SC - Chicken usage

[Christi Redeker (Contractor)]

Earlier today on Thursday May 22, Michael Farrell commented:

> African bees have not been domesticated.  If you want the honey you chop
off
> pieces of the hive and pay the price for it.

Medieval beekeeping differed from modern methods in noteable ways. The first
is that you are closer to the truth here than you knew. Medieval hives were
generally made of hollowed logs, ceramic pots or the "beehive" shaped
basketry 
ones that you see in medieval manuscripts. For any of these, to get the 
honey out you distroyed the hive. Thus making it more difficult to keep the
same bees for an extended time. Since the bees were often killed by putting
the hive in water or using burning sulfur.

Modern beekeepers often supply wax combs. The idea being that the less time
and energy the bees have to use making wax, the more honey they can make.
This of course wasn't done in medieval times because there was no other
source of wax and the beeswax itself was a valuable commodity.

Modern hives use a partion to keep the queen and the honey seperate. This
keeps the brood food (made to feed the developing bees) which is bitter
from mixing with the honey which you want sweet.

For those interested in more details, look at this file in the ANIMALS 
section of my SCA Rialto Files:

bees-msg          (30K) 12/21/93    Period beekeeping.

This is a particularly good file and includes quotes from several medieval
sources about beekeeping, northern bee keeping vs. southern, a large
bibliography and a several comments and explantions by modern beekeepers.

This file is available at:
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/rialto/rialto.html

Stefan li Rous
Ansteorra
markh at risc.sps.mot.com