Eva Crane’s thoughts about bees, humans, and the environment

Eva Crane

In 1975 Eva Crane presented a paper at the 25^th International Beekeeping Congress held at Grenoble, France. The theme of the Congress was the environment which, of course, was not quite so hot a topic in the 1970s as it is now (although it was beginning to be). Back then scientists were only starting to unearth an understanding that humans were causing significant environmental, ecological, and climate damage to the Earth. In this instance ‘environment’ was a subject chosen without today’s connotations at the forefront and thus it is interesting to find Crane using the term more neutrally than might be done today.

Crane chose as her specific subject the interaction between the environment, bees, and humans arguing that:   

“the Earth is a single entity whose resources are strictly limited: there is no longer a rich New World to be sought out, populated, and exploited.”

Highlighting a report published in 1972 by the United Nations, Crane noted a need for conservation and careful use of the world’s natural resources. Yet, her paper made no exclamations against human use of bees nor their essential subjugation of them and theft of their honey. Instead, Crane offered contextualization; choosing to focus on the history and geography of beekeeping and honey extraction. She highlighted the many ways that bees have impacted on humanity and how humans have impacted on the honeybees.

In this Honeybee Histories essay, we will dive into this paper to understand something of Eva Crane’s views about the environment in the late 1970s. Eva Crane was, of course, a force in British Beekeeping throughout much of the twentieth century. She was heavily involved in the British Beekeepers Association and founded the International Bee Research Association. Crane also published over 180 papers and books on bees, many still considered to be of vital importance or on topics that have been little studied elsewhere. She also transformed the Bee World journal into a well-regarded scientific magazine.