“Pliny states that the custom of removing bees from place to place for fresh pasturage was frequent in the Roman territories, and such is still the practice of the Italians who live near the banks of the Po, (the river which Pliny particularly instances) mentioned by Alexander de Montford, who says that the Italians treat their bees in nearly the same manner as the Egyptians did and still do; that they load boats with hives and convey them to the neighbourhood of the mountains of Piedmont; that in proportion as the bees gather their harvest, the boats, by growing heavier, sink deeper into the water; and that the watermen determine from this when their hives are loaded sufficiently and it is time to carry them back to their places from which they came. The same author relates that the people of the country of Juliers used the same practice; for that, at a certain season of the year, they carried their bees to the foot of the mountains that were covered with wild thyme.”
[Main image: Miniature by Andrea da Firenze, from an edition of Natural History by Pliny the Elder, c.1457–58 – British Library]
Twenty years ago, if anyone had said I’d become a beekeeper I would have thought they didn’t know me very well. It would never have crossed my mind or compared with my other interests. Then one day my daughter came home from junior school with a children’s book about honeybees. That caught my wife’s attention and she found out about, and started to attend, the ADBKA introductory course. However, she wasn’t so keen on diseases and pests so I said I would attend that week so that we at least had the knowledge in the house. I ended up completing the course (and in fact did it all again the following year), but although I was interested I still wasn’t entirely sure