An early 20th Century view of classical beekeeping
In December 1922, Miss Annie D. Betts wrote in the Bee World journal about several articles she had been made aware of that described beekeeping practices in the classical world.
“It may not at first sight appear that we have anything of importance to learn from the ancient Greeks and Romans with regard to the practical management of bees”, wrote Miss Annie D. Betts in the December 1922 issue of The Bee World. Even where the ancients clung to ‘mistakes and misapprehensions’, Betts argued, there was something for modern beekeepers to learn. Indeed, she recognised that many of their own practices were not all that different from those in antiquity:
“Such facts should induce a spirit of humility and caution, as well as a pleasant feeling of comradeship with the beekeepers of those old times, whose difficulties and joys were in many essential points the same as our own.”