The Romance of the Hive

Bees are under threat of extinction from intensive farming, habitat loss, climate change and pesticides, and yet we depend on them to pollinate many of our leading crops. Our book collections reveal the development of our knowledge of bees and beekeeping over more than 500 years.

Rare books on bees and beekeeping can be found in our Bee Collection, the Cole Library and in the Cowan Bee Collection (the library of T.W. Cowan and now held by The Museum of English Rural Life). We also hold the papers of the beekeeper and writer, H. Malcolm Fraser (1874 -1970)

Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella's work De re rustica (On rural affairs) is an agricultural manual on animal husbandry, beekeeping and other subjects, written in c. 65-60 BC, and is an important and comprehensive source on agriculture in Ancient Roman times.

Francesco Stelluti’s engraving of a bee observed under a microscope, with enlarged drawings of the bee’s compound eye, tongue and sting, is thought to be first of its kind to appear in a printed book, preceding microscopy works by Athanasius Kircher and Robert Hooke. 

Charles Butler’s work is one of the greatest books on bees and one of the first substantial works on the subject to be written in the English language. Butler was among the first to state and popularise the discovery that the leader bee was female and the drones were male.

The Dutch naturalist Jan Swammerdam used a microscope to produce this drawing of the ovaries of the queen honey bee. This presented the first published visual evidence of the egg-laying function of the female queen, disproving theories that the lead or ruler bee was male.

René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur was a French entomologist, who made a number of important discoveries and observations relating to bees, and developed an observation glass hive to aid his research. 

François Huber produced pioneering scientific work on the biology and life of honey bees. To enable his research, he designed a leaf hive of 12 wooden frames, hinged together which could be opened like leaves of a book to enable close observation of the activities of the bees.

William Charles Cotton's book on bees contains his letters to cottagers, bee verses and reprints from the works of other writers. There are also details of his plans to introduce bees to New Zealand. Cotton advocated the use of a puff ball narcotic to spare the lives of bees.  

Lorenzo L. Langstroth is regarded as the father of American beekeeping. In 1851 he created his movable-frame hive, with hanging frames, in which the bees construct honey-filled combs, which can be easily removed by the beekeeper. This became the model for the modern beehive.  

This guide book was Thomas William Cowan’s most successful and influential publication, both in Britain and abroad. Noted for its clear, practical style, the guide was first published in 1881, went through twenty-five editions and was translated into seven different languages.

Awareness of bees and their plight will help to secure a better future for bees and everyone, encouraging support for environmental campaigns and the creation of more bee-friendly spaces. Our collections help to raise awareness and inspire interest in these extraordinary insects.