Bees in America

by Tammy Horn

  76. Jeffrey Steele, “American Indians in Nineteenth-Century Advertising,” 46.

  77. The company changed its name in 1964 to reflect a more correct pronunciation: Sue Bee Honey. The icon has also changed to a politically neutral honey bee.

  78. Mooney, “Myths of the Cherokee,” 309.

  79. See C. Eric Lincoln, The Black Muslims in America; and Lynn Dumenil, Modern Temper.

  80. Mary Kay Franklin, Tribute to Walter T. and Ida Babin Kelley, 13.

  81. Walter Kelley, “Make It Easy,” 12.

  82. Eva-Marie Metcalf, “Invisible Child,” 15–23.

  83. Mason, “American Bee Books.”

  84. Ibid. Although Mason’s list is extensive, two established women writers were Charlotte Maria Tucker, Wings and Stings: A Tale for the Young (1885); and Margaret Warner Morley, The Bee People, which appeared in 1899, and went on to be reprinted in 1900, 1901, 1911, 1923, and 1937. Before the stock market crash, Historical Statistics of the United States reports that the personal consumption of books was over 300 million, but it dropped immediately to under 300 million by 1929. Incidentally, sales of these items did not exceed 300 million again until 1943.

  85. Black children’s literature writers do not use the honey bee image, as far as I know. The Brownies, a children’s literature magazine written especially for “children of the sun” beginning in 1920, does not contain any folklore or children’s stories using bees, although a good number of Brer Rabbit stories appear, as do stories with other animals. Dianne Johnson-Feelings, The Best of the Brownies Book; W. E. B. DuBois, Selections from “The Brownies Book.”

  86. John Root, interview with the author, June 2, 2003.

  87. Bodog F. Beck, “Christ with a Hive and Bees,” 543. Crane, in World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting, also used the Catholic Encyclopedia as her reference, noting that the explanation has remained in use.

  88. Crane, World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting, 600.

  89. A. I. Root, ABC and XYZ, 428.

  90. John Root, interview with the author, June 2, 2003.

  91. Joe Graham, interview with the author, June 2003.

  92. Tibor Szabo and Daniel Szabo, “Principles of Successfully Overwintering,” 879.

  93. Ibid., 877.

  94. Bill Weaver and Mary Weaver, “How to Overwinter,” 875.

  95. Paul Salstrom, Appalachia’s Path to Dependency, 96.

  96. Charles Lesher, “North Dakota Sojourn—Part II.”

  97. Miller, Sweet Journey, 84.

  98. Glenn Gibson, “Washington Scene: End of an Era,” 475.

  99. Roger Morse, “The Price of Honey,” 366.

  100. Cache County was the same place that N. E. Miller established his beekeeping operation.

  101. Carol Edison, interview with the author, January 12, 2003.

  102. Miller, Sweet Journey, 84.

  103. Moffett, Some Beekeepers and Associates, 54.

  104. Glen Perrins, “Honey Bees Pay College Fees!” 302.

  105. John Bruce, “Adventures in Bee Inspection—Part I,” 139.

  106. Mason, “American Bee Books,” 336. Mason provides the quote; he states that the quote comes from the preface of the book, page 9.

  107. Robert Hemenway, Zora Neale Hurston, 231.

  108. Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, 183.

  109. Richard Wright, “Between Laughter and Tears,” 76.

  110. Robert Page Jr., “Obituaries: Harry Hyde Laidlaw Jr.,” 58.

  111. Glen Stanley, “Iowa,” 630.

  112. Eugene Shoemaker, “Memories of Bee Inspection in the Thirties and Forties, Part IV,” 234.

  113. Bruce, “Adventures in Bee Inspection—Part I,” 138.

  114. Mary Louise Coleman, Bees in the Garden and Honey in the Larder, 28, 55, 89.

  115. George Douglas, Early Days of Radio Broadcasting, 206.

  116. Carolyn O’Bagy Davis, “Fannie and the Busy Bees,” 102.

  117. Ibid., 112.

  118. Ibid.

  119. Franklin, Tribute to Walter T. and Ida Babin Kelley, 16.

  120. Cale, “Beeswax Needed in the War Effort,” 247.

  121. Ibid., 248.

  122. “Bees and the War,” Newsweek, September 27, 1943, 68.

  123. Lawrence Goltz, “Retiring Editor of Bee Culture,” 40.

  124. “Obituary—William Rowley James.”

  125. Moffett, Some Beekeepers and Associates, 41.

  126. Ibid., 61.

  127. Lawrence Goltz, “Obituary: Floyd Moeller,” 440.

  128. Wyatt Mangum, “Encounters with the Giant Honey Bee,” 365.

  129. Moffett, Some Beekeepers and Associates, 107.

  130. Franklin, Tribute to Walter T. and Ida Babin Kelley, 16.

  131. John Root, “News and Events: Leon A. Winegar.”

  132. Walter Kelley, Bee Supply Catalogue, 3.

  133. Moffett, Some Beekeepers and Associates, 83.

  134. Bonnie Sparks, interview with the author, Jan. 11, 2003.

  135. John Bruce, “Adventurers in Bee Inspection—Part II,” 179.

  136. Clay Tontz, “California Dreaming,” 101. A gat is an Americanized term for a machine gun, invented by Dr. Richard Gatling and first used in the Civil War.

  137. Crane, World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting, 567.

  138. Ibid., 567.

  139. Karl von Frisch, Dancing Bees, 101.

  140. Ibid., 117.

  141. James Gould and Carol Grant Gould, The Honey Bee, 59.

  142. Hubbell, Book of Bees, 93.

  143. E. B. White, “Song of the Queen Bee,” New Yorker, December 15, 1945, 37. I’m indebted to Sue Hubbell for bringing this poem to my attention in her wonderful book, The Book of Bees … and How to Keep Them (94).

  144. Darlene Hine, William Hine, and Stanley Harrold, African Americans: A Concise History, 366.

  145. Ibid., 303.

  146. Robert Gordon, Can’t Be Satisfied, 67.

  147. Glenn Gibson, “Washington Scene: End of an Era,” Bee Culture 144, no. 9 (1986): 475.

  148. Bill Wilson, “45 Years of Foulbrood” (2000). Available at: http://www.beeculture.com.

  149. Ibid.

  150. Jane Black, “Enlisting Insects in the Military,” Business Week Online, Nov. 5, 2001, http://web25.epnet.com (accessed Mar. 3, 2003).

  151. Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, Inherit the Wind, 116.

  Chapter 6. Late Twentieth Century

  1. Bill Wilson, “45 Years of Foulbrood” (2000). Available at: http://www.beeculture.com.

  2. David Halberstam, The Fifties, 142, 143.

  3. Pamela Moore, “David and Goliath,” 40.

  4. Douglas Whynot, Following the Bloom, 82.

  5. Walter Kelley, “Honey at Wholesale Prices,” 107.

  6. Walter Kelley, “Hard Times,” 207.

  7. Wilson, “45 Years of Foulbrood.”

  8. J. E. Eckert, Rehabilitation of the Beekeeping Industry in Hawaii, 22.

  9. Stephen Petersen, “Alaska,” 157.

  10. Bob Koehnen, interview with the author, March 6, 2004.

  11. “California Almonds: Technical Information” (Modesto, Ca.: Almond Board of California, 2004).

  12. “Almonds: A Nutrition and Health Perspective” (Modesto, Ca.: Almond Board of California, 2003).

  13. Roger Morse and Nicholas Calderone, Value of Honey Bees as Pollinators, 5–6.

  14. Eric Mussen, interview with the author, June 15, 2004.

  15. Ibid.

  16. Yvonne Koehnen, interview with the author, March 6, 2004.

  17. Bob Koehnen, interview, Mar. 6, 2004.

  18. Lesher, “North Dakota Sojourn—Part II.”

  19. Clay Eppley, “The Rise and Fall of Beekeeping Along the Lower Rio Grande,” 184.

  20. Marla Spivak, interview with the author, June 23, 2004.

  21. When a queen emerges from her cell, she will establish dominance by killing the emerging queens. African queens emerge before Italian
queens and thus cannot be hybridized the way Kerr had hoped they could be.

  22. Dewey Caron, African Honey Bees in the Americas, 11–12.

  23. H. L. Maxwell, “Little Commercial Beekeeping in Virginia,” 401. Emphasis Maxwell’s.

  24. Euclid Rains, Count Me In, 52.

  25. Euclid Rains, I’m Not Afraid of the Dark, 93.

  26. Clay Tontz, “The Mean Scarecrow,” 773.

  27. Walter Kelley, “Why Not Use Girls in the Honey House?” 305.

  28. Joseph Moffett, “Mitchell Brothers of Missoula, Montana,” 509.

  29. Moffett, Some Beekeepers and Associates, 44.

  30. Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Never Were, 110–13. Anthony Comstock was a moral reformer who managed to marshal support for a bill prohibiting the distribution of birth control information.

  31. Joel M. Snow, “James ‘Slim Harpo’ Moore,” Blues Online, July 16, 1996.

  32. Gordon, Can’t Be Satisfied, 197. In fact, the Rolling Stones got the name for their band from a Muddy Waters song.

  33. Ibid., 163.

  34. Ibid., 103.

  35. Hine, Hine, and Harrold, African Americans, 379.

  36. George Vest, “Beekeeping in Central Virginia,” 400.

  37. John Harbo, interview with the author, June 21, 2004.

  38. Jesse Stuart, The Beatinest Boy.

  39. John Root, “A Gleanings Interview: Karl Showler,” 554–55.

  40. Ibid.

  41. Whynott, Following the Bloom, 80.

  42. E. C. Martin, “Impact of Pesticides on Honeybees,” 319.

  43. Robert Nygren, “Honeybees and Microencapsulated Pesticides,” 128–29.

  44. Whynott, Following the Bloom, 27.

  45. Franklin, Tribute to Walter T. and Ida Babin Kelley, 8.

  46. Marianne Boruch, “Plath’s Bees.” Boruch gives an excellent analysis of Otto Plath’s book, Bumblebees and Their Ways. “As a collection of straight facts on bees, or even as a how-to manual on beekeeping, Otto Plath’s effort is a failure. It reads differently than most modern treatises on bees, which is to say, it thinks differently…. The book reads, in short, like field notes, carrying that sort of modesty and containment and absolute purpose” (4).

  47. Sylvia Plath, Ariel, 65–66, 67–68.

  48. Coontz, The Way We Never Were, 285. There is interesting discussion about the role of day care in America. When it first began at the turn of the century, it was associated with immigrant families, and thus could never receive the kind of funding that other countries enjoyed. Johnson’s political party changed the status of day care by making it acceptable, thus, in parallel fashion, condoning the numbers of women working outside the home. Head Start is one of the few social programs that work. According to Stephanie Coontz, the Eisenhower Foundation has done several studies that found that school dropouts, teen pregnancies, and drug use dropped.

  49. Sandra Beckett, ed., Transcending Boundaries, 50–51.

  50. Lehman, interview with the author, June 29, 2004. See also Lehman, “Kids ‘N Bees.”

  51. Carolyn Henderson, interview with the author, June 19, 2004.

  52. Stephen Henderson, interview with the author, June 22, 2004.

  53. Lawrence Goltz, “The Swarm,” 381.

  54. Lawrence Goltz, “The Swarm Gets Bad Reviews,” 442.

  55. Robert Heard, Miracle of the Killer Bees, 1–5.

  56. Morse and Calderone, Value of Honey Bees as Pollinators, 124.

  57. A. I. Root, ABC and XYZ, 124.

  58. Whynott, Following the Bloom, 80.

  59. Moffett, Some Beekeepers and Associates, 54.

  60. Whynott, Following the Bloom, 81.

  61. Franklin, Tribute to Walter T. and Ida Babin Kelley, 38.

  62. “Obituary—Stanley F. Hummer.”

  63. Billy Hummer, interview with the author, June 23, 2004.

  64. Chuck Anderson, interview with the author, March 26, 2004.

  65. Charlotte Stevenson, “How Not to Move Bees,” 281.

  66. Clinton Heylin, Can You Feel The Silence: Van Morrison A New Biography (Chicago: Chicago Review, 2003), 23, 19.

  67. Van Morrison, Tupelo Honey (audio recording, Exile, 1971).

  68. See Matt Pommer, “Gag Order Doesn’t Fit Dreyfus of Old,” Capitol Times, April 22, 1993. I am grateful to librarian Ching Wong for supplying this article in a timely fashion.

  69. A. I. Root, ABC and XYZ, 380.

  70. T’Lee Sollenberger, “Family Bees,” 128.

  71. Susan Cobey, interview with the author, June 17, 2004. See also Malcolm Sanford, “Sue Cobey and Her New World Carniolans,” Bee Culture 131, no. 1 (2003): 21–23.

  72. Tom Webster, interview with the author, April 2, 2004.

  73. Henry Wiencek, “Beehives,” Americana, March/April 1981, 48.

  74. Ibid., 47.

  75. Carol Edison, interview with the author, January 15, 2003. Kathy Stephenson, “Desserts in the Desert,” Salt Lake Tribune, July 24, 2002, B1, B3.

  76. Richard Avedon, In the American West.

  77. Elizabeth Royte, “Unfazed by All the Buzz,” Smithsonian 33, no. 8 (2002), 25–27.

  78. Hubbell, Book of Bees, 24, 26.

  79. Ibid., 38, 47.

  80. Fannie Flagg, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, 110.

  81. Ibid., 398.

  82. Sidney Saylor Farr, More than Moonshine.

  83. Jesse Stuart, Men of the Mountains, 227.

  84. Ibid., 233.

  85. Robert Morgan, “Moving the Bees,” 43.

  86. Stevie Ray Vaughan, “Honey Bee” (audio recording, Sony, 1984). Couldn’t Stand the Weather. Rereleased in 1999.

  87. Howard Scott, “Interview with Roxanne Quimby,” 863.

  88. Eric Mussen, interview with the author, June 15, 2004.

  89. Alan Mairson, “America’s Beekeepers: Hives for Hire.”

  90. Evan Sugden and Kristana Williams, “October 15: The Day the Bee Arrived,” 18.

  91. Ibid., 19.

  92. Gene Kritsky, “Lessons from History,” 370.

  93. Marla Spivak, interview with author, June 23, 2004.

  94. Erin Peabody, “SMR—This Honey of a Trait Protects Bees from Deadly Mites,” 14.

  95. Ibid., 15.

  96. John Harbo, interview with the author, June 21, 2004.

  97. Sue Hubbell, Waiting for Aphrodite, 136.

  98. Cobey, interview with the author, June 17, 2004.

  99. Tom Petty, “Honey Bee” (audio recording, Warner Bros., 1995).

  100. Gloria Gaynor, “Honey Bee” (audio recording, MGM, 1974).

  101. Tanya Long Bennett, “The Protean Ivy in Lee Smith’s Fair and Tender Ladies.”

  102. Lee Smith, Fair and Tender Ladies, 226.

  103. Two items: first, Peter Fonda won the Florida State Beekeeper’s award for his portrayal of Ulee. Second, his father, Henry Fonda, was a beekeeper in his own right, giving jars of Henry’s Honey to family and friends.

  104. Andy Jones, “Fonda’s Golden Rule.” Available at: http://www.roughcut.com (accessed January 12, 2001). Jones’s article is a review of the movie.

  105. “Ulee’s Gold” (1997). Available at: http://www.beeculture.com. Jones, “Fonda’s Golden Rule.”

  Epilogue

  1. Whynott, Following the Bloom, 1. Whynott’s argument is that contemporary beekeepers are very similar to nineteenth-century cowboys in terms of their travel, values, and important but overlooked services to the agricultural industry.

  2. Mussen, interview with the author, August 5, 2004.

  3. Andrew Revkin, “Bees Learning Smell of Bombs with Backing from Pentagon.” Available at http://www.nyt.com.

  4. Black, “Enlisting Insects in the Military,” Business Week Online. Available at http://web25.epnet.com (accessed March 3, 2003).

  5. “The Internest,” Economist, no. 4 (2004): 78–79.

  6. Gene Robinson, interview with the author, February 10, 2003.

  7. Seth Borenstein, “Mistletoe,” Montr
eal Gazette, A10.

  8. Ibid.

  9. Kim Kaplan, “What’s Buzzing with the Africanized Honey Bee.”

  10. Marla Spivak, interview with the author, June 23, 2004.

  11. Kim Flottum, interview with the author, May 1, 2003.

  12. Jason Simpson, “Mobile Honey Production Unit Produced at Kelley’s,” Leitchfield Record, September 18, 2003.

  13. Robin Mountain, “Rearing Your Own Kentucky Queen.”

  14. Stephen Henderson, interview with the author, June 22, 2004.

  15. Marla Spivak, interview with the author, June 23, 2004.

  16. Steven Stoll, Larding the Lean Earth, 217.

  17. Stephenson, “Desserts in the Desert.”

  18. Allen Cosnow, “Use Correct Beekeeping Terms and Symbols.” Cosnow, who argues that the continued use of the skep badly misleads the public, who “bless their adamantly ignorant hearts, know nothing at all about bees,” then compares the skep to a pair of rusty pliers used by dentists: both tools should be obsolete in the public mind-set (89).

  19. Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, 141.

  20. Ibid., 286.

  GLOSSARY

  African honey bee or Apis mellifera scutellata (AHB): This honey bee began making its way to America in 1957 and is known for its aggressive temper. However, the bees are prolific honey producers.

  American Bee Journal: Samuel Wagner started this periodical in 1861, but it was suspended because of the Civil War. This magazine was taken over by Charles Dadant and moved to Hamilton, Illinois. It addresses the topics of beekeeping, bee culture, and research.

  American foulbrood (AFB): This bacterial disease affects the bees in the early larvae stage. The bacterial disease forms a spore that can remain alive for fifty years. The symptoms include bad odor, perforated brood cappings, and dead pupae.

  Apis mellifera: Linnaeus originally assigned this name, which first qualified the domestic honey bee race as “honey-bearing.”

  Bee Culture: Begun by A. I. Root, this magazine offers advice and articles on bee management, culture, history, and so on.

  Bee gum: Bees live in this log hive, generally taken from decayed black gum trees, hence the term.

  Black bees or Apis mellifera mellifera (German black, British black, or French bee): This strain of honey bees was first brought to the colonies in the 1600s. These bees were hardy to cold temperatures, but were susceptible to foulbrood and ill-tempered to work with. They were the primary honey bees in the New World until Dadant, Wagner, Parsons, and Langstroth’s efforts to import the Italian honey bee succeeded.