Roman Beekeeping: Part 2

Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.

Wild creatures, such as roebucks, chamois and also various kinds of antelopes, deer and wild boars sometimes serve to enhance the splendour and pleasure of their owners, and sometimes to bring profit and revenue. Those who keep game shut up for their own pleasure are content to construct a park, on any suitable site in the neighbourhood of the farm buildings, and always give them food and water by hand. Those on the other hand who look for profit and revenue, when there is a wood near the farm (for it is important that it should not be far out of sight of the owner), reserve it without hesitation for the above-mentioned animals, and if there is no natural supply of water, either running-water is introduced or else ponds are dug and lined with mortar to receive and hold the rain-water.

The extent of wood involved is in proportion to the size of each man's property and, if the cheapness of stone and labour make it advisable, certainly a wall built with unhewn stone and lime is put round it; otherwise it is made with unburnt brick and clay.

When neither of these methods serves the purpose of the master of the house, reason requires that they should be shut up with a post fence; for this is the name given to a certain kind of lattice made of oak or cork-wood, since olive-wood is only rarely obtainable; in a word, according to local conditions, any kind of wood is chosen for this purpose which resists injury from rain better than any other. Whether it be the round trunk of a tree or cleft into stakes, as its thickness demands, it has several holes bored through its side and is erected firmly in the ground at fixed intervals all round the park; then bars are put across through the holes in the sides of the posts to prevent the passage of the wild beasts. It is enough to fix the posts at intervals of eight feet and to fasten them to the cross-bars in such a way that the width of space which occurs where holes are left may not offer the animals a means of escape.

In this manner you can even enclose very wide regions and tracts of mountains, as the vast extent of ground permits in the provinces of Gaul and in certain others; for there is both a great abundance of timber for making posts and everything else which is needed for the purpose is in abundant supply. The soil abounds in frequent springs, which is particularly wholesome for the above-named kinds of animals; then too it furnishes wild creatures with fodder most liberally even of its own accord. Woodlands are chiefly chosen which abound in the fruits of the ground and also in trees; for as these creatures have need of grass, so too they require the fruits of oak-trees, and those woods are most highly commended which are most productive of the acorn of the ordinary oak and of the evergreen oak and likewise of the Turkey-oak, also of the fruit of the strawberry-tree and the other wild fruits which we described in great detail when we were discussing farm-yard pigs. For the fodder of wild cattle is almost the same as that of domestic animals.

Nevertheless the careful head of a household ought not to be content with the foods which the earth produces by its own nature, but, at the seasons of the year when the woods do not provide food, he ought to come to the help of the animals which he has confined with the fruits of the harvest which he has stored up, and feed them on barley or wheat-meal or beans, and especially, too, on grape-husks; in a word, he should give them whatever costs the least. Also in order that the wild creatures may understand that provision is being made for them, it will be a good plan to send among them one or two animals which have been tamed at home, and which, roaming through the whole park, may direct the hesitating creatures to the fare offered to them. It is advisable that this should be done not only during the scarce season of winter but also when those which were with young have brought them forth, so that they may rear them better.

And so the park-keeper will have frequently to be on the watch and see if they have borne their young, in order that their strength may be sustained by cereals given them by hand. But neither the antelope nor the wild boar nor any other wild creature should be allowed to live to a greater age than four years. For up to that time they advance in growth, after it they grow old and lean; and so they should be turned into cash while a vigorous time of life preserves their bodily comeliness.

The deer, however, may be kept for many years, for it long remains young in your possession, because it has been allotted a life of longer duration. But as regards animals of lesser growth, such as the hare, our advice is that, in those parks surrounded by a wall, the seeds of mixed cereals and of the pot-herbs, wild endive and lettuce, should be thrown upon small beds of earth made at different intervals apart. Also the Carthaginian and our own native chick-pea, and barley too and chickling should be produced out of store and put before them after having been soaked in rain-water; for dry food is not much sought after by hares. Moreover, it is easily understood even without my mentioning it, concerning these animals and others like them, how inexpedient it is to introduce them into a park which is surrounded by railings, since owing to the small size of their bodies they can easily creep under the bars and, having obtained free exit, manage to escape.

Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella, On Agriculture, trans. E. S. Forster and Edward H. Heffner, vol. 2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954), 421-427.

Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (4-70 CE)

Historic Beekeeping

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