Prominent in history.
Vital to the natural way of the world.
It should be no shock bees have even left their mark in great works of fiction. Have you a guess as to which fictional icon tended to a hive in his retirement. . . ? Discover who and more Victorian beekeeping facts below!
1. Victorians kept bees in a basket known as a skep.
The lightweight basket proved to be useful as a moveable hive. However, it was difficult to retrieve the honey without killing the colony.
In 1851, Lorenzo Langstroth created the modern hive. The invention allowed the honey to be gathered without harming the bee. He is credited as The Father of Beekeeping.
2. In his retirement, Sherlock Holmes became an avid beekeeper.
Smoking pipe tobacco and playing violin are prevalent habits and hobbies of the iconic detective. These allowed his subconscious time to resolve many a mystery. But after his great adventures, how did he occupy himself?
Holmes could be found on a small farm. There, he kept an apiary to preoccupy his time.
3. The British Beehive was a famous cartoon
According to The Very British Beehive, “In 1840 the book illustrator and caricaturist George Cruikshank (1792-1878) designed ‘The British Beehive’ as an anti-reformist comment in support of not expanding the franchise to the public voter.”
Upon closer examination, Queen Victoria can be identified at the top of the skep as the reigning queen bee.
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4. Honeybees were an emblem of the Bonaparte family.
Thought to be a resurrected symbol from the Merovingian dynasty to remind countrymen of its oldest sovereigns, such is not the only theory of its origins. Another supposes the fleur-de-lis was merely inverted upon his occupancy at Tuileries. Upside down, it resembled the insect.
5. Leo Tolstoy mentions bees twice in “War and Peace.”
The Russian author’s obsession with beekeeping was recorded in his wife’s diary. She wrote of him, “the centre of the world for him now, and everybody has to be interested exclusively in Bees!”
His observations provided powerful imagery in his works. For example, he wrote, “One can no more approach people without love than one can approach bees without care. Such is the quality of bees…”