This is a story reprinted from my blog. It was first posted a couple of years ago.
Bluebags and Bee Stings
It’s now springtime here in Australia … my favourite time of the year. Not that winter in Brisbane is too bad mind you – shirtsleeves weather for much of the time.
Anyway, springtime invariably brings strong memories of my childhood, growing up in a sleepy seaside suburb full of old timber houses that time forgot (mostly gentrified now and worth a million dollars).
Backyards full of citrus trees and vegetable patches. Trellises loaded with sweet peas and climbing beans. Wild patches at the bottom of the garden overgrown with lantana and canna lillies and bordered by rampant nasturtiums. Tumbledown chook sheds (chicken runs) and clumps of bananas and pawpaws.
It was a Huckleberry Finn type of growing up. We’d disappear from home after breakfast and reappear for dinner. Our days were filled with sailing, fishing, swimming, beachcombing, climbing cliffs, playing games in the parks, annoying neighbours and generally engaging in the sort of mischief that most small boys (and tomboys) get up to.
One of our occupational hazards in spring was bee sting. Bees were everywhere in our overgrown world of backyards, parks and beachside jungle. The clover sprang up in most gardens and footpaths – and of course we never wore shoes.
Everyday, one or other of us was down yowling and trying to pull the sting out of our foot without squeezing the poison sac attached to it (this was an intricate and hard earned skill). After that it was either a dunking in the water and some hobbling around or else a call for the universal remedy if we were within sight of home.
My memory of this was triggered a few days ago when a little kid down my street stepped on a bee on the footpath. His sister pulled out the sting and then went searching for something exotic in an aerosol can to spray on it. It reminded me of the gulf between now and then.
Back before automatic washing machines and washing powders with space age ingredients, we had boilers or coppers that contained very hot water and were ‘stirred’ with large wooden implements. Most shirts and sheets were white then of course and rarely made out of synthetic blends, so boiling the hell out of them and then wringing through manual devices like mangles was the order of the day. Wash sheds resembled medieval torture chambers.
There was one magic ingredient however that my grandmother added to the wash. It was called a blue bag. It was a small muslin wrapped bag of synthetic ultramarine and sodium bicarbonate. Ultramarine is a very blue, blue and strangely enough (probably because it absorbs yellow light) clothes came out fantastically white. Not that I cared much about that of course.
Its great magical use was on bee stings. Whenever the inevitable happened, one of our mothers or grandmothers would produce a wet blue bag, place it on the wound and … no more pain. None of us knew why of course, but we were grateful for this piece of passed down lore.
The other day as I watched the little fellow wriggling around while his sister was obviously rummaging around inside looking for some anti-sting product or other, I thought of my grandmother, always having to hand a simple product used everyday for washing and able to be deployed for other reasons. We’ve become a society of specialists – in needs and expectations.
Oh for the world of the generalist, analogue solutions, and grandmothers who were prescient when it came to the casualty needs of junior Huck Finns.
A swarm of bees suddenly appeared in our garden at lunchtime today and settled themselves into our hedge. Not having experienced this before we “googled” Kent Bees and was pleased to find your website. Thank you for attending so promptly and making it a very educational and sociable “tea drinking” evening!!!
Came back from holiday to find my last hive of bees all dead, all the honey had been raided by wasps and many many dead wasps both inside and outside the hive. Now I need to repopulate in 2009. I think I should burn all the old hives (some 15-20 yrs old)-what do you think?
Like the website. You could have an interactive google map with all bee catchers in the UK putting their details on the site so that much needed swarms could be collected rapidly. See boatlaunch.com, which a friend set up for RIB enthusiasts! Hope all well. Anthony
Not sure about burning the hives. Depends what state they are in. It always amazes me what bees will live in. They don’t seem to mind old hives so long as they are not damp or infested.
Like the idea of swarm catchers on google maps. Must be possible….but not sure if I have the time to do it!
Not quite sure why this guy isn’t the patron saint of beekeepers. Still, would be a good one to invoke if you are having bee trouble or are a beekeeper.
The flowers were blooming on the peach trees the first time I went out to photograph bees. After being told what I would need to do and where I would need to stand I was told to change into something white.
But why? I asked.
“Because you’re wearing black jeans and a dark sweater. To the bees you look like a polecat, a bear – something come to steal the honey,” was his reply.
How odd, I thought – that bees would practice profiling….
(not a comment for the blog)…Hi Lorne – good to meet you a couple of weekends ago at our orchard. Just to say, our business partners Julie and Anthony are very happy for you to site the hives in the spot we looked at, and we sorted out the boundary dispute in a very friendly manner, so it’s fine to put them over the fence in the woodland which is definitely our land!
If you call me I can let you know the combination for the gate so you can get a vehicle in. We are next there on Mon 25th May and then from Thurs 28th – Sun 31st May. Maybe we’ll see you there.
Many years ago, there was an argument between my living-partner (and best friend) and a neighbour who owned the large orchard opposite us. My friend, quite erroneously I believe, accused him of things he had not done. I could not sway the argument no matter what I did!
A bee came on to my hand one day. It rested a moment, then vibrated its wings for take-off. I asked it to help. I asked the Bee Soul to help. I knew it would happen.
I also asked for a ’sign’.
A few days later my friend came home and said he had made it up now with the orchard owner. They had met in town and decided they were both too old and grey to be fighting like this about silly things. My friend had been invited to tea there.
He came home an hour or so later. He was smiling. He told me the orchard owner had taken him to visit his hives (I did not know the man kept bees!) He had given him a gift. A pot of honey. He had said “Some of this honey must have been made from the flowers in your garden!”
Of all the stories left on this site, this has been the most inspiring for me! I have re-told it several times since to various friends – and it always leaves a warm silence at the end when they understand the message.
We think in this age of beekeeping as a small time pursuit for either the small business or for some form of esoteric pass-time. In the past bee-keeping was anything but that. As an industry in Eastern Europe it probably reached a climax around 1200-1400. The reason that Eastern Europe was probably much better at producing honey than the west was simply that it had larger relatively undisturbed forests…. Or at least the forests had a smaller head of both human and domesticated animal population. Large quantities of grazing will eventually produce grass, whereas a smaller quantity of grazing will induce flowering ground cover and ideal areas for bees.
The Germans in classical times used to venerate their beekeepers (this reference I can not find) and they achieved a priest like significance within their tribes. I could never quite get my head around this until I understood the economic significance of honey as well. Most of the following comes from Studies in Historical Geography (1983 Volume 1 (Academic Press) edited by Bater and French). The particular essay is Russians and the Forest by R.A. French p23-44.
French talks of the vast quantities of berries that could be picked by the peasants of Russia with productive areas producing up to 100kg/hectare of berries (bilberries and cowberries) per year as well as up to half a ton of mushrooms etc. However the honey was the most impressive with one village in 1599, Oreshenko in Belorussia having 1044 “bee-trees” listed in their records. 94 were oak and 950 were pine. 99 swarms were counted with an occupancy of roughly 10:1. In other parts the occupancy got as high as 6:1.
Bees made it into the Russian law books in the 12th century when the law codes, Russaya Pravda, were produced. In 1529 Lithuanian statutes also laid don laws against bee-tree destruction, determining that you could not go too close when ploughing or damage the tree by fire. In economic terms bees provided the most valuable forest resource and was one of the key drivers to eventual Russian expansion into Siberia.
Just how important was this industry? It was a major trading commodity in both Russia and Lithuania. As an example one nobleman, one Prince Suyatoslav of Kiev, had a honey store, in 1146, that totalled 500 berkovtsy, or 80 tonnes. At some times peasants were supposed to give half their honey takings to the crown in Russia, so honey became the business of everyone from peasant to csar.
In some areas peasants were employed to look after the crown’s bee-trees, and even in making new ones. (This was done by hacking out appropriate hollows in the trees.) The volume of honey produced was one thing but also beeswax was bought and sold as well. In the sixteenth century Customs Rolls of boats going down the river Neman to Konigsberg 600tonnes of beeswax was recorded as having passed by in just 6 weeks. Even in the 18th century the trade continued with the expansion towards the south and east and prime honey lands were moving east and south with the expansion. At that time the Province of Voronezh was exporting 900tonnes of honey per year. It was thus not really difficult to see why both the peasant and the aristocracy were interested in bees.
With the expansion of Russia in the 16th to 20th centuries one finds the forest quality of the interior diminishing and thus the bee-farming being pushed more often than not towards the frontiers. Here the “natural” (I am not a fan of this word as it implies no human interference, which is rubbish) forest was less disturbed and the berries still proliferated and thus was the perfect bee place. The more livestock the less bees I am assuming.
On some more reading I came across other environmental protection techniques that included the concept of Islamic “hima”. “Hima” is esentially the notion of conserving an area for specific grazing, fuel, timber etc rights and has its roots in pre-Islamic times. One of them is a “reserve for bee-keeping. Grazing is allowed only after the flowering season. These reserves are closed for five months of the year including the spring months”. For more information on “Hima” try http://muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?ArticleID=916
Cheers
Archie
PS It is amazing where bees turn up when you least expect them.
This is a story reprinted from my blog. It was first posted a couple of years ago.
Bluebags and Bee Stings
It’s now springtime here in Australia … my favourite time of the year. Not that winter in Brisbane is too bad mind you – shirtsleeves weather for much of the time.
Anyway, springtime invariably brings strong memories of my childhood, growing up in a sleepy seaside suburb full of old timber houses that time forgot (mostly gentrified now and worth a million dollars).
Backyards full of citrus trees and vegetable patches. Trellises loaded with sweet peas and climbing beans. Wild patches at the bottom of the garden overgrown with lantana and canna lillies and bordered by rampant nasturtiums. Tumbledown chook sheds (chicken runs) and clumps of bananas and pawpaws.
It was a Huckleberry Finn type of growing up. We’d disappear from home after breakfast and reappear for dinner. Our days were filled with sailing, fishing, swimming, beachcombing, climbing cliffs, playing games in the parks, annoying neighbours and generally engaging in the sort of mischief that most small boys (and tomboys) get up to.
One of our occupational hazards in spring was bee sting. Bees were everywhere in our overgrown world of backyards, parks and beachside jungle. The clover sprang up in most gardens and footpaths – and of course we never wore shoes.
Everyday, one or other of us was down yowling and trying to pull the sting out of our foot without squeezing the poison sac attached to it (this was an intricate and hard earned skill). After that it was either a dunking in the water and some hobbling around or else a call for the universal remedy if we were within sight of home.
My memory of this was triggered a few days ago when a little kid down my street stepped on a bee on the footpath. His sister pulled out the sting and then went searching for something exotic in an aerosol can to spray on it. It reminded me of the gulf between now and then.
Back before automatic washing machines and washing powders with space age ingredients, we had boilers or coppers that contained very hot water and were ‘stirred’ with large wooden implements. Most shirts and sheets were white then of course and rarely made out of synthetic blends, so boiling the hell out of them and then wringing through manual devices like mangles was the order of the day. Wash sheds resembled medieval torture chambers.
There was one magic ingredient however that my grandmother added to the wash. It was called a blue bag. It was a small muslin wrapped bag of synthetic ultramarine and sodium bicarbonate. Ultramarine is a very blue, blue and strangely enough (probably because it absorbs yellow light) clothes came out fantastically white. Not that I cared much about that of course.
Its great magical use was on bee stings. Whenever the inevitable happened, one of our mothers or grandmothers would produce a wet blue bag, place it on the wound and … no more pain. None of us knew why of course, but we were grateful for this piece of passed down lore.
The other day as I watched the little fellow wriggling around while his sister was obviously rummaging around inside looking for some anti-sting product or other, I thought of my grandmother, always having to hand a simple product used everyday for washing and able to be deployed for other reasons. We’ve become a society of specialists – in needs and expectations.
Oh for the world of the generalist, analogue solutions, and grandmothers who were prescient when it came to the casualty needs of junior Huck Finns.
I have just re-read your story.
How beautifully written it is!
And what a powerful message!
Is there no going back?
Hope you write for a living!
If so, would love to read more like this!
A swarm of bees suddenly appeared in our garden at lunchtime today and settled themselves into our hedge. Not having experienced this before we “googled” Kent Bees and was pleased to find your website. Thank you for attending so promptly and making it a very educational and sociable “tea drinking” evening!!!
Lorne,
Came back from holiday to find my last hive of bees all dead, all the honey had been raided by wasps and many many dead wasps both inside and outside the hive. Now I need to repopulate in 2009. I think I should burn all the old hives (some 15-20 yrs old)-what do you think?
Like the website. You could have an interactive google map with all bee catchers in the UK putting their details on the site so that much needed swarms could be collected rapidly. See boatlaunch.com, which a friend set up for RIB enthusiasts! Hope all well. Anthony
Anthony,
Not sure about burning the hives. Depends what state they are in. It always amazes me what bees will live in. They don’t seem to mind old hives so long as they are not damp or infested.
Like the idea of swarm catchers on google maps. Must be possible….but not sure if I have the time to do it!
http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/ASaints/Modomnoc.html
Not quite sure why this guy isn’t the patron saint of beekeepers. Still, would be a good one to invoke if you are having bee trouble or are a beekeeper.
The flowers were blooming on the peach trees the first time I went out to photograph bees. After being told what I would need to do and where I would need to stand I was told to change into something white.
But why? I asked.
“Because you’re wearing black jeans and a dark sweater. To the bees you look like a polecat, a bear – something come to steal the honey,” was his reply.
How odd, I thought – that bees would practice profiling….
Thanks for a great website!
Thanks, Becky, for such a lovely story. Please leave more like this!
(not a comment for the blog)…Hi Lorne – good to meet you a couple of weekends ago at our orchard. Just to say, our business partners Julie and Anthony are very happy for you to site the hives in the spot we looked at, and we sorted out the boundary dispute in a very friendly manner, so it’s fine to put them over the fence in the woodland which is definitely our land!
If you call me I can let you know the combination for the gate so you can get a vehicle in. We are next there on Mon 25th May and then from Thurs 28th – Sun 31st May. Maybe we’ll see you there.
Yours
Natasha
A Gift From The Bees.
Many years ago, there was an argument between my living-partner (and best friend) and a neighbour who owned the large orchard opposite us. My friend, quite erroneously I believe, accused him of things he had not done. I could not sway the argument no matter what I did!
A bee came on to my hand one day. It rested a moment, then vibrated its wings for take-off. I asked it to help. I asked the Bee Soul to help. I knew it would happen.
I also asked for a ’sign’.
A few days later my friend came home and said he had made it up now with the orchard owner. They had met in town and decided they were both too old and grey to be fighting like this about silly things. My friend had been invited to tea there.
He came home an hour or so later. He was smiling. He told me the orchard owner had taken him to visit his hives (I did not know the man kept bees!) He had given him a gift. A pot of honey. He had said “Some of this honey must have been made from the flowers in your garden!”
Sylvia,
Of all the stories left on this site, this has been the most inspiring for me! I have re-told it several times since to various friends – and it always leaves a warm silence at the end when they understand the message.
Thanks so much for sharing it with us!
Beekeeping in Russian Forests
We think in this age of beekeeping as a small time pursuit for either the small business or for some form of esoteric pass-time. In the past bee-keeping was anything but that. As an industry in Eastern Europe it probably reached a climax around 1200-1400. The reason that Eastern Europe was probably much better at producing honey than the west was simply that it had larger relatively undisturbed forests…. Or at least the forests had a smaller head of both human and domesticated animal population. Large quantities of grazing will eventually produce grass, whereas a smaller quantity of grazing will induce flowering ground cover and ideal areas for bees.
The Germans in classical times used to venerate their beekeepers (this reference I can not find) and they achieved a priest like significance within their tribes. I could never quite get my head around this until I understood the economic significance of honey as well. Most of the following comes from Studies in Historical Geography (1983 Volume 1 (Academic Press) edited by Bater and French). The particular essay is Russians and the Forest by R.A. French p23-44.
French talks of the vast quantities of berries that could be picked by the peasants of Russia with productive areas producing up to 100kg/hectare of berries (bilberries and cowberries) per year as well as up to half a ton of mushrooms etc. However the honey was the most impressive with one village in 1599, Oreshenko in Belorussia having 1044 “bee-trees” listed in their records. 94 were oak and 950 were pine. 99 swarms were counted with an occupancy of roughly 10:1. In other parts the occupancy got as high as 6:1.
Bees made it into the Russian law books in the 12th century when the law codes, Russaya Pravda, were produced. In 1529 Lithuanian statutes also laid don laws against bee-tree destruction, determining that you could not go too close when ploughing or damage the tree by fire. In economic terms bees provided the most valuable forest resource and was one of the key drivers to eventual Russian expansion into Siberia.
Just how important was this industry? It was a major trading commodity in both Russia and Lithuania. As an example one nobleman, one Prince Suyatoslav of Kiev, had a honey store, in 1146, that totalled 500 berkovtsy, or 80 tonnes. At some times peasants were supposed to give half their honey takings to the crown in Russia, so honey became the business of everyone from peasant to csar.
In some areas peasants were employed to look after the crown’s bee-trees, and even in making new ones. (This was done by hacking out appropriate hollows in the trees.) The volume of honey produced was one thing but also beeswax was bought and sold as well. In the sixteenth century Customs Rolls of boats going down the river Neman to Konigsberg 600tonnes of beeswax was recorded as having passed by in just 6 weeks. Even in the 18th century the trade continued with the expansion towards the south and east and prime honey lands were moving east and south with the expansion. At that time the Province of Voronezh was exporting 900tonnes of honey per year. It was thus not really difficult to see why both the peasant and the aristocracy were interested in bees.
With the expansion of Russia in the 16th to 20th centuries one finds the forest quality of the interior diminishing and thus the bee-farming being pushed more often than not towards the frontiers. Here the “natural” (I am not a fan of this word as it implies no human interference, which is rubbish) forest was less disturbed and the berries still proliferated and thus was the perfect bee place. The more livestock the less bees I am assuming.
Thanks so much, Archie, for this story. Really interesting. I will put it on the main site as a post!
On some more reading I came across other environmental protection techniques that included the concept of Islamic “hima”. “Hima” is esentially the notion of conserving an area for specific grazing, fuel, timber etc rights and has its roots in pre-Islamic times. One of them is a “reserve for bee-keeping. Grazing is allowed only after the flowering season. These reserves are closed for five months of the year including the spring months”. For more information on “Hima” try http://muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?ArticleID=916
Cheers
Archie
PS It is amazing where bees turn up when you least expect them.
I have just written a blog post about bees and how they can predict the weather: hope you can use it.
http://constantstateofflux.com/2010/02/18/telling-the-bees/
I plan to write more soon.
btw, I love your sweet blog! Lots of info here to read.
thank you,
Louisa x