The Landing Board is a series on beekeeping history. In it, I dig deep into the backstories, past, and less-explored parts of the history of honey bees, beekeeping, and the place of it in society.
For quick tidbits, follow @TheLandingBoard on Instagram
Misunderstandings about honey bees
A. A. Milne and his illustrator E. H. Shephard, in creating Winnie the Pooh (1926) and its illustrations, did an...
Read MoreBeekeeping protective gear has a long history of innovation
The motivation of avoiding stings has meant a long history of protective equipment innovation. One of many many designs that...
Read MoreA precursor of the Flow Hive from 1940
The Flow Hive is a hive form in which honey frames are designed to, at the turn of a crank,...
Read MoreWhen we killed bees to harvest honey and wax (1716 example)
As my family and I prepare to do our annual honey harvest, the care we take to preserve both bees...
Read MoreDrunken bees lead officers to stills (Prohibition Era 1920-1933)
With no judgment on how you and yours may be planning to spend this Independence Day, I share the following,...
Read MoreThe 19th century boom in beekeeping inventions (1800s)
The Industrial Revolution eventually reached beekeeping. In the 19th century, as agriculture and production mechanized, and saw the arrival of...
Read MoreBee smoker alternatives: Old ways of stupifying or anesthetizing bees for taking honey (1800s)
In the 1800s, realizing how wasteful using sulfur to kills bees to harvest honey was - then the common practice...
Read MoreObservation hives: Historic and ongoing interest in the observation of honey bees
Maryland beekeeper and author Frank Linton is a strong advocate for beekeepers having an observation hive, so they can learn...
Read MoreClimb Everest, sell more honey (1953)
While it is expensive and dangerous to attempt to summit Mt. Everest (29,032 feet), it could boost your honey sales....
Read MoreExcitement about artificial honey (late 1800s)
An earlier post reported the rising alarm about artificial and adulterated honey during the late 1800s. But for a time,...
Read MoreThe folk practice of tanging to get swarms to return (ancient and continuing?)
As swarm season in the Northern hemisphere continues, it seems timely to look in on tanging. Tanging means making loud...
Read MoreThe ideal “Bee Woman” (1902)
Tomorrow, as I write this, is Mother's Day. So I thought we might look in on thoughts about women in...
Read MoreBell jars for honey production (1800s)
In the later 1800s, beekeepers induced honey bees to make and fill comb in glass jars, set atop hives, where...
Read MoreHoney bees and the law: When honey bees were considered trespassers (late 1880s)
A Canadian court, in 1887, enjoined a beekeeper from operating an apiary in a village because the bees were considered...
Read MoreSwarm prevention in the past (19th Century beekeeping)
It is swarm season, probably in most of the Northern temperate climate, as I write this. Ever-tinkering and experimenting beekeepers...
Read MoreBugonia: the ancient belief that honey bees emerge from putrefying carcasses (ancient times)
Dead cow on your back 40? Maybe leave it out there. In the late 1600s, n his treatise on beekeeping,...
Read MoreScouts offered merit badges for beekeeping
The Boy Scouts, Girls Scouts, and Girl Guides all had merit badges for beekeeping (originally “bee farming” in the Boy...
Read MoreBeekeeping Supplies at (some of) your nearest Sears Roebuck (1960)
Sixty-some years ago, there were locations of Sears, Roebuck & Co. that carried beekeeping supplies. I live eight tenths of...
Read MoreNotably elegant Victorian aspirations for housing bees (1860s-1880s)
In beekeeping, mad schemes, intricate new technologies, and fancy designs sometimes pop up to try to entice the hobbyist. In...
Read MoreHow the honey bee got its sting (ancient story)
An Aesop fable((From the Townsend 1867 version of the Aesop fable Three Hundred Aesop's Fables. United Kingdom, George Routledge and...
Read More
