Keeping Bees in Ancient Rome: A Glimpse from Virgil the Poet

The profession of beekeeping is very old, and the behaviour of bees together with the unique sweetness of their honey fascinated the ancient world. One admirer was the Roman poet Virgil (70-19BC) who wrote a collection of four short poems on farming called the Georgics. CHRIS NORTHCOTT surveys beekeeping from the ancient Roman world as glimpsed in Virgil’s poem, uncovering things that are familiar to apiarists today, as well as things we may find surprising.

By Chris Northcott

Dating to a time before even Christ graced the earth, Roman poet Virgil’s works offer a unique insight into ancient beekeeping practices.

Originally Virgil’s poems were written in Latin, but English translations are easily available as cheap paperbacks or online.

Familiar Observations.

The life of bees fascinated the ancients as much as it does people today. Some of the things Virgil writes he no doubt saw with his own eyes, but he is known to have drawn on the work of others.

Keen observers realised even then that the life of bees was communal, with different bees performing different tasks for the colony. Somehow they knew that the bees didn’t mate (mostly correct) and that the bees only had short lives – seven summers tops (not at all precise even if they had the right idea!).

Foraging didn’t happen when it rained, or in rising easterly winds. They saw the way worker bees surrounded the queen, and noticed the sticky substance at the hive entrance which the Greeks had earlier called ‘pro-polis’ (literally, the stuff ‘in front of the city’).

Robbing and swarming were observed, as was the harsh necessity of drones being evicted from the hive. The mutual value of gardens and bees for one another had been learned. Careful watchers had seen the symptoms of diseased bees, and dead bees being carried from the hive.

Various bugs and animals are noted in Virgil’s poem as dangers to the bees, including bee-eating birds who bring their catch to their ‘cruelly gaping nestlings’, the spider ready with her ‘dragging hunting nets’, and the ‘savage hornet with superior weapons’ which fights its way in.

Familiar Practices

Many of the practises mentioned will be very familiar. Selecting a good site is necessary. Water should be provided with floats for the bees to alight on. De-winging a queen prevents swarming. Narrow the hive entrance in winter to keep out cold.

Virgil recounts the procedure of spying a swarm and placing an empty hive near it with scented mixtures to attract it inside, and of planting nectar-bearing plants around the hive.

When it is time for harvest (every six months it seems), we who haul honey will empathize with our vocational forebears: ‘The rage of bees is boundless, hurt, they breathe into their stings poison, and fasten on your veins to leave their secret javelins, and in that wound lay down their lives.’ Smoke is recommended!

Despite the ordeal, the rewarding experience of squeezing the ‘foaming honey’ from the comb is a pleasure that apiarists without frame spinners can relate well to.

Odd Ideas and Old Practices

One of the best things about old or exotic literature is its ability to surprise us, and Virgil’s poetry is no exception. Some of the mysteries of the honey bee (unsurprisingly) were unsolved by the ancient world. The queen bee is mistaken for the colony’s king, and bees were thought to collect new young from plants while foraging rather than reproduce. Drones are thought to be a different breed of bee within the colony.

‘Bugonia’ – the attempted raising of honey bees from the decomposing corpse of bovine. Not recommended, and even dubious as to whether it was actually practiced in ancient Rome, but Virgil does detail it…

Furthermore, some beekeeping practices differed from ours. Hives were constructed from woven willow branches or bark from the cork tree, covered with clay and leaves. Another novel practice is the recommendation to reinvigorate sluggish hives by fumigating them with the fumes of a gum and honey mixture, or by concocting a syrupy brew and leaving that outside the hive.

Perhaps most memorable of all is the account of a practice known as ‘Bugonia’. A beekeeper without colonies is reminded of the legend of Aristaeus and how he became the mythical first keeper of bees. Bugonia was a strange ritual which involved beating a cow to death and leaving its pulverized, but un-torn, body in a specially prepared place. It was thought that new bees would self-generate from the fermenting insides of the carcass, thus providing the bee-less beekeeper with a new colony. While it was a popular subject for poets, it is uncertain whether people actually practised this, and more prosaic authors were sceptical of the idea!

Poetic Licence

Another surprising feature is the way that Virgil likens the behaviour of bees to human activity.  He was fascinated by the way bees lived in vast communities and imagined them living like little human societies.

The industrious honeybees of his poem are made out to be working as blacksmiths, town surveyors, and field labourers, all toiling away for the communal good, until ‘At last, when all are tucked in bed, a silence falls for the night, and over their tired limbs a well-earned slumber steals. When a worker’s short life ends, ‘Then the living carry the corpses of the lifeless out of the home in funeral procession.’

The occasion of swarming or robbing is dramatically likened to battle: ‘You can presage mob violence arising and hearts agog for war… bustling they assemble; wings are flashed, stings sharpened upon beaks and muscles tensed… out they sally, battle is joined… heroic hearts beating in tiny breasts, still steadfast not to yield till victory has driven these or those to turn in flight.’ 

The Pleasure of Bees Under the Summer Sun

Poetry can be tricky to read and appeals to a narrow range of readers, but it is designed to be enjoyed. Virgil’s poetry on farming, including the keeping of honey bees, promotes the value of hard work. We who keep bees understand hard work, but when harvest time is over and brood checks are finished, cannot help but enjoy the sight of foraging bees on a warm summer’s day, just as Virgil did:

‘Now when the golden sky has driven winter in rout beneath the earth and freed the sky with summery light, the bees incontinently roam over glades and woodlands harvesting bright blooms, and lightly sip the river’s surface. Inspired by this with some mysterious joy they tend their nests and young; inspired by this they forge new wax and fashion sticky honey.’

Chris Northcott is a west-Auckland beekeeper, and once trained to be a high school teacher in classics and history.