Beekeeping History

By EVERETT OERTEL
Resigned, previously apiculturist, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

BEEKEEPING IN THE USA
AGRICULTURE HANDBOOK QUANTITY 335Pages 2 – 9

The honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) is certainly not native to the Western Hemisphere. Stingless bees (Meliponids and Trigonids) are indigenous to the western Indies, including Central and south usa. Wax and small amounts of honey had been obtained from stingless bee nests because of the very early Indians of the areas.

Information offered indicates that colonies of honey bees had been sent from The united kingdomt and landed inside Colony of Virginia at the beginning of 1622. Several shipments had been designed to Massachusetts between 1630 and 1633, other individuals probably between 1633 and 1638. The author wasn't capable of finding any records of importing honey bees into other Colonies, but it is reasonable to assume which they were brought by the colonists to New York, Pennsylvania, Carolina, and Georgia.

Records suggest that honey bees were within the next places on dates shown: Connecticut, 1644; ny (longer Island), 1670; Pennsylvania, 1698; vermont, 1730; Georgia, 1743; Alabama (mobile phone), 1773; Mississippi (Natchez), 1770; Kentucky, 1780; Ohio, 1788; and Illinois, 1820 (Oertel 1976). By 1800, honey bees were commonly distributed through the Atlantic Ocean on Mississippi River.

Honey bees might have been taken to Alaska in 1809 and Ca in 1830 because of the Russians, based on Pellett (1938), but no records are available on whether or not they survived. In 1850’s, bees were shipped from the Eastern States to Ca. Some hives had been absorbed land, but the majority associated with the hives were delivered by ship to Panama, by land throughout the Isthmus, and then by ship to Ca. Most likely, the bees reached Oregon and Washington from Ca in normal swarms or perhaps in hives taken here by settlers. There are not any dependable documents that explain exactly how bees distribute westward from the Mississippi River into the hill shows. It seems most likely, but that bees relocated into these places the same way they did into Oregon and Washington; that is, in natural swarms or perhaps in hives held by the very early settlers.

Improvement Contemporary Equipment

For thousands of years, colonies of honey bees had been held in wood boxes, straw skeps, pottery vessels, as well as other containers. Honeycomb built-in these types of hives could not be eliminated and manipulated like the movable combs of today. Without doubt the very first hives utilized in the United states Colonies had been straw skeps (fig. 1).

Later on the abundance of low priced lumber and lack of qualified people to make straw hives caused a fairly fast change to field hives made from lumber. Wood gum tissue, this is certainly, sections of bee trees containing colonies of bees, sometimes were sawed out and utilized as hives. Some gum tissue might be being used nevertheless, particularly in wooded, isolated places (figs. 2 and 3). Some innovative farmers built timber hives with effortlessly removable tops (caps) in order for chunks of honey could be eliminated without killing the colonies. Affleck (1841) showed hats (today known as supers) in his pictures, but he couldn't provide any details like when they were very first used.

In 1852, L. L. Langstroth, a Congregational minister from Pennsylvania, patented a hive with movable frames that is still utilized these days. The principle where Langstroth based their hive is the space kept open in the hive allowing bees passage between and around combs. This space is about three-eighths of an inch wide; room which not as much as this is sealed with propolis and wax, while room larger is full of brush. Before this time around hives had been either Greek bar hives or leaf hives that allowed the beekeeper to examine the comb (fig. 4). Langstroth is called “the daddy of modern-day beekeeping.”

Into the period involving the importation of honey bees because of the early colonist and innovation of this movable framework hive by Langstroth, beekeepers had little capacity for handling their colonies. They enhanced their amount of colonies each springtime by taking swarms and killed all of them in autumn by burning sulfur in the entrance of hive so your honey and beeswax could be removed. The brush, after that, had been broken to squeeze out of the honey.

Honey usually had been acquired (1) by cutting bee woods and taking exactly what honey was offered, (2) by killing colonies and taking the honey in the hive, or (3) if you take whatever honey had been stored in a crude awesome or limit which was put on the hive during the summer time.

Contemporary types of beekeeping arrived really rapidly after Langstroth’s patent. Other inventions soon used that made large-scale, commercial beekeeping possible. Wax-comb basis, created in 1857, made possible the constant creation of straight, top-notch combs of predominantly worker cells. Pellett (1938) gives a detailed account associated with the development of wax-comb basis. The creation regarding the centrifugal honey extractor in 1865, and its own subsequent improvements, permitted large-scale production of extracted honey. The bee cigarette smoker, as now employed by beekeepers, developed from a pan regularly consist of some burning, freely cigarette smoking product, the smoke which could possibly be blown throughout the open hive to manage the bees. The necessary bee veil slowly evolved from items of coarse fabric which were covered about the mind of the beekeeper.

Introduction of Italian Inventory

No body understands how many colonies or hives of honey bees had been taken to the United states Colonies by the first settlers. Nor do we all know from exactly what countries they arrived: England, Holland, France, Spain, or perhaps someplace else? It's likely that after the very early imports all enhance had been by natural swarming. Since we do not know exactly how many colonies had been delivered to the eastern shore, we cannot determine the amount of inbreeding.

Within the 1850’s, the superior merits of the Italian race of honey bees became recognized to a couple of frontrunners of United states beekeeping and they experimented with transfer queen bees from Italy. Reports of those very first efforts are complicated, but relating to Pellett (1938), the very first known effective importation of Italian queen bees was built in 1860.

During the last the main nineteenth century, some queen bees of various other events were brought into this country. These people were brought in from Egypt, Cyprus, the Holy Land, Syria, Hungary, and Tunisia, relating to Pellett (1938). Nothing of those races, or alternatives, was of lasting use in the usa, however. Carniolan and Caucasian queen bees in addition were imported but still are widely used to a limited extent. The bee journals and also the trade catalogs from about 1870 until after World War we carried adverts for imported queen bees or their progeny, mainly Italian stock. Today, the American type of the Italian battle is popular throughout this country.