Heath beekeeping (german: Heideimkerei) was a specialist form of beekeeping, which was intensively practised by

beekeeper A beekeeper is a person who keeps honey bees. Beekeepers are also called honey farmers, apiarists, or less commonly, apiculturists (both from the Latin '' apis'', bee; cf. apiary). The term beekeeper refers to a person who keeps honey bees i ...

s on the

Lüneburg Heath Lüneburg Heath (german: Lüneburger Heide) is a large area of heath, geest, and woodland in the northeastern part of the state of Lower Saxony in northern Germany. It forms part of the hinterland for the cities of Hamburg, Hanover and Bremen a ...

from the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

until the 19th century, but which is now very rarely encountered. It was also referred to as ''Lüneburger Schwarmbienenzucht'' (Lüneburg honey bee breeding) ''Lüneburger Heideimkerei'' (Lüneburg Heath beekeeping) or ''Lüneburger Korbimkerei'' (Lüneburg basket beekeeping). Typical features were beehives made of plaited straw baskets or

skep A beehive is an enclosed structure in which some honey bee species of the subgenus '' Apis'' live and raise their young. Though the word ''beehive'' is commonly used to describe the nest of any bee colony, scientific and professional literature ...

s, the use of heathland flowers, frequent moving of bees to worthwhile feeding areas and the enormous multiplication of bee colonies through

swarming Swarm behaviour, or swarming, is a collective behaviour exhibited by entities, particularly animals, of similar size which aggregate together, perhaps milling about the same spot or perhaps moving ''en masse'' or migrating in some direction. ...

Methods

Heath beekeeping is a special form of beekeeping used to obtain heather

honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primar ...

. It involves a transportable, swarming hive in which the beekeeper only allows a small number of colonies to overwinter. In spring, the number of colonies increases many times through the process of swarming, and several hundred were not unusual. Over the centuries, by selecting bees that swarm early and often, beekeepers on the heathlands developed an extremely swarm-loving and robust strain from the

European dark bee The European dark bee (''Apis mellifera mellifera'') is a subspecies of the western honey bee, evolving in central Asia and migrating into northern Europe after the last ice age from 9,000BC onwards. Its original range stretched from the southern ...

. The once widespread ''Bienenzaun'' (bee enclosure) apiary provided plenty of space. Beehives were made from straw into a plaited basket, the ''Lüneburger Stülper'' or Lüneburg Skep and, in the 1940s and 50s the Kanitz Basket (''Kanitzkorb''), named after its inventor, was also used. Because there was not usually enough local forage for the many hives concentrated into one place, the beekeepers had to move the bees around to areas where there were worthwhile sources of nectar. The new colonies formed in the early spring from swarms, collected honey from the blossoming heathlands in late summer, mainly in August and September. After the honey was harvested the superfluous colonies were removed from their baskets and sold as 'bare' colonies without honeycombs. These bees were very keen to swarm.

History

For centuries, the historical basket or heath beehive produced

and

beeswax Beeswax (''cera alba'') is a natural wax produced by honey bees of the genus ''Apis''. The wax is formed into scales by eight wax-producing glands in the abdominal segments of worker bees, which discard it in or at the hive. The hive workers ...

on the Lüneburg Heath. In the Middle Ages heather honey was a sought-after commodity. Beekeeping was common in the core areas of the former heath, so that almost every farmstead had a ''Bienenzaun''. The farmers employed special beekeeping hands for this purpose. The town of

Celle Celle () is a town and capital of the district of Celle, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The town is situated on the banks of the river Aller, a tributary of the Weser, and has a population of about 71,000. Celle is the southern gateway to the Lü ...

on the Südheide was a major trading centre for heather honey. As early as the 16th century there was a professional apiculture centre. It declined during the second half of the 19th century for a number of reasons, which led to the retreat of the areas of heathland. As a result of land consolidation there were no areas of

common land Common land is land owned by a person or collectively by a number of persons, over which other persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect Wood fuel, wood, or to cut turf for fuel. A person ...

with their wide range of nectar-producing plants. The introduction of artificial fertiliser enabled better harvest yields from heath soils and so areas of heath were turned into arable land. Marshland soils with

buckwheat Buckwheat (''Fagopyrum esculentum''), or common buckwheat, is a flowering plant in the knotweed family Polygonaceae cultivated for its grain-like seeds and as a cover crop. The name "buckwheat" is used for several other species, such as '' Fago ...

cultivation were turned into meadows for cattle. In addition, large areas of heath were reforested with fast-growing

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accep ...

s. Today there are only a very few apiaries left on the Lüneburg Heath which keep bees in the historical way. These also produce

comb honey Comb honey is honey intended for consumption by humans, which is still contained within its original hexagonal-shaped beeswax cells, called honeycomb. It has received no processing, filtering, or manipulation, and is in the state that honey bees ha ...

which is a specialty today due to its rarity.

Literature

*Hans-Günther Brockmann: ''Gerät der Korbimker in der Lüneburger Heide'', Hildesheim, 2005, *Georg Heinrich Lehzen: ''Die Hauptstücke aus der Betriebsweise der Lüneburger Bienenzucht'', 165 Seiten, Erstauflage 1880, Neuauflage durch Heinrich Holtermann GmbH & Co. KG *Friedrich Trauegott Schmidt: ''Der Bienenbau in Körben, oder Niedersächsischer Bienenvater'', Leipzig: Crusius, 1768, {{webarchive , url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111002012930/http://edocs.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor.php?source_opus=3327&la=de , date=October 2, 2011 , title=''Digitalised copy in the form of a pdf file''
Video series: Heath beekeeping
(8 parts, 1982–1987) published by the Institut für den Wissenschaftlichen Film. Made available on the AV portal of the

Technische Informationsbibliothek The German National Library of Science and Technology (german: Technische Informationsbibliothek), abbreviated TIB, is the national library of the Federal Republic of Germany for all fields of engineering, technology, and the natural sciences. I ...

External links

"Die Heidebiene Apis mellifera mellifera lehzenii" at ''Die Dunkle Biene''

''Bieneninstitut Celle'': Heather honey
(pdf file; 130 kB) Beekeeping Lüneburg Heath

Methods

History

See also

Literature

External links