Sweetness And Light Part 4

WITH ALL THE political turbulence of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it is remarkable how the honeybee continued to be seen as such a positive symbol throughout the period. Its ruling queen and obedient servants survived regicide and revolution. Seen as an emblem of monarchy, the honeybee became the sign of an emperor: Napoleon Bonaparte took the Bourbons' fleur-de-lis, turned it upside down, and transposed it into a bee. His coronation robe was covered with the insect. Marie Tussaud, the famous modeler, taught Louis XVI's sister Elisabeth to mold beeswax; later Tussaud made the death masks of the guillotined king and queen in the same material. People had to adapt to survive, as did the bees-at least as far as the way they were perceived. As the nineteenth century began, the symbolism and use of the honeybee was set to change once more, to move onward with science into the industrial age. political turbulence of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it is remarkable how the honeybee continued to be seen as such a positive symbol throughout the period. Its ruling queen and obedient servants survived regicide and revolution. Seen as an emblem of monarchy, the honeybee became the sign of an emperor: Napoleon Bonaparte took the Bourbons' fleur-de-lis, turned it upside down, and transposed it into a bee. His coronation robe was covered with the insect. Marie Tussaud, the famous modeler, taught Louis XVI's sister Elisabeth to mold beeswax; later Tussaud made the death masks of the guillotined king and queen in the same material. People had to adapt to survive, as did the bees-at least as far as the way they were perceived. As the nineteenth century began, the symbolism and use of the honeybee was set to change once more, to move onward with science into the industrial age.

CHAPTERSEVEN.

FRONTIERS.

The honeybee is not indigenous to North America. When the seventeenth-century Puritan missionary John Eliot translated the Bible into the Algonquian language, he found no words for honeybee honeybee and and honey honey, and although Columbus mentions wax, this would have come from the stingless bees native to the Americas. The European settlers brought with them the dark honeybee of northern Europe, and this was the first race to inhabit the East Coast. Colonies were s.h.i.+pped across the Atlantic, alongside the cattle and other livestock, to settle, reproduce, and feed the people now digging into the edge of this new land.

The first settler bees were probably not on the mainland but offsh.o.r.e. In 1609, The Sea Adventurer The Sea Adventurer, a s.h.i.+p of the Virginia Company of London, was wrecked off the most northerly island of the Bermudas en route to the recent settlement of Jamestown in Virginia. (William Shakespeare was later to use this wreck as part of the inspiration for The Tempest.) The Tempest.) Subsequent colonizers of the Bermudas brought plants, goats, cattle, and honeybees. On May 25, 1617, the Earl of Warwick, patron of the Virginia Company, reported to his brother, Sir Nathaniel Rich: "The bees that you sent doe prosper very well." Subsequent colonizers of the Bermudas brought plants, goats, cattle, and honeybees. On May 25, 1617, the Earl of Warwick, patron of the Virginia Company, reported to his brother, Sir Nathaniel Rich: "The bees that you sent doe prosper very well."

The first record of honeybees on the North American mainland dates back to 1622. The previous year, four masters of the Virginia Company had been commissioned to convey settlers and goods to Virginia from England. In return for this service, they were allowed to fish off the coast, and they also traded for fur. By May 1622, three of the s.h.i.+ps had among them delivered ninety settlers. At least two of these s.h.i.+ps brought beehives, alongside seed, fruit trees, pigeons, and mastiffs.

The very first Europeans arriving in the New World hoped to feed on native plants and soon learned about some of the native American crops, particularly corn, beans, and squash. Those Pilgrim Fathers who survived the grim and death-filled winter of their arrival celebrated a b.u.mper crop of maize, and other bounty, with the first Thanksgiving feast, eating with the Wampanoag Native Americans who had helped them. But settlers soon discovered that it was safer to provide for themselves, and agriculture was transplanted from the Old World to the New. They grew wheat, barley, and oats and kept honeybees alongside cattle, pigs, and sheep. The Native Americans knew how to extract the rising sap of the maple and boil it down to a sweet syrup, but the early settlers imported their familiar Old World sweetness by bringing over honeybees.

A number of colonies of bees came along with the twenty thousand Englishmen and -women who undertook the arduous voyage to an improved, new England in the 1630s. The town of Newbury, Ma.s.sachusetts, founded in 1635, had a communal apiary five years later, run by a beekeeper named Eales. A Native American watching the bees working, having previously seen the arrival of the horse and the ox, wondered at the way the settlers put their animals to work. According to Frank Pellet in his 1938 history of American beekeeping, he commented: "Huh! White man work, make horse work, make ox work, make fly work: this Injun go away." All the same, beekeeping does not appear to have been a profitable trade for Eales. The town subsidized his hive-making but he still went on to become the first town pauper. A "stok" of bees (the words stad, stok, stake, stall stad, stok, stake, stall, or skep skep were all used for a colony) was worth the equivalent of fifteen days' manual labor in the 1640s, not including the trouble required to maintain it, so perhaps the price of sweetness was too high. were all used for a colony) was worth the equivalent of fifteen days' manual labor in the 1640s, not including the trouble required to maintain it, so perhaps the price of sweetness was too high.

The insect fared better elsewhere. Gathering research from around the world for his book The Reformed Commonwealth of Bees The Reformed Commonwealth of Bees, Samuel Hartlib in 1655 noted that "bees thrive very much in New England." In the Swedish settlements in Pennsylvania, it was reported that "bees thrive and multiply exceedingly ... the Swedes often get great store of them in the wood where they are free from anybody." Bees brought to Boston in 1670 were said to have "spread over the continent." This was an exaggeration: it is true that the honeybee eventually covered America-but from various sources, and not quite yet.

Yet wild honey was recorded as plentiful in the Carolinas in the early eighteenth century, and bees were common in the cypress swamps of Florida in 1765, where great quant.i.ties of honey and wax were used by both Native Americans and settlers. By the time of the War of Independence ten years later, a British Army officer pa.s.sing through Pennsylvania commented that "almost every farmhouse has 7 or 8 hives of bees." One of the first banknotes issued by Congress at this time depicted two straw skeps in a shelter: it was a symbol of the hard work, thrift, and enterprise that were needed to make this young land great.

So the honeybee did spread, both by the natural means of swarming and with human help. When the bees swarmed, they found new patches to forage, flying at least a little ahead of the settlers, and advancing into the territory occupied by native peoples. In his Notes on the State of Virginia Notes on the State of Virginia (1784), Thomas Jefferson wrote: "The Indians ... call them the white man's fly, and consider their approach as indicating the approach of the settlements of the whites." It was said that as the bee advanced, the Indian and the buffalo retired. (1784), Thomas Jefferson wrote: "The Indians ... call them the white man's fly, and consider their approach as indicating the approach of the settlements of the whites." It was said that as the bee advanced, the Indian and the buffalo retired.

Dr. Everett Oertel, who mapped the migration of the honeybee across America, calculated that their nests moved along the Missouri River at a rate of 600 miles per fourteen years in the 1800s. They thrived best on land bordering both woods and prairies; when the trees stopped flowering in the spring and summer, the insects could fly to the plants on more open ground.

Native Americans, highly skilled at tracking and hunting wild food, soon became adept at harvesting this new source of sweetness. Settlers arriving in Wisconsin in the 1820s found bee trees with ladders left next to them so the natives could plunder the nests. Some tribes renewed the land by burning it periodically, encouraging the growth of gra.s.ses so that deer would come to feed in the area. This practice left burnt-out hollow trees, which could easily be settled by swarms. One legacy of the abundance of honey consequently found in Wisconsin was an unusually large number of bee- and honey-related names, including a Honey Island, three Honey Lakes, four Honey Creeks, Bee Bluff, Bee Hollow, and a number of Beetowns.

Once a nest was found, the honey hunters pacified the bees with smoke, then cut out the section of tree with a nest, either to set it up as a simple log hive closer to home, or to extract the honeycomb on the spot. In 1847, one such Wisconsin trip was described: "Parties go bee hunting for months together in Summer, they take wagons and a pair of Oxen, an ax and coffeepot, and that's all except barrels for the honey. When they come to a prairie they turn out the cattle, and if they locate a bee tree, they chop it down, smother the bees and take the honey, barrel it up, then ditto ditto several times a day perhaps. They shoot for meat, roast corn in a frying pan for coffee, barter honey for flour from settlers, bake it in a pan, and sleep in their wagons at night." several times a day perhaps. They shoot for meat, roast corn in a frying pan for coffee, barter honey for flour from settlers, bake it in a pan, and sleep in their wagons at night."

The methods used to track down the bees in the woods were various and often ingenious. Paul Dudley, in Ma.s.sachusetts in 1721, instructed hunters "to set out on a clear sun-s.h.i.+ny day, with pocket compa.s.s, rule and a sheet of paper." His book, an account of a method found in New England for discovering where the bees hive in the woods in order to get their honey, advises putting honey on a plate or trencher and releasing a bee that has been caught foraging. Mark the line it takes on a piece of paper. Then go to another spot, not far away, and release another bee. The two angles marked together will help the hunter find the direction of the tree.

How to track down wild honeybees in eighteenth-century America.

On the other hand, Patrick Campbell, in his Travels in the Interior Inhabited Parts of North America in the years 1791 and 1792 Travels in the Interior Inhabited Parts of North America in the years 1791 and 1792, recommends putting a flat stone with some wax on it over a fire. Close by the wax, put some more honey and vermilion pigment. The bee is drawn to the stone by the smell of beeswax, goes to the honey, and is marked by the red. If you watch in which direction it flies off and time its return, it is possible to work out both the direction and distance of the honey tree.

To a.s.sist in their honey-hunting, people began to make bee boxes, with one compartment filled with comb to attract the bee, a little door to trap it, and another to release it, in order to see in which direction it flew.

SUCH METHODS OF honey-hunting were later added to by Euell Gibbons, the wild food guru whose book honey-hunting were later added to by Euell Gibbons, the wild food guru whose book Stalking the Wild Asparagus Stalking the Wild Asparagus (1962) inspired twentieth-century Americans to go back to the land. His readers may have been motivated by an earthy form of spirituality, but Gibbons himself developed his wild-food skills for a more practical reason: to stay alive. (1962) inspired twentieth-century Americans to go back to the land. His readers may have been motivated by an earthy form of spirituality, but Gibbons himself developed his wild-food skills for a more practical reason: to stay alive.

Euell Gibbons learned about edible wild plants as a boy growing up in the Red River Valley. When his family moved to New Mexico in the impoverished 1930s, and his father was looking for work with little luck, the family pantry at one point contained only a few pinto beans and a solitary egg. Gibbons took his knapsack, went out into the wild, and returned with mushrooms, nuts, and the fruit of the p.r.i.c.kly pear to feed his mother, his three siblings, and himself. He later said that wild food meant different things to him at different times, but at that point it meant the difference between life and death. While struggling to become a writer, Gibbons lived on wild food for five years; it was only when he combined his subsistence skills with his writing that he had a hit. Stalking the Wild Asparagus Stalking the Wild Asparagus recorded his foraging experiences, from swamplands to downtown, including the fifteen species of edible plants he found on a vacant lot in Chicago. The book was a best-seller and has become a cla.s.sic. recorded his foraging experiences, from swamplands to downtown, including the fifteen species of edible plants he found on a vacant lot in Chicago. The book was a best-seller and has become a cla.s.sic.

Gibbons starts his chapter on wild honey by describing his grandfather's exceptional skills with feral bees. Most bee raiders dress up in veils and other protective clothing; Gibbons's grandfather would merely open his s.h.i.+rt collar, roll up his sleeves, and get to work. Sometimes, he went to the woods just to collect wild honey; at others, he brought the bees back as well, and installed them in a hive closer to home.

When he found a colony of wild bees in a hollow tree, the old man would first drill a hole and stuff it with burning rags, before splitting off a section of the wood to expose the nest. He would take out the comb, holding it up to the light to distinguish between the light honey cells and those that were darker with the brood and pollen stores. Gibbons recalls on one occasion watching his grandfather emerge from a fog of smoke and bees, moving in his quiet, deliberate way to bring him a pale piece of honeycomb that the bees had made from cotton blossom; the bees were crawling so densely over the old man's gla.s.ses that he had to light his pipe to keep them off his face.

So it was only a matter of time before Euell Gibbons tracked down wild honey for himself. He found a great deal just by discovering nests by accident, or hearing about bees that had colonized buildings. Later, he decided to test a more "scientific" method of tracking them down while on a camping trip. Although he had read about the elaborate bee boxes that were used to trap bees, in the end he improvised with a cobbled-together kit using an aluminum cake cover, an old piece of honeycomb, and some blue carpenter's chalk.

First, Gibbons filled the old, honeyless comb with a sugar solution that had been scented with a little anise oil. He then put the comb on a stone-and went back to his fis.h.i.+ng. Half an hour later, he returned to find the bees had deserted their flowers for this attractively scented food. He saw the insects fly back toward their colony, watching for the flash of their wings in the sunlight for as long as possible, and noting the direction they took. This was the beeline that would, eventually, lead to the nest.

The next task was to gauge the distance to the nest. With great care, Gibbons daubed a foraging bee with a little of his blue carpenter's chalk, which he had dissolved in a drop of water and put on the end of a camel-hair brush. He waited with baited breath until the same blue-bottomed bee returned six minutes later. According to an article he had read by G. H. Edgell, "Bee Hunter," published in Atlantic Monthly in Atlantic Monthly in 1949, this meant the colony was less than a mile away. in 1949, this meant the colony was less than a mile away.

Although bees take as direct a route as possible between their nest and foraging sites, there will be obstacles to avoid and diversions to make. It was necessary, therefore, for Gibbons to follow them in short stages. To do this, he carefully trapped the bees on the comb with the aluminum cake cover. Walking along the bee-line, Gibbons advanced with the insects in the improvised box. Then he uncovered the comb to let the bees fly off. But they zigzagged and double-eighted and flew off helter-skelter: the line was lost. Gibbons refilled the comb, put on some more anise solution, and waited for ten anxious minutes. Fortunately, the bees came back, and their line toward the nest was then tracked in three more hops. When Gibbons noticed the insects were going back from whence he'd come, he knew the bee tree had been pa.s.sed. Looking up for a likely site, he spotted a beech tree; the mere flash of a bee wing on a bough, reflecting the light of the setting sun, revealed the site of the stash. The search was over. The next day, Gibbons took two pailfuls of honey out of the tree, in the process receiving just a single sting-in his bottom as he bent over to cut out the comb.

This trip turned out to be beginner's luck, however. Euell Gibbons used his homemade bee kit again, with some success; but he would often lose the trail or the bees. Patience, he summarized, is what the bee hunter most needs-and, clearly, blue carpenter's chalk, old honeycomb, and an aluminum cake cover can come in handy.

BY THE EARLY nineteenth century, the honeybee in America had spread as far as it could from its original landing points. When the insects encountered the Appalachians and Allegheny mountains, their easy progress was thwarted. But they continued by other means, carried along with human pioneers: as the new Americans went westward to find freedom and fortune, the honeybee went too. nineteenth century, the honeybee in America had spread as far as it could from its original landing points. When the insects encountered the Appalachians and Allegheny mountains, their easy progress was thwarted. But they continued by other means, carried along with human pioneers: as the new Americans went westward to find freedom and fortune, the honeybee went too.

Some of the insects flew on with the followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormons. Their faith's founder, Joseph Smith, said that as a farm boy in upstate New York he was directed to inscribed golden plates by the angel Moroni, and in a series of revelations translated their words. The text was published in 1830 as The Book of Mormon The Book of Mormon, which describes ancient Israelite tribes who came over to America, centuries before Christ, and underwent experiences similar to those found in the Old Testament. In language reminiscent of the King James Bible, the book describes how bees were part of the bounty brought to this new land: "And they did also carry with them deseret, which, by interpretation, is a honey bee; and thus they did carry with them swarms of bees, and all manner of that which was upon the face of the land, seeds of every kind."

Deseret-as the honeybee was referred to in The Book of Mormon The Book of Mormon-was important to Joseph Smith in other ways. He had a keen eye for how symbolism could bring and bind people together. The bees' ordered society was an example of cooperation and productivity; Mormon businesses were all cooperatives-unusual in the free-for-all of the frontier. The reproductive life of the hive, with its ruler mated by several drones, perhaps also reinforced the Mormons' practice of polygamy-a custom that was a major reason for the sect's unpopularity in its early days. Joseph Smith was eventually lynched by a mob, such was the animosity toward the group. It was said his grave was protected by hives of bees, put there to prevent grave robbers from digging up and desecrating his body.

In order to build their society in a place free from persecution, some 66,000 Mormons set out on their epic journey toward the Salt Lake Basin, following their new leader, Brigham Young. The Mormons arrived in 1847 in what was to become Utah and Salt Lake City. Honeybees were first transported there in the back of a covered wagon the following year, and by 1851, several hives were said to be responding well to local conditions. The land was won from the Mexicans in 1848, and at this point the Mormons called the territory Deseret, after the honeybee. The 1850 territorial seal is based on a beehive, as a symbol of organization, unity, and productivity. However, when the territory became the forty-fifth state in 1896, after the Mormons had renounced polygamy, the name Utah was picked, instead, after the Ute Native Americans of the area.

The Mormons' honeybee symbolism continued in their choice of house for the leader. The building has a roof based on the shape of a skep, and was called the Beehive. Brigham Young, the first governor of the territory of Deseret, lived here from 1854 until his death in 1877. It was restored in 1961 and can now be visited by the public. Deseret Telegraph Company connected all the Mormon settlements to the Beehive house; communication was again reinforced by the symbolism of the honeybee, which is able to tell its fellow insects about nectar sources and other business of the hive.

TRANSPORTING HONEYBEES around the world was no easy matter. The early journeys from England to America took between one and two months, and as late as the nineteenth century, travels to New Zealand and Australia could take five or six months. To keep the bees alive during such long trips, it was important to keep them cool. If the bees were in their winter cl.u.s.ter, they had a greater chance of surviving. This slowed down their metabolic rate, in which state they could make the journey in a quiet, stable condition. around the world was no easy matter. The early journeys from England to America took between one and two months, and as late as the nineteenth century, travels to New Zealand and Australia could take five or six months. To keep the bees alive during such long trips, it was important to keep them cool. If the bees were in their winter cl.u.s.ter, they had a greater chance of surviving. This slowed down their metabolic rate, in which state they could make the journey in a quiet, stable condition.

One of the pioneer beekeepers of New Zealand was William Charles Cotton, a Victorian whose adventures around the globe read like a storybook. From the start, Cotton's imagination was unorthodox. As a boy, not content merely to hear about the supposedly "ox-born" bees in Virgil's Georgics, Book Four Georgics, Book Four, he set out to repeat the experiment himself. As you may recall, this involves bludgeoning an ox to death in a closed room. "I suppose I was born an experimental-yst," Cotton later wrote in My Bee Book My Bee Book (1842), "so I went out next morning with a full determination to try a grand one. I found a shed which would do nicely, which had all that Virgil requires. I had no pity for the poor cow-no, not I-when a swarm of Bees was to be the glorious result: she would surely, I thought, be happy in her death, as she would give life to so many glorious creatures." Fortunately, the experiment went no further-Cotton's father got wind of his son's attempt to obtain a cow by bribing a farmer with the promise of honey, and bought the boy his first stock of bees instead. (1842), "so I went out next morning with a full determination to try a grand one. I found a shed which would do nicely, which had all that Virgil requires. I had no pity for the poor cow-no, not I-when a swarm of Bees was to be the glorious result: she would surely, I thought, be happy in her death, as she would give life to so many glorious creatures." Fortunately, the experiment went no further-Cotton's father got wind of his son's attempt to obtain a cow by bribing a farmer with the promise of honey, and bought the boy his first stock of bees instead.

The anecdote indicates something of Cotton's adult character, albeit with the bloodthirstiness of boyhood replaced by kinder traits. His early life followed an apparently orthodox route-Eton, Christ Church, a career in the church-but, as with the Virgil episode, you often sense a certain excitability buzzing in the background. His temperament greatly concerned his father, a governor of the Bank of England and a more sober citizen. Cotton senior certainly disapproved of his son accompanying his mentor, Dr. George August Selwyn, the newly appointed bishop of New Zealand, to become chaplain and teacher of a collegiate-style school, St. John's, near the Bay of Islands on the North Island.

Despite his father's unease, the young cleric was on board the Tomatin Tomatin on Boxing Day 1841, when she set sail from Plymouth. Alongside "a goodly fellows.h.i.+p of emigrants, schoolmasters, deacons, and priests, on Boxing Day 1841, when she set sail from Plymouth. Alongside "a goodly fellows.h.i.+p of emigrants, schoolmasters, deacons, and priests, with a Bishop at their head" with a Bishop at their head" the cargo contained many thousands of bees. How did Cotton intend to pack his bees for this journey to the other side of the world? Writing before his departure, he proudly described his plans. His insects were to be stored by four methods. Some skeps would be in hogsheads-recycled wine barrels-packed with ice. So far, so good; then the elaborations of the arrangements start to read more like the plans of an inventive mind rather than the simple effectiveness of a practical one. Once they crossed the equator, Cotton was to let the melted water out and measure it to calculate how much ice would be left to keep the bees cool. The hogsheads had breathing holes for ventilation, with the tubes covered in perforated zinc to stop the bees from escaping. He planned to keep another hive cool by means of evaporation, surrounding the skep with running water. This hive would be mounted on springs so the motion of the s.h.i.+p would not disturb the bees. For the same reason, another hive was to be kept on a set of gimbles, the device that keeps a s.h.i.+p's compa.s.s on the level despite the motion of the sea. Furthermore, Cotton wanted an observation hive in his cabin. These bees would be active, and he would feed them with honey. the cargo contained many thousands of bees. How did Cotton intend to pack his bees for this journey to the other side of the world? Writing before his departure, he proudly described his plans. His insects were to be stored by four methods. Some skeps would be in hogsheads-recycled wine barrels-packed with ice. So far, so good; then the elaborations of the arrangements start to read more like the plans of an inventive mind rather than the simple effectiveness of a practical one. Once they crossed the equator, Cotton was to let the melted water out and measure it to calculate how much ice would be left to keep the bees cool. The hogsheads had breathing holes for ventilation, with the tubes covered in perforated zinc to stop the bees from escaping. He planned to keep another hive cool by means of evaporation, surrounding the skep with running water. This hive would be mounted on springs so the motion of the s.h.i.+p would not disturb the bees. For the same reason, another hive was to be kept on a set of gimbles, the device that keeps a s.h.i.+p's compa.s.s on the level despite the motion of the sea. Furthermore, Cotton wanted an observation hive in his cabin. These bees would be active, and he would feed them with honey.

William Cotton's barrel of bees, with the skeps kept over ice to keep the insects sleepy and calm as they voyaged to New Zealand.

It is uncertain how, in fact, the bees were transported and, indeed, whether they arrived dead or alive. The Devon beekeeper Thomas Woodbury, writing in 1858, says Cotton's hives had been thrown overboard-"to the indescribable grief and disappointment of their amiable and enthusiastic owner"-by superst.i.tious sailors who thought the insects were to blame for storms and bad luck on the latter part of the voyage. Cotton's diaries do not describe this event, which is surprising since he recorded other parts of his trip in gleeful detail. (He tells, for example, of the sharks who came to bite at the salt pork the sailors were towing over the bows so as to wash off some of its brine: he felt a frisson of danger, since he had recently taken a refres.h.i.+ng dip, a.s.sured that sharks did not swim so far south.) Did the sailors toss the hives into the sea, or not? Peter Barrett, the Australian beekeeper who has written two meticulously researched volumes about the introduction of the honeybee to Australasia, The Immigrant Bees The Immigrant Bees, as well as a volume specifically on Cotton, has unearthed reported evidence supporting both outcomes.

What is is certain is that once he arrived in New Zealand, Cotton was supplied with some bees from Australia. Honeybees were first taken to New South Wales in 1822. Previously, the Aborigines had collected honey, but this was from stingless bees. They would track down a nest by fastening a speck of white down to the back of an insect with a dot of gum, and follow it to the colony. They called the new bee "the white-fellow's sugar bag." (Another, tangential, historical detail ill.u.s.trates the times: in 1829, convict number 680 was a woman from Gloucester-transported for the offense of stealing bees' honey.) certain is that once he arrived in New Zealand, Cotton was supplied with some bees from Australia. Honeybees were first taken to New South Wales in 1822. Previously, the Aborigines had collected honey, but this was from stingless bees. They would track down a nest by fastening a speck of white down to the back of an insect with a dot of gum, and follow it to the colony. They called the new bee "the white-fellow's sugar bag." (Another, tangential, historical detail ill.u.s.trates the times: in 1829, convict number 680 was a woman from Gloucester-transported for the offense of stealing bees' honey.) There were no native bees of any kind in New Zealand, but the honeybee had already been imported by the time Cotton landed. Apis mellifera Apis mellifera was first brought to the North Island in 1839 by Miss Mary Anna b.u.mby, from Thirsk in North Yorks.h.i.+re, who came over with her bees to become housekeeper to her missionary brother. She put her two straw skeps of bees in the mission churchyard, out of the way of curious Maori. was first brought to the North Island in 1839 by Miss Mary Anna b.u.mby, from Thirsk in North Yorks.h.i.+re, who came over with her bees to become housekeeper to her missionary brother. She put her two straw skeps of bees in the mission churchyard, out of the way of curious Maori.

As well as leading a physically active life in New Zealand-swimming, riding, sailing, and walking-Cotton kept his beloved bees and supplied honey to the college. He had such a connection with these insects that he was said to be able to walk around with one in his pocket. As regards his theories of beekeeping, he disapproved entirely of the method of collecting honey by killing the bees, and writes on the subject with characteristic pa.s.sion: "NEVER KILL YOUR BEES ... every one of you must feel some sorrow when you murder murder by thousands in the autumn those who have worked hard for you all the summer, and are ready to do so again next year." by thousands in the autumn those who have worked hard for you all the summer, and are ready to do so again next year."

Honeybees fly through the rest of Cotton's lively diaries and the letters he wrote to his sisters in England. These missives contain many colorful anecdotes of New World life, put in the envelopes alongside parrot feathers and ill.u.s.trations of Maori tattoos. Cotton taught the Maori to keep bees, introducing them to honey by dipping his finger into a plateful and offering them a taste. "The universal expression of admiration," he records, "is He mea uka wakaharahara He mea uka wakaharahara 'a very exceeding sweet thing,' the last word, the highest superlative, p.r.o.nounced with great energy." 'a very exceeding sweet thing,' the last word, the highest superlative, p.r.o.nounced with great energy."

But although Cotton was the life and soul of the settler community, his animation had a darker side. "Cheery and lively but an anxiety, from time to time, truly," was the heartfelt summation of Sarah Selwyn, the wife of Cotton's bishop. He had, she said, a want of ballast to steady his eccentricities. Despite his goodness and inventive enthusiasms, one was uncertain what he would do next, she said.

Alongside the delight Cotton took in his honeybees, they also embodied his more dejected mental states. His letters reveal the abject pain of unrequited love, when it emerged that the woman he loved, but had left behind in England, would not await his return. His feelings were exacerbated by his sheer physical distance from her. In a letter to Phoebe, his favorite sister and closest confidant, Cotton wrote: "Mrs Dudley kindly played to me some tune on Mrs Selwyn's piano ... and big silent tears rolled down my face.... As an emblem I suppose of my blighted hopes-the swarm of bees with which I have been occupied that day would not stay, but flew off and took up their dwelling in the bush."

On the day of Cotton's departure from New Zealand, six years after his arrival, three swarms of bees came out "as if to bid farewell." He returned at his father's behest. Cotton's spirit did not fit in with Victorian England. If his trip to the New World sounds like a liberation, his return was the opposite. He brought his way of thinking and behaving back to a more formal world where he could no longer ride his horse General, or sail across the Bay of Islands, or teach the Maori people about honey and beekeeping. Instead, he had the more somber realities of a wifeless life administering a parish in Ches.h.i.+re. His love of bees continued, and he attended the first meeting of the British Beekeepers' a.s.sociation. But there were troubles, too. As well as suffering much mental turmoil, his finances ran amok-much to the anxiety of his banker father-and then there was the death of his dearest sister, Phoebe. Unable to function, Cotton died in Chiswick in 1879, aged sixty-six, in a humane Quaker-run asylum; he was buried in St. John's, Leytonstone.

William Cotton remains, for all his personal woes, one of the most attractive characters in the history of the beekeeping world, carrying the breeze of a New World freedom through the pages of his journal. Among his books, A Manual for New Zealand Beekeepers A Manual for New Zealand Beekeepers (1848) and, in Maori, (1848) and, in Maori, Ko Nga Pi (Treatise on Bees) Ko Nga Pi (Treatise on Bees), printed by the St. John's College Press in New Zealand in 1849, were pioneering works.

Cotton's obituary in the British Bee Journal British Bee Journal in January 1880 underlines one legacy of early beekeeping in New Zealand that remains important to the country's economy and honey production even today: "Before the introduction of the honey-bee into New Zealand, they had to send over to England every year for the white clover seed as it did not seed freely there, but by the agency of the bees they are now able to export it. New Zealand is such a good country for bees, that Mr Cotton told me, one stock had increased to twenty-six in one year." This last statistic sounds like a final note of characteristically excitable exaggeration. in January 1880 underlines one legacy of early beekeeping in New Zealand that remains important to the country's economy and honey production even today: "Before the introduction of the honey-bee into New Zealand, they had to send over to England every year for the white clover seed as it did not seed freely there, but by the agency of the bees they are now able to export it. New Zealand is such a good country for bees, that Mr Cotton told me, one stock had increased to twenty-six in one year." This last statistic sounds like a final note of characteristically excitable exaggeration.

But the honeybee did did do well in the New World; as the honey expert Dr. Eva Crane points out, it can do better there than in the countries where it had evolved-California and New Zealand are famous for their honeys. do well in the New World; as the honey expert Dr. Eva Crane points out, it can do better there than in the countries where it had evolved-California and New Zealand are famous for their honeys.

CHAPTEREIGHT.

FOLKLORE AND SCIENCE.

Let's be fanciful for a moment and compare a colony of bees to the questing human mind. Our wandering thoughts fly off in a thousand directions; then these winged notions return to the hive of the head to make honey. The sweet and strange stories of bee folklore contain nectar from some of the wilder flowers of the field; yet the large quant.i.ty of such stories and beliefs also reflects our longstanding preoccupation with these mysterious insects. These tales often contain an element of sound advice, too.

The same superst.i.tions cropped up time after time in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. All over Europe, it was deemed bad luck to buy a colony; rather, they should be acquired by bartering. In 1720, Thomas Lupton's Thousand Notable Things Thousand Notable Things includes the comment: "If you have no Stocks of Bees, but must buy them, I advise you first, not to give Money for them, but some other Commodity; for though there can be nothing in it but a superst.i.tious Observation, yet things often dishearten People that are apt to credit such Reports." Country folk exchanged goods such as wheat, barley, and oats for their bees, and in mid-nineteenth-century Hamps.h.i.+re, a colony was worth a small pig. Beliefs about payment for bees continued, in various forms, into the twentieth century. In the first decade of the 1900s, in Suss.e.x, it was reputedly acceptable to use money-but only gold; in Devon as late as the 1930s, bee-keepers were warned against being given bees rather than buying or bartering for them; and in 1948, in Surrey, one woman urged: "If you buy bees, you includes the comment: "If you have no Stocks of Bees, but must buy them, I advise you first, not to give Money for them, but some other Commodity; for though there can be nothing in it but a superst.i.tious Observation, yet things often dishearten People that are apt to credit such Reports." Country folk exchanged goods such as wheat, barley, and oats for their bees, and in mid-nineteenth-century Hamps.h.i.+re, a colony was worth a small pig. Beliefs about payment for bees continued, in various forms, into the twentieth century. In the first decade of the 1900s, in Suss.e.x, it was reputedly acceptable to use money-but only gold; in Devon as late as the 1930s, bee-keepers were warned against being given bees rather than buying or bartering for them; and in 1948, in Surrey, one woman urged: "If you buy bees, you must must give silver for them." Perhaps all this care about payment derives from peasant thriftiness; in France, in the Vosges, it was considered bad luck-and presumably, bad judgment-to pay too give silver for them." Perhaps all this care about payment derives from peasant thriftiness; in France, in the Vosges, it was considered bad luck-and presumably, bad judgment-to pay too much much for bees. for bees.

Beliefs about bees often reflect the way they were seen as moral creatures; any disruption in the household would provoke a reaction in the colony. Bad language and quarreling would offend the bees: such behavior could result in a stinging punishment from the reproving insects. Bedfords.h.i.+re beekeepers would sing psalms before their hives if the bees were not thriving. In France, it was believed that a sting was a message from a relative languis.h.i.+ng in Purgatory, a sharp reminder of the wages of sin. On a secular level-though no less fantastically-Central European peasants had a custom of giving their bees written contracts, promising to look after them throughout the year, hoping in turn to be repaid by productivity.

Swarming bees were seen as an omen, presaging some important event. If they landed on a dead branch or a hedge stake, a death could be imminent; if they flew into a house, a stranger would arrive; if they landed on a roof, good luck was on the way (perhaps in the form of a local source of honey, if only some brave person took the chance of collecting it).

Bees were part of the family, so important events such as marriage and death had-of course-to be reported to them, a ritual known as "telling the bees." This was first recorded in England in the seventeenth century and became more common from around 1800. The various customs included tapping the hive with a key, whispering the news to the insects, and leaving an appropriate gift-a piece of wedding cake or funeral biscuits dipped in wine-at the hive's entrance. If the bees were not kept informed of events, they might fly away. This superst.i.tion has a modic.u.m of sense: when a beekeeper died, his skills went with him; how the insects were treated would perhaps indicate their future fortunes.

"Telling the bees."

It was also the custom to turn hives away from the beekeeper's coffin as it was carried out of the house. In their Dictionary of Superst.i.tions Dictionary of Superst.i.tions, Iona Opie and Moira Tatem relate one late-eighteenth-century Devon funeral when chaos ensued because the bees were treated incorrectly: "[A]s the Corpse was placed in the Hea.r.s.e, and the hors.e.m.e.n ... were drawn up in order for the procession of the Funeral, a person called out, 'turn the Bees,' when a Servant who had no knowledge of such a Custom, instead of turning the Hives about, lifted them up, and laid them down on their sides. The Bees, thus hastily invaded, instantly attacked and fastened on the Horses and their Riders. It was in vain they galloped off, the Bees as precipitately followed [and] a general Confusion took place, attended with loss of Hats, Wigs, &c."

Alongside the custom of "telling the bees," the hives might be draped in black crepe, or with a piece of black wool, following a death in the family. A newspaper article in 1925 related how one Worcesters.h.i.+re woman would dress up-including gloves-to inform the bees of important family news. After a death, she wore widow's black; for a wedding, "she donned her gayest dress and carried white ribbon"; for a birth, the ribbon would be pink or blue. In an echo of ancient beliefs, some saw the bees as the embodiment of human souls. Lincolns.h.i.+re Notes and Queries Lincolns.h.i.+re Notes and Queries (1851) tells the story of two traveling servants from the start of that century: "[They] laid down by the road-side to rest, and one fell asleep. The other, seeing a bee settle on a neighbouring wall and go into a little hole, put the end of his staff in the hole, and so imprisoned the bee. Wis.h.i.+ng to pursue his journey, he endeavoured to awaken his companion but was unable to do so, till, resuming his stick, the bee flew to the sleeping man and went into his ear. His companion then awoke him, remarking how soundly he had been asleep and asked what he had been dreaming of-'Oh!' said he, 'I dreamt that you shut me up in a dark cave, and I could not awake until you let me out.'" (1851) tells the story of two traveling servants from the start of that century: "[They] laid down by the road-side to rest, and one fell asleep. The other, seeing a bee settle on a neighbouring wall and go into a little hole, put the end of his staff in the hole, and so imprisoned the bee. Wis.h.i.+ng to pursue his journey, he endeavoured to awaken his companion but was unable to do so, till, resuming his stick, the bee flew to the sleeping man and went into his ear. His companion then awoke him, remarking how soundly he had been asleep and asked what he had been dreaming of-'Oh!' said he, 'I dreamt that you shut me up in a dark cave, and I could not awake until you let me out.'"

AGAINST THE BACKDROP of such whimsy came the rising rationality of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with scientists advocating proof over blind belief. Pioneering scientists, particularly the Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778), began to cla.s.sify insects as a separate branch of natural history; with such thinking came the rise of the entomologist. Nonetheless, insects were still widely seen as a curious subject for scientific study. When the Reverend William Kirby, a Suffolk vicar, listed three hundred species in his 1802 monograph on English bees, he clearly faced some derision. While the botanist is admired for studying mosses and lichen, he wrote the physical smallness of these creatures meant that "an Entomologist is synonymous with every thing futile and childish"-in effect, they were boys chasing bugs. In his later of such whimsy came the rising rationality of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with scientists advocating proof over blind belief. Pioneering scientists, particularly the Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778), began to cla.s.sify insects as a separate branch of natural history; with such thinking came the rise of the entomologist. Nonetheless, insects were still widely seen as a curious subject for scientific study. When the Reverend William Kirby, a Suffolk vicar, listed three hundred species in his 1802 monograph on English bees, he clearly faced some derision. While the botanist is admired for studying mosses and lichen, he wrote the physical smallness of these creatures meant that "an Entomologist is synonymous with every thing futile and childish"-in effect, they were boys chasing bugs. In his later Introduction to Entomology Introduction to Entomology (1815) Kirby is at pains to champion the honeybee: "Of all the insect a.s.sociations," he writes, "there are none that have more excited the attention and admiration of mankind in every age, or been more universally interesting, than the colonies of these little, useful creatures." (1815) Kirby is at pains to champion the honeybee: "Of all the insect a.s.sociations," he writes, "there are none that have more excited the attention and admiration of mankind in every age, or been more universally interesting, than the colonies of these little, useful creatures."

But by the time of the Victorians, insects were avidly collected. Specialist groups sprung up, most notably the Entomological Society of London, of which Charles Darwin was a lifelong member. During the summer months, working-cla.s.s men would find rare species and sell them to enthusiasts. The natural history writer David Elliston has suggested this rise in interest was perhaps a symbol of the new urban middle cla.s.ses' need for nature; trapped in their new towns and cities, these fledgling city dwellers needed a memory of freedom and flight.

Writers on bees tended to divide into those who were absorbed by the science and those who were commercial beekeepers, who were often down-to-earth people making a living in a rural economy. Both sides had much to learn from each other in this age of improvement: beekeepers found applications for the scientific theories; and those exploring the science-frequently clergymen-were beekeepers themselves and therefore practical in bent, if not explicitly commercial. This crossover between the science and practice was a key aspect of the nineteenth century, especially after the 1850s, when production s.h.i.+fted up a gear and beekeeping moved from cottage industry to factory production. The honeybee became business-and in the United States, big business.

At the start of the nineteenth century, the challenge was to promote a more rational form of beekeeping. A Nottingham skeppist, Robert Huish, published his forthright views on bees, gathered from his experience of keeping up to a hundred hives, in the journal Gardener, Florist and Apiculturist Gardener, Florist and Apiculturist. He scorned superst.i.tions such as the idea that a colony bought with money would not thrive. "Excepting the Spanish," he wrote, "I know of no nation which entertains such superst.i.tious prejudices, in regard to bees, as the English."

In hindsight, of course, it is easy to see this debunking author's own mistakes. Huish thought the idea that bees mated in the air quite absurd, and believed that wax was collected from plants, like pollen and nectar, rather than made by the bee. He thought bees tended by women were bad tempered, and blamed the poor state of the bees he saw in one Suss.e.x village on the gender of their keepers. But whatever his misconceptions, Huish was genuinely trying to get rid of some of the more wide-and-wayward ideas.

The push was on to convince more cottagers to keep bees. The English radical William Cobbett tried to educate the common man, woman, and child to live productively at a frugal level, to make, by skill and graft, a decent life and living that could help the family make the slow, steady ascent up the social scale. Cobbett was a propagandist for the practical, and his Cottage Economy Cottage Economy (1822) adds the muscles of exhortation to the bones of instruction. The honeybee fitted Cobbett's purposes admirably. He saw an educational and moral purpose in maintaining livestock such as bees; but above all it offered the cottager the chance, for no cost other than his own labor, to make something from nothing. "He must be a stupid countryman indeed who cannot make a bee-hive; and a lazy one indeed if he will not, if he can," he wrote. "In short there is nothing but care demanded and there are very few situations in the country, especially in the south of England, where our labouring man may not have half a dozen stalls of bees to take every year." (1822) adds the muscles of exhortation to the bones of instruction. The honeybee fitted Cobbett's purposes admirably. He saw an educational and moral purpose in maintaining livestock such as bees; but above all it offered the cottager the chance, for no cost other than his own labor, to make something from nothing. "He must be a stupid countryman indeed who cannot make a bee-hive; and a lazy one indeed if he will not, if he can," he wrote. "In short there is nothing but care demanded and there are very few situations in the country, especially in the south of England, where our labouring man may not have half a dozen stalls of bees to take every year."

To kill or not to kill the bees? This question continued to vex beekeepers. We know William Cotton's vehement opposition to the practice; before he departed for New Zealand, he specifically addressed cottagers with this advice. Cobbett, however, thought sparing the bees when the honey was collected was mere whimsy; individual bees would in any case perish from age, and the less strong colonies would die over winter. Another apiarist author, Richard Smith, also scorned the idea of not killing bees, warning that a patch could be overstocked with bees, just as pasture could with cattle.

Another controversy hinged on the skep versus the wooden hive. Many early-nineteenth-century beekeepers preferred straw hives to wooden boxes. They thought straw provided better insulation and more protection from drought and rain; they were also cheaper than wooden hives, so better suited to the cottager. The best hives, said Cobbett, were made from rye straw, topped with thatch to keep out the rain. Each swarm at the outset should be housed in a new hive, because used ones could harbor moths and other problems and diseases.

One British author with advanced ideas on this subject was Dr. Edward Bevan. His delightful 1827 book, The Honeybee, its Natural History, Physiology, and Management The Honeybee, its Natural History, Physiology, and Management (the second edition was dedicated to the current "queen bee," Victoria), successfully combined the practical with the historical and scientific. He kept only half a dozen hives, mostly for observation, but he saw how bees could be both a profitable part of cottage economy and a source of "pleasing and rational" amus.e.m.e.nt for the man of leisure. The bee, he said, "tends to enlarge and harmonize the mind, and to elevate it into worthy conceptions of Nature and its Author." His own writing transports you with the bees toward plants; he writes evocatively, for example, of the loud humming in the ivy-mantled tower of an old castle. (the second edition was dedicated to the current "queen bee," Victoria), successfully combined the practical with the historical and scientific. He kept only half a dozen hives, mostly for observation, but he saw how bees could be both a profitable part of cottage economy and a source of "pleasing and rational" amus.e.m.e.nt for the man of leisure. The bee, he said, "tends to enlarge and harmonize the mind, and to elevate it into worthy conceptions of Nature and its Author." His own writing transports you with the bees toward plants; he writes evocatively, for example, of the loud humming in the ivy-mantled tower of an old castle.

In the debate about straw skeps versus wooden hives, Dr. Bevan came down on the side of wood. The system of building up layers of boxes, or "storyfying," so that the honey could be removed without taking away all the bees, worked better in wooden hives. "I think wooden boxes have a great superiority over straw hives; they are more firm and steady, better suited for observing the operations of the bees through the gla.s.s windows in the backs and sides, and less liable to harbour moths, spiders, and other insects," he wrote.

Within a few years, the manufactured wooden hive began to replace the homemade straw skep, and this led to large increases in honey yields. The drive to produce more honey, through the application of science, was to be the story of the beekeeping century.

THE WORLD SHRANK in the nineteenth century. New inventions in America soon made their way to the Old World, and other innovations hurried back across the Atlantic. Industrialization brought affordable goods to the people; ma.s.s-produced books filled homes and libraries, spreading knowledge like pollen. Entomology grew as a subject in the United States, just as it did in Europe. Thomas Jefferson, in his in the nineteenth century. New inventions in America soon made their way to the Old World, and other innovations hurried back across the Atlantic. Industrialization brought affordable goods to the people; ma.s.s-produced books filled homes and libraries, spreading knowledge like pollen. Entomology grew as a subject in the United States, just as it did in Europe. Thomas Jefferson, in his Notes on the State of Virginia Notes on the State of Virginia, had called on Americans to become acquainted with the flora and fauna of their country, a challenge taken up by insect hunters when they went into the field armed with nets and collecting baskets.

In Philadelphia, a young boy named Lorenzo Langstroth, born in 1810, grew up so fascinated by insects that he wore out the knees of his trousers studying ants on the ground. He put down crumbs, pieces of meat, and dead flies to attract insects so he could watch them at close quarters, and roved around one of the city's parks observing the metamorphoses of cicadas. A teacher chastised the six-year-old for devoting too much time to trapping flies in paper cages; when she tore up one such homemade prison, releasing its captives, the boy cried himself to sleep in the dark cupboard where she had sent him as a punishment.

Langstroth left behind bugs to study at Yale, graduating with distinction in 1831; he was later ordained and took on a ministry in Andover, Ma.s.sachusetts. It was only in his late twenties that his childhood pa.s.sion for insects was reignited. In the summer of 1838, he encountered a large gla.s.s sphere full of honey on a table in a friend's parlor (such jars were attached to some hives for the bees to build their combs in them). This beautiful sight led Langstroth upstairs to the attic room where his friend's bees were kept; "the enthusiasms of my boyish days seemed, like a pent-up fire, to burst out into full flame," he later recalled. Immediately-on his way home-he bought two colonies of bees.

Langstroth began to study bees in earnest. He remembered sitting on his father's knee as he listened to him read Virgil's Georgics, Book Four Georgics, Book Four; now he absorbed the works of other such cla.s.sic writers as Swammerdam and Huber, and also became a devotee of the British Dr. Edward Bevan. In 1848, Langstroth moved back to Philadelphia and started up a larger-scale apiary. It was here that he was to make a discovery that would revolutionize beekeeping all over the world.

Most American bees were kept in simple, hollowed-out logs or plain box hives. All such designs shared the skep's fatal flaw: to remove the honeycomb, you had to cut it away from the surrounding walls. The bees would fill any s.p.a.ce between the comb and hive wall, either with more comb or, in the case of narrower gaps, with propolis, the sticky resin gathered from trees.

American bees had at that time been stricken by the wax moth, whose larvae destroy the honeybee's comb and brood. Probably brought over from Europe at the start of the century, the moth had devastated many hives; in 1808, it was estimated that four-fifths of the colonies in the Boston area had been abandoned because of it. This was another issue that a better hive could address.

It was Langstroth's refinement of the basic box hive that was to confront both problems. His influence was to extend far beyond the United States: some three-quarters of the world's hives today incorporate the discovery he was about to make. His simple deduction would change everything.

Langstroth had experimented on hives with frames of comb attached to top bars that slotted into the hive's body. He left a slight gap between the bars and the hive cover, making the combs theoretically easier to move; but the bees insisted on attaching the frames of comb to the sides of the hive. On October 30, 1851, Langstroth suddenly realized that this gap had to surround the entire frame. He saw that the bees instinctively left a corridor, between and around the combs, that only just just allowed two bees to pa.s.s each other; they filled in anything larger, as bees hate both drafts and wasted s.p.a.ce. This corridor, around 3/8 inch wide, has come to be known as the bee s.p.a.ce. If he left this exact distance around the frames of comb, they could be removed easily-both to harvest the honey and to examine the comb for diseases such as the wax moth. Langstroth's discovery was a "eureka" moment; at that instant, he wanted to run down the streets like Archimedes. allowed two bees to pa.s.s each other; they filled in anything larger, as bees hate both drafts and wasted s.p.a.ce. This corridor, around 3/8 inch wide, has come to be known as the bee s.p.a.ce. If he left this exact distance around the frames of comb, they could be removed easily-both to harvest the honey and to examine the comb for diseases such as the wax moth. Langstroth's discovery was a "eureka" moment; at that instant, he wanted to run down the streets like Archimedes.

Tantalizingly, it was too late in the beekeeping season to put the new principle into practice. All the same, Langstroth applied for a patent for his new hive in January 1852, quit his job at a school for young ladies, and made one hundred hives incorporating the bee s.p.a.ce. This was the first moveable-frame hive: the piece of equipment that is the basis of modern beekeeping.

Langstroth's moveable-frame hive: a revolution in beekeeping.

Langstroth's patent defined the bee s.p.a.ce, giving him-at least in theory-rights over every hive in which his modification was used. The discovery had major commercial potential. Improvements to the old box hives, through greater control over the combs, would result in healthier colonies and higher yields. "You have made not just a discovery but a revolution," a friend told him.

It was at this time of high excitement that Langstroth's mental health collapsed. He had long suffered, intermittently, from severe depression-"head trouble," as he called it. Now his problem struck again, in force. Leaving his wife and children in Philadelphia, he took refuge with his brother-in-law. Here, he managed to write his cla.s.sic book The Hive and the Honey-Bee The Hive and the Honey-Bee (1853), but was much debilitated. Trying to describe his severe sufferings, Langstroth quoted the seventeenth-century cleric and poet George Herbert: (1853), but was much debilitated. Trying to describe his severe sufferings, Langstroth quoted the seventeenth-century cleric and poet George Herbert: My thoughts are all a case of knivesWounding my heart Withscatter'd smart.

In a particularly painful manifestation of his illness, what formerly gave him the most pleasure-his bees-instead caused the most pain, stinging his mind with "scatter'd smart." He would sit on the other side of the house from the hives, hide his bee books, and even, when escaping into other literature, find the capital letter B B painful because it reminded him of the insect. Relief from such profound melancholy was only to be found in the impersonal field of the chessboard: he would lie awake at night, moving his mind through chess problems. painful because it reminded him of the insect. Relief from such profound melancholy was only to be found in the impersonal field of the chessboard: he would lie awake at night, moving his mind through chess problems.

Instead of bringing Langstroth riches, the patented invention brought strife and misery: this was a cla.s.sic example of an unworldly inventor coming into conflict with hard-faced businessmen. An idea as good as this was bound to spread like wildfire-and it did, irrespective of the rights of its inventor.

At first Langstroth, suffering from his "head trouble" and having little business ac.u.men, tried to get others to capitalize on the invention on his behalf. Meanwhile, others with a sharper approach just took the idea and ran, often making hives of slightly different designs, but still incorporating the concept of the bee s.p.a.ce. Langstroth teamed up with a businessman named R. C. Otis, who bought the patent right for the moveable-frame hive in the western states and territories. In defense of the patent right, Otis and Langstroth geared up for a lawsuit against an alleged infringer, Homer King. This New York-based businessman had contracted in 1867 to pay a royalty to Langstroth; he reneged on this three years later, saying he had changed the design and no longer needed to pay. The battle lines were drawn for a court case.

Meanwhile, American beekeeping was burgeoning, and organizations began to proliferate. In 1870, the first national convention of beekeepers, the North American Bee a.s.sociation, met in Michigan, with Langstroth as president. The following year, the Northeastern Beekeepers' a.s.sociation grew into a rival national group, the American Beekeepers' a.s.sociation-and its members also elected Langstroth as their president. The group's leader, Homer King, doubtless trying to put on a good show in front of the beekeeping community, then proposed that a fund of $5,000 be raised to support the bee-s.p.a.ce inventor who had been unable to capitalize on his discovery (due, of course, to the maneuvers of men like himself). What was more, promised King, he would lead the fund-raising with a donation of $50. Langstroth's colleague Otis stood up and denounced King, saying the bee master deserved justice, not charity-and he'd give $500 to start a fighting fund. King replied he'd give the inventor $1,000-and draw the check immediately! Otis called for King to be prosecuted. The row made it into the newspapers, which gleefully reported this testy quarrel between bee men.