Skeps

A skep is an upturned woven basket most everyone recognizes as a beehive even though very few of us have ever seen an actual one. This is probably because this type of European hive has saturated our symbolic culture. It’s been used to represent the first French Republic, thrift, industry, and Utah, among other things. Skeps were once very popular in the iconography of banks. Old school banks, that is, not the loan-sharking and gambling operations of our era.

At the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Court Street stands one of those old banks, the former South Brooklyn Savings Institution. It’s now a Trader’s Joe's. Over the Court Street entrance, there’s a nice stone skep as part of the decoration. Inside, and this is something I’ve never noticed before today, there’s a large metallic plaque with Justice and Prudence separated by another skep. I said to the friendly (clerk, associate, trader?) at the cash register that I wanted to come back and take a picture. Still unabsorbed by the Borg, he warned me, sotto voce, that I should be subtle about it, since they didn’t want people taking unauthorized pictures inside the building. Alert, alert, amateur photographer in aisle three! Evidently Trader Joe’s last name is Stalin. Stay tuned. I'll be shooting from the mocha-macadamia nut snack pile.

An ad from 1861

Recall that into the early 20th century, the western end of Long Island, now Queens (where you will find Flushing today) and Brooklyn, was a substantial agricultural area. Slowly, but surely, we are bringing a tiny little bit of that back. The Rev. L.L. Langstroth patented a movable frame hive that is still very much in use today. Note also the long tradition of clerical beekeeping alluded to here.

Virgil and CCD Radio

Amarilla recently sent me a link to Virgil’s Georgics (Book IV), where the master describes beekeeping in ways that sound awfully familiar. Virgil was one of the first to write about beekeeping, not including the Egyptians (Eva Crane cites 2400BCE as the date of first evidence of hive beekeeping). Always a good man to lead you through the circles of hell, that Virgil, but I digress.

And it is by nice coincidence that Lawlor should link me to an archived radio project by EE Miller and Ryder Cooley about CCD (and so much more), the second audio clip (Beehuman part 2) of which includes a passage from Virgil… read by Lawlor & Mellis. This audio collage series is fascinating and challenging and well worth the time, and intensity, of listening.

Bee tree brands

Bees in the wild often nest in trees, and many cultures would make like Winnie the Pooh (but more successfully than the bear of little brain) and raid these hives to get the honey. So if you knew about a good nest, you were likely to want to either keep its location secret, or claim it for yourself. Individual marks on trees, like rancher’s brands, often resulted. These come from the Ukraine and were recorded in 1964. This image, and information, was cribbed from Eva Crane’s encyclopedic World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting. Crane, who died in 2007 in her mid-90s, was a world-renown authority on the history of beekeeping. After getting her PhD in nuclear physics in 1941 (!), she became interested in bees after receiving a hive as wedding gift, sugar being rationed in Britain during WWII. She directed the International Bee Research Association for many years. This endlessly fascinating book was given to me by a very sweet co-worker who I only know through the magic of the innernets. So here’s honey to you, R.R.