Roman Beekeeping: Part 12
"There are some people who prefer to get rid of a king-bee that is old, but this is harmful; for the crowd of older bees, who form a kind of…
From: 4 C.E. To: 70 C.E.
Location: Carsoli, L'Aquila, Abruzzo, Italy
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 It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
But sometimes the king-bee has to be put to now to death when an old hive falls short of its proper complement of bees, and its want of numbers must be made up from another swarm. Therefore, when in the early spring a young brood is born in the hive, the new king-bee is squeezed to death, so that the multitude of bees may live with their parents without discord. But if the combs have produced no offspring, it will be open to you to bring together the population of two or three hives into one, but only after they have been sprinkled with sweet liquid; then you can shut them up and, after placing food for them, keep them enclosed for about three days, leaving only small breathing-holes, until they are accustomed to live together.
There are some people who prefer to get rid of a king-bee that is old, but this is harmful; for the crowd of older bees, who form a kind of senate, do not think fit to obey the juniors and, through obstinately despising the orders of those who are stronger than themselves, are visited with punishment and death. The trouble, indeed, which usually befalls a younger swarm, when the king of the old bees whom we have left in power has failed through old age and wild discord arises through lack of control (just as happens in a family when its head dies), can easily be met. For one leader is chosen from those hives which have several chiefs and is transferred to those which have no one to govern them, and set up as ruler.
In those quarters which are afflicted by some pestilence the lack of bees can be remedied with less trouble; for when the disaster to the crowded hive is recognized, you must examine any combs which it contains. You must then next cut away, from the wax which holds the seeds, that part in which the offspring of the kingly race comes to life. It is easy to see this, since almost at the very end of the wax there appears as it were the nipple of a breast projecting somewhat and with a wider cavity than the rest of the holes, in which the young bees of the common kind are enclosed. Celsus indeed declares that there are transverse cavities in the outermost combs which contain the royal progeny. Hyginus, too, following the authority of the Greeks, says that the ruler is not formed, like the rest of the bees, from a small worm, but that, on the circumference of the combs, straight holes are to be found somewhat larger than those which hold the bees of common birth, filled with a kind of dirt of a red colour from which the winged king-bee is immediately formed.
Bibliography
Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella, On Agriculture, trans. E. S. Forster and Edward H. Heffner, vol. 2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954), 467-471.
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