Bees in America

by Tammy Horn

  The American Dream was just then beginning to be defined by wealth at the expense of exploitable natural resources. Fortunately for Langstroth, his belief in divinity, his sincere love for bees and his fellow neighbors, and his ingenuity brought him enduring fame and respect during his lifetime. Even though financial wealth eluded him, a large community consisting of family, in-laws, church members, and beekeepers cared for and about him. Furthermore, Langstroth continued to revolutionize American beekeeping. He, along with a beekeeper named Samuel Wagner, decided to import the Italian bee, overcoming incredible odds to do so.

  In many ways, the Italian honey bee was a perfect fit for nineteenth-century American beekeepers: it could withstand cold temperatures; it tended to be gentler than the common German black bees; and the queens tended to be more prolific.

  The logistics of importing the bee were quite difficult given the vagaries of ocean commerce. Beekeepers on both sides of the Atlantic could not figure out how to package the bees so they could withstand the length of the ocean voyage, and sea captains often could not guarantee adequate care in the transatlantic passage. Nevertheless, Langstroth and Wagner finally succeeded in September 1859. The following entries from Langstroth’s diary show how tenacious Langstroth was in his efforts to help the one Italian queen that survived:

  Sept. 4th: Cut out the combs and found a living queen. I never handled anything in my life with such care. If the queen had been killed, I should have felt worse than any regicide ever felt, for they mean to kill royalty. Strange that so small a creature should be capable of producing so exciting an effect!

  Sept. 5th: I arose very early, fearful that the queen might have been chilled, and found that the bees had left her. I took her out of the cage with fear and trembling. She was stiff and could hardly move. I warmed her with my breath and returned her to her colony, which I kept in the cellar.

  Sept. 7th: Transferred a colony of common bees and removed queen—gave them Italian [queen] in a cage. Near sunset, let out Italian queen very carefully—bees welcomed her. Now I have done all that I could for her and must patiently await the result.68

  It was only a matter of time until the Italian honey bee became America’s darling. After the Civil War, Italian bees were shipped to Texas, Ohio, and California. In 1879, the Italian bee was then imported from California to New Zealand. Other bee varieties excited interest, but according to Eva Crane, “None had such a permanent or important effect on world beekeeping as the Italian.”69

  Of nearly equal importance was a Quaker beekeeper named Moses Quinby. Generous, honest, and a staunch abolitionist, Quinby collaborated with Langstroth on many projects. Of particular importance was his explanation of how to handle American foulbrood in his book The Mysteries of Beekeeping Explained (1853). American foulbrood, a bacterial disease, was and is so persistent that it can remain infectious for many years. According to Sue Hubbell, “Bee larvae become infected by eating food contaminated with the spores of the bacteria.”70 Quinby realized that beekeepers needed to start with a hive of fresh frames. No other method to rid foulbrood would be found until the 1940s.

  His success as a commercial beekeeper was an important example to American cottage-industry beekeepers. Honey was his sole source of support from 1853 until he died in 1875. According to historian Philip Mason, “History played its part in the growth of commercial beekeeping: the Civil War shut off the supply of sugar from the southern states, and created a high demand for honey as a sweetener in the North.”71 Quinby died financially secure. In addition to wisdom and books, he gave beekeepers a lasting gift. Shortly before his death, he improved the bellows smoker, making it easier to hold the smoker and control the amount of smoke a beekeeper needs when checking a hive. Similar to the Langstroth hive in importance, the basic principles of the Quinby smoker are still in use by contemporary beekeepers.

  Along with Quinby, Adam Grimm best symbolized the American rags-to-riches dream in the beekeeping world. In his history, Frank Pellett makes clear that Grimm did not significantly advance the industry, but he met the challenges of being “a pioneer in a new land with new problems and was making a beginning with a new industry.”72 Born in Germany, Grimm immigrated to Wisconsin in 1849 and made his start with wild swarms that he kept in both boxes and straw hives. Having profited from the Civil War honey prices, he switched to Langstroth hives as soon as possible. When a chance to improve his stock with Italian honey bees arrived, Grimm took it. Ten years later, he sold his crops for $10,000 and started a local bank.

  Deseret

  Take a stroll through Salt Lake City. The bee skep image is impressed on sidewalk squares, neon signs, doorknobs, and transoms. No other group in the United States has so successfully appropriated the bee skep as its icon as the Church of Latter-day Saints. Although Joseph Smith adopted the bee skep icon in Missouri, Brigham Young branded the image into the Mormon consciousness. The two leaders had one crucial difference, explains scholar Hal Cannon: Joseph Smith wanted to lead a rapid conversion to the new religion of Mormonism; Brigham Young wanted the conversion to be more orderly.73 For both leaders, however, the bee skep was perfect for the Mormon people: “It was simple, unostentatious, and fitted like a glove,” declared none other than Mark Twain in Roughing It.74

  When the Mormons first arrived in the Utah region, they had named the place Deseret, and according to Carol Simon, the symbol was appropriate: “As a protected structure with no windows to the outside world, the beehive had special appeal to the close-knit pioneers.”75 The lyrics of one song, “All Are Talking of Utah,” emphasize the collective nature of Mormonism:

  3.8. Mormon currency. Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution, NNC, Richard Doty. Joseph Smith and Brigham Young used the bee hive to suggest stability and industry. Deseret is the Mormon word for honey bee. Although Mormon beekeepers quickly changed to Langstroth hives, the Utah society originally promoted the skep symbol to suggest stability and religious strength.

  I now will tell you something you never thought of yet

  We bees are nearly filling the “Hive of Deseret”

  If hurt we’ll sting together, and gather all we get

  For all are talking of Utah.76

  But the traditional values of frugality also appealed to the secular nature of the state. In fact, one writer in the Deseret News, in 1881, describes the skep as a “communal coat of arms,” which is a “significant representation of the industry, harmony, order, and frugality of the people, and the sweet results of their toil, union and intelligent cooperation.”77 And toil the Mormons did. Whereas other groups merely crossed over the Rockies to get to California, the Mormons settled in Utah in 1847. “The whole intention of those [wagon] trains was to get an early start, as soon as the grass greened up, and then get through the West as fast as possible,” explains Wallace Stegner. “The Mormons were an exception, a special breed headed for sanctuary in the heart of the desert, a people with a uniquely cohesive social order and a theocratic discipline that made them better able to survive.”78

  Bee colonies arrived in Utah in 1848. The great-grandfather of beekeepers Russell and Norman Mitchell joined the Mormon migration in Illinois. He strapped the bees on the back of a covered wagon, so the story goes.79 In addition, none other than Brigham Young himself built the Beehive House, the center of Utah politics, in 1854. A talented carpenter, he carved skeps into the staircase pillars and frames. Bees shine from metal doorknobs, and skeps appear in the wooden doorjambs. In short, every aspect of the house was to be seen as a place of frugality, work, and faith.

  However, in order for Utah to be granted statehood, the Mormons agreed to soften the religious implications of the honey bee because Congress wanted a strong division between church and state. The Mormons’ petition for statehood was denied six times, just to suggest how much the Mormons had to secularize their petitions. The effect, according to Hal Cannon, was subtle but noticeable: “As [Inspector-General Joseph] Johnston’s Army entered Salt Lake Valley in 1858 and the drea
m of an isolated kingdom ended forever, the symbols and rituals of the church began to take on a new meaning…. Benevolent symbols such as the all-seeing eye looked too exclusive to outsiders and were resented by them…. Such emblems ran against the grain of the American self-image: independent and free…. As statehood came closer, that foreign-sounding word ‘Deseret’ was dropped from all governmental use.”80

  Still, the skep survived—even thrived. I think there are two reasons for its strength as a symbol. One, the beekeeping traditions in Europe were so entrenched that immigrants arriving from England and Germany latched onto the skep, feeling at home among Mormons at a time when language or cultural skills could pose a barrier. According to a speech “The Mormons” by Thomas L. Kane on discussing immigration to Utah from Great Britain: “They will repay their welcome; for every person gained to the hive of their ‘honey state’ counts as added wealth. So far, the Mormons write in congratulations that they have not among them ‘a single loafer, rich or poor, idle gentleman or lazy vagabond.’ They are no Communists; but their experience has taught them the gain of joint stock to capital and combination to labor.”81

  The skep is also less threatening than other symbols. Its rounded corners and its soft colors melding to a conical top suggest maternal inclusiveness. Ironically, the Mormons only used skeps during the early years, but they kept abreast of the changes in technology that affected beekeeping. Mormons used the symbol of the straw skep to promote unity, but they used newer Langstroth hives to earn a profit from honey.

  In Walter P. Webb’s seminal study, The Great Plains (1931), he argues that a lot of industrial inventions aided peoples’ efforts to conquer the plains: the Colt revolver, a horseman’s weapon, to subdue the horse Indians; barbed wire to control cattle; windmills to stock tanks and for irrigation; and railroads to open otherwise unlivable spaces and bring first buffalo hides and buffalo bones, and then cattle and wheat to market, as well as gang machinery to plow, plant, and harvest big fields.82 Webb did not mention beehives. But Langstroth’s model was part of this trend, and the Mormons capitalized on this invention as assuredly as everyone else.

  California’s Gold Rush

  Samuel Harbison, hailing from a beekeeping family in Pennsylvania, first went to California dreaming of gold but quickly changed his mind when he saw there was no future in mining. Harbison could see a future in beekeeping, however, and he had the necessary skills and knowledge to make it happen. Harbison was already familiar with the Langstroth hive, but when he decided to bring his bees west, he modified Langstroth’s hive yet again, so that the bees could endure the harsh climate changes that the trip from Pennsylvania, to Nicaragua, to California would entail.

  In History of American Beekeeping, Frank Pellet credited Harbison with the ingenuity necessary to help bees not only survive the difficult journey, but arrive strong enough to flourish in the new environment once they were allowed to fly again. The crucial difference was minimizing the size of the colony so that the bees had more room than usual. Lee Watkins explains what set Harbison apart from the other emigrants transporting bees across the Rockies: “While the others did little more than buy bees in box hives, tack a wire screen over the bottoms and load them on a boat, Harbison carefully planned his whole operation and devised methods for keeping down the freight costs as well as a way to give the bees plenty of ventilation and extra room for them to cluster in during the tropical heat.”83 On November 30, 1857, the Sonora landed with sixty-seven colonies of bees in San Francisco. Harbison made a handsome profit from his hives, selling all but six for $100 gold apiece. He then arranged another trip, adapting the hives again for his purpose: “It was taller and narrower than the Langstroth hive, with a door in the rear opening like a cupboard.”84

  Harbison initiated a beekeeping gold rush on two fronts: smart packaging of bees and smart packaging of honey. Others who tried to imitate his success lost heavily. In fact, historian Stephen Van Wormer discusses an entire region, Pamo Valley, in San Diego County that failed because the environmental factors could not support agriculture. Among those listed as former residents was Ira King, an apiarist, who sold out and went to Texas.85 But using skill, knowledge, and ingenuity, Harbison overcame the challenges of weather and distance when transporting bees.

  North by Northwest

  After Harbison’s success, it was only a matter of time before honey bees were taken into the Northwest Territory, although it was assumed that the rainfall in the Northwest would not be good for bees. Historian Catherine Williams quotes Charles Stevens, writing in 1853: “There is one thing that I have always wanted to mention, but it has always slipped my mind, and if you ever come to Oregon you must not make any calculations on keeping Bees, for they cannot be raised here, the winters are not cold enough to keep them in, they come out of the hive to fly about, and a little shower of rain will catch them and in that way the whole swarm will be distoryed [sic].”86 The first attempts to bring honey bees to the Northwest were done via covered wagon. According to Williams, Lt. Howison noted in his report than an emigrant of 1846 tried to carry two hives via the Applegate route, but winter overtook them. John Davenport first succeeded in 1854.87

  As the bees slowly made their way to Oregon, Thomas Eyre emerged as a leader. Reporting that William Buck was selling hives from California, Eyre estimated that the state of Oregon had about 338 hives in 1858. As beekeepers learned more about the weather conditions in Oregon, they began to do simple things to help the hives survive, such as covering them with carpet or matting to protect them from the wind or tipping the hives forward for drainage.88 When Italian honey bees were introduced, Oregon beekeepers did much better, for Italian honey bees were more resistant to disease than the common German bees.

  Spreading the White Man’s Foot in Blossom

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the first writer to record the Native American reaction to honey bees in literature and thus provide a twist to the American bee hunter stereotype that had been perpetuated by white writers. Longfellow used Iroquois sources to write The Song of Hiawatha (1853–1855), but he claimed the book was based on Ojibwa (or Chippewa) myths. The Ojibwa nation had recognized early in the eighteenth century that the honey bee was a symbol of European arrival.89 In this section titled “White Man’s Foot,” Longfellow’s Hiawatha learns of the white man’s advance from the honey bee:

  [Hiawatha:]

  Gitche Manito, the Mighty,

  The Great Spirit, the Creator,

  Sends them [the white men] hither on his errand,

  Sends them to us with his message.

  Wheresoe’er they move, before them

  Swarms the stinging fly, the Ahmo,

  Swarms the bee, the honey-maker,

  Wheresoe’er they tread, beneath them

  Springs a flower unknown among us,

  Springs the White-man’s Foot in blossom.90

  Interestingly enough, in Longfellow’s retelling of the Chippewa myth, Hiawatha defeats Megissogwon, the main opponent of the Chippewa, with the help of a trickster figure. But he cannot defeat the advance of white people, nor prevent the destruction of his culture by European ways.

  In addition to taking incredible liberties with Indian myths, Longfellow was influenced by the national epic of Finland, the Kalevala.91 Yet even though Hiawatha was far from an authentic retelling of Chippewa traditions, the poem was wildly successful both in America and Europe. The Song of Hiawatha marks the first time a non-Indian person attempted to set a work within a Native American cultural context. The massive publication of the poem was important because, to quote Joseph Bruchac, it “brought our national consciousness one small step towards the appreciation and acceptance of Native American cultures and Native American literature.”92

  Another development affecting the future of American beekeeping concerns the treaty of the Traverse des Sioux, signed June 1851, which allowed the Americans (also called Long Knives by the Sioux Indians) who had been contained in the Illinois region to claim the
Northern Plains states. The treaty allowed Americans to populate 19 million acres in Minnesota, 3 million in Iowa, and 1,750 million in South Dakota. The United States promptly betrayed this treaty; the Indians were never paid for their land, and they later retaliated by killing 800 whites. But as far as American beekeeping is concerned, this treaty opened up land to European immigrants, many of whom became successful pioneers of beekeeping, especially in the twentieth century.

  Women also emerged as bee hunters. In the Oregon Territory in 1859, Tabitha Brown organized a school for orphans and depended on honey from her bee tree. “She told of serving her orphans and school children honey from a bee tree. In later years, those who had lived with her verified this,” according to Catherine Williams.93 Brown is the antithesis of the bee hunter: she and her school represented civilization and education. Because education generally follows civilization, American children read nursery rhyme books depicting bees, hives, and skeps during this time period. One of the earliest children’s books printed in Boston is The Alphabet Class (1848).94 No illustrations exist to teach the “B” verse, but the content mirrors standard themes associated with honey bees:

  B was a Bee that looked well to his hive,

  And only by industry labored to thrive.

  A wholesome example for you and to me

  May even be found in the neat busy bee.

  More illustrated resources were forthcoming from Britain. A long poem, “Pretty Name Alphabet,” featured in The Child’s Picture Story Book (1856), depicts a boy named James: