1889 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



83 



FLOATING APIARIES IN EGYPT. 



HOW THE BUSINESS WAS PROSECUTED OVER 

 YEARS AGO ON THE NILE. 



100 



fpIHE following sketch we copy from the 

 T Deutsche Illustrierte Bienen Zeitung for 

 f November, page 44. The engraving 

 also from the same source we repro- 

 duce. The article was written by Mr. 

 T. Kellen, of Luxemburg. W. P. Root, our 

 proof-reader, translates as follows : 



Not long- ago 1 discovered in the city library of 

 this place, Luxemburg:, a French work on bees, 

 which for a century had been unremoved, leaves 

 uncut, and was covered with venerable dust and 

 finger-marks. In this work I found a very interest- 

 ing notice in reference to portable apiaries of that 

 period. The author of the above work, B. E. Manu- 

 el, procured some notes of a description of Egypt, 

 and added a few concluding: observations of Reau- 

 mer thereto. From this and other histories of 

 travels, as well as from Maillet's Description of 

 Egypt, published in 1740, it appears that, in the last 

 century, there were a great many colonies of bees 

 kept in the land of the Pharaohs, and 

 that a very lively business was main- 

 tained therein, quite unlike what we 

 have in our own country. Dr. West- 

 hau reports, in a description of a trav- 

 el through Egypt, in 1702, the follow- 

 ing: "In many places I found apicul- 

 ture greatly hindered, notwithstand- 

 ing the inhabitants manifest much 

 interest in it. In the season of bloom 

 they move with their bees, now here 

 and now there, in order to All their 

 hives with honey." 



In the last century there was found, 

 with all of the ignorance and wildness 

 of the inhabitants, an occasional trace 

 to remind one of the previous luxury 

 of a keen and diligent generation, 

 long past. One of the most noticeable 

 evidences of their activity was the an- 

 nual sending of their bees to remote 

 districts, that they might secure pas- 

 turage, which occasionally failed them 

 at their own stands. 



As Upper Egypt is hotter than Lower Egypt, and 

 the land there is freer from the inundations of the 

 Nile, the honey-plants there develop at least six 

 weeks earlier. The inhabitants were fully aware of 

 this fact, and availed themselves of it for the bene- 

 fit of their bees. In Lower and Middle Egypt they 

 placed a certain number of colonies of bees, which 

 were often kept in jugs and bowls, and often in 

 cylinders or baskets made of burnt clay, or made 

 out of withes braided, and besmeared with Nile 

 slime, made expressly for this purpose— forerun- 

 ners of the portable bee-hives of Swabia. If the 

 hives were required at the upper end of Egypt, 

 they were transported thither, so the bees could 

 visit the neighboring honey-plants and shrubs. 

 When the crop in Upper Egypt was exhausted, 

 they floated the skiffs a few miles down stream, 

 and waited there as long as honey could be found 

 in paying quantities. 



At the beginning of the month of February they 

 arrived at Lower Egypt, where they delivered the 

 hives back to their owners. The latter then sold 

 the entire product at wholesale in Cairo. The bee- 



keepers from Upper Egypt, after they had dispos- 

 ed of their products in the region of the delta of 

 the Nile, and had secured what honey they could 

 there, returned again up stream to their homes. 

 Unfortunately, hitherto history has furnished us 

 no details in regard to portable apiaries in this 

 land of early antiquity, which are authentic; nev- 

 ertheless, it is easy to conjecture that that inven- 

 tive people, as the valley of the Nile bears them 

 witness, will convert it, as they did a century ago, 

 into the business of portable apiculture. One may 

 easily believe that Egypt first suggested the same 

 business to Greece and other lands. The Roman 

 agricultural writer, Columella, writes (De Re Rusti- 

 ca), Book IX., chapter 14, in replying to Celsus, 

 that in Achaia the bees from Attica and Eubcea, on 

 all the Cycladian islands to the island of Skiros, 

 and from the various Sicilian coasts to Hybla, were 

 cultivated for honey. This custom was, in all 

 probability, introduced from Egypt at the time of 

 Solon, for the civilization of Egypt is unquestiona- 

 bly much older than that of Greece. Before Solon 

 arose as reformer in Athens he traveled through 

 Egypt, and learnec there how to make manyim- 



FLOATING APIARY, AS THEY USED TO DO IT ON THE NILE. 



provements which he afterward made useful to his 

 native land. 



But how stands bee culture now in Egypt? 

 When even the fellahin and Copts conspire to drive 

 out apiculture, no more will be read in modern his- 

 tories of travels in Egypt in regard to movable 

 apiaries; and no traveler will see any more the 

 skiffs on the Nile, laden with hives. This is easy to 

 be seen, when one reflects how downtrodden Egypt 

 is under the foot of the Mohammedan. 



I am sorry that the original manuscript 

 did not give us more particulars. For in- 

 stance, did that chap in the back of the boat 

 have nothing to do but smoke his pipe? 

 Were the bees fastened in the hives during 

 the trip, or did they work along the shores 

 and " catch up " V Will eight hives of bees, 

 as shown in the cut, pay the expenses of the 

 whole establishment, with two men to run 

 it, letting one man smoke most of the time 

 " to boot '' ? If the bees are of the Egyptian 

 " denomination," I should think the "house 

 in the stern might come quite handy. 



