Roman Beekeeping: Part 5

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 It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.

Meanwhile, when you have chosen your bees in accordance with the points which we have just mentioned, feeding-grounds ought to be assigned to the bees of which you approve. These should be as retired as possible and, as our Maro directs, void of cattle and with a sunny aspect as little as possible exposed to storms,

Where winds may not approach; for winds prevent

The bees from bearing home their food; nor sheep,

Nor frisky kids must trample down the flowers,

Nor heifers wandering o'er the plain shake off

The dews or crush the rising blades of grass.

The region should also be rich in small clumps, especially thyme and marjoram and also in Greek savory and our own Italian savory, which the country-folk call satureia. Next let there be plenty of shrubs of larger growth, such as rosemary and both kinds of trefoil (for there is one variety which is sown and another which grows of its own accord), also the ever-green pine and the lesser holm-oak (for the taller variety is universally condemned). Ivy, too, is admitted not for its other good qualities but because it provides a large quantity of honey.

Of trees the following are very highly commended, the red and white jujube-trees, likewise tamarisks, also almond-trees and peach-trees and pear-trees, in a word, so as not to waste time in naming each kind, the majority of the fruit-bearing trees. Of woodland trees the most suitable are the acorn-bearing oaks, also terebinths and mastic-trees, which closely resemble them, and lime-trees. Of all the trees of this class yews only are excluded as being hurtful.

Moreover a thousand seeds, which flourish in uncultivated turf or are turned up in the furrow, produce flowers which are much loved by bees, for example shrubs of starwort in virgin soil, stalks of bear's foot, & stems of asphodel and the sword-like leaf of the narcissus. White lilies sown between the furrows in the garden make a brilliant show and the gilliflowers have no less pure a colour; then there are red and yellow roses and purple violets and sky-blue larkspur; also the Corycian and Sicilian saffron-bulbs are planted to give colour and scent to the honey.

Moreover,countless herbs of a baser kind spring up on cultivated land and pasture which supply an abundance of wax for the honey-combs, such as the common charlock and the horse-radish, which is no more precious, the mustard-herb, and flowers of wild endive and black poppy, also the field parsnip, and the cultivated variety which bears the same name and which the Greeks call staphylinos (carrot). But of all the plants which I have suggested and of those which I have not mentioned so as to save time (for their number could not be computed), thyme yields honey with the best flavour; the next best are Greek savory, wild thyme and marjoram. In the third class, but still of high quality, are rosemary and our Italian savory, which I have called satureia. Next the flowers of the tamarisk and the jujube-tree and the other kinds of fodder which I suggested have only a mediocre flavour.

The honey which is considered of the poorest quality is the woodland honey which comes from dirty feeding-grounds and is produced from broom-trees and strawberry-trees, and the farm-house honey which comes from vegetables. Now that I have described the situation of the feeding grounds and also the various kinds of food, I will next speak of the arrangement for receiving and housing the swarm.

Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella, On Agriculture, trans. E. S. Forster and Edward H. Heffner, vol. 2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954), 435-439.

Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (4-70 CE)

Historic Beekeeping

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