
Pre-Pennsylvanian Beekeeping
Before William Penn acquired the charter for Pennsylvania from King Charles II in 1681, Northern Europeans where making use of the roughly 47 million acres of land that would come to comprise PA (Horn, 30). The thick forests were an optimum location for older methods of beekeeping such as honey hunting, and bee trees. Finno-Swedes brought German Bees (mean black bees which are different from the current Italian bees) to the land that would become PA around 1638, after their forest work became illegal (Horn 28). The forests allowed bee trees to increase in number and provided a hospitable environment for the smallest immigrants intentionally brought. These honeybees provided the essential dietary supplement of honey that other early American colonies such as Roanoke did not have in such abundance. The success of the Honeybees and honey trees directly effected the success of the colonies, "Honey was very important to the Swedes, however, especially as the settlers extended into the Midland. They needed the quick, easy energy that honey supplied. Evidence suggests that the bees did very well in colonial Pennsylvania...the Swedish colony succeeded in many ways that the English did not, for the Swedish colonized the Pennsylvania forests," (Horn, 28).
Prior to the organization of Pennsylvania, other early immigrants utilized the thick woods of Pennsylvania for their bees. French Huguenots were some of the first beekeepers in early Pennsylvania. These people had fled France following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by King Louis XIV (around 1685). This protestant faction brought with them considerable skill in both gardening and beekeeping (Horn, 27). Instead of utilizing the woods for bee trees, the French would migratory bee-keep along rivers, according to Tommy Simcox a Clinton County bee master, "Early Huguenot in the West Branch Valley were won't to start upstream with their bees on flatboats every spring, traveling by night, so as not to excite the bees and anchoring by flowery glades by day, each day giving their swarms a new and delicious pasturage. By the time they reached, 'Les Fourchetts,' or the Forks in what is now Keating, the weight of the honey lowered the boat to the water's edge and the return journey began," (Hahman, 409).
Prior to the organization of Pennsylvania, other early immigrants utilized the thick woods of Pennsylvania for their bees. French Huguenots were some of the first beekeepers in early Pennsylvania. These people had fled France following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by King Louis XIV (around 1685). This protestant faction brought with them considerable skill in both gardening and beekeeping (Horn, 27). Instead of utilizing the woods for bee trees, the French would migratory bee-keep along rivers, according to Tommy Simcox a Clinton County bee master, "Early Huguenot in the West Branch Valley were won't to start upstream with their bees on flatboats every spring, traveling by night, so as not to excite the bees and anchoring by flowery glades by day, each day giving their swarms a new and delicious pasturage. By the time they reached, 'Les Fourchetts,' or the Forks in what is now Keating, the weight of the honey lowered the boat to the water's edge and the return journey began," (Hahman, 409).
German Beekeeping
One of the first steps toward modernized beekeeping and bee housing was the skep. The straw skep is a German invention that traces back to early Carolingian times (Ransome, 137)
Feudal Lords in Germany required honey and wax from their peasants ( ransom, 138) also say Germans used bees in warfare during the Great War of 1914-1918.
Feudal Lords in Germany required honey and wax from their peasants ( ransom, 138) also say Germans used bees in warfare during the Great War of 1914-1918.
Lorenzo Langstroth
“Returning late in the afternoon from the apiary which I had established some two miles from my city home [at the corner of Chestnut and Schuylkill Streets] and pondering…the almost self-evident idea of using the same bee-space…came into my mind, and in a moment the suspended movable frames, kept at a suitable distance from each other and the case containing them, came into being…I could scarcely refrain from shouting out my ‘Eureka’ in the open streets.”- Langstrath |
After moving his family to Philadelphia in 1848, Langstroth set up a two-acre apiary in West Philadelphia. Plagued by continued ill health he spent more and more of his time with his bees, immersed himself in the scientific literature on beekeeping, and tackled head on the challenge of developing a hive that would make beekeeping more practical. In 1851, Langstroth devised a movable frame hive that gave him unprecedented control over the honeycombs.
The bee-space Langstroth referred to is a 3/8-inch gap, a space wide enough for a bee to fly through but narrow enough that it will not fill it with propolis, the resinous material collected from tree buds and sap that bees use as a cement. Working with Philadelphia cabinetmaker Henry Bourquin, Langstroth constructed a wooden hive with moveable frames. After obtaining a patent for his hive on October 5, 1852, he sold his wooden hives to beekeepers across the United States. Endlessly imitated and modified, the Langstroth Hive helped make commercial honey production and bee pollination large-scale industries. By the 1880s, the majority of American beekeepers used some form of the Langstroth Hive. By the late twentieth century, more than 100 American crops and one-third of the American food supply depended upon bee pollination. In 2010, nearly 15,000 beekeepers resided in Pennsylvania and honeybees were the most widely used pollinators for the 80 percent of state crops that depend on insect pollination. |
The Pennsylvania Germans and their Bees
In the 17th and 18th centuries, many Germans immigrated into Pennsylvania forming a cultural group often called the "Pennsylvania Dutch." These immigrants came to Pennsylvania and most became farmers, using intensive German farming techniques that proved highly productive. Although beekeeping was not specific to Pennsylvania Germans in the United States, Pennsylvania Germans often had bees on their farms. The amount of bees kept on Pennsylvania German farms was more than most other cultural groups in the United States, as the Pa Germans found it necessary to have bees to pollinate their fields and gardens, and provide wax and honey (Pennypacker, 102).
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Given the farming culture in Pennsylvania, there are many folktales, sayings, and traditions about bees including the following (Harp Week, Honey Bees).
"In many places it is considered especially lucky when a strange swarm settles in one's garden, such a circumstance being thought to foretell either wealth or prosperity of some kind."
"It is considered as a sign of a death in a family if bees in the act of swarming make choice of a dead hedge-stake for their settling-place."
“Swarmed on a rotten stick, the bees I spied, Which erst I saw when Goody Dobson died.” "The custom of putting the hives in mourning is very common, and is strictly adhered to, from an apprehension of its omission being attended with fatal consequences. At Cherry-Burton, on a death in the family, a scarf of black crape is applied to each hive on the occasion of the funeral, and pounded funeral biscuit soaked in wine is placed at the entrance to the hive." "When bees remove or go away from their hives, the owner of them will soon die. “A swarm of bees in May
Is worth a load of hay; A swarm of bees in June Is worth a silver spoon; A swarm of bees in July Is not worth a butterfly.” |