. British bee journal & bee-keepers adviser. Bees. Aug. 5, 1920. THE BRITISH BEE JOURNAL. 373. Early Bee-Keeping in Herefordshire. One of tlie most interesting subjects for the study of modern bee-keepers is that of early bee-keeping, not only in a general, but in a local sense. Many counties can lay claim to either some ancient bee- keeper or writing or custom worthy of note, if some histoiian oould be found to undertake the necessary research work. This has been done for Herefordshire by Mr. A. Watkins, , , and the result of his labours was given in a paper read for his retir
. British bee journal & bee-keepers adviser. Bees. Aug. 5, 1920. THE BRITISH BEE JOURNAL. 373. Early Bee-Keeping in Herefordshire. One of tlie most interesting subjects for the study of modern bee-keepers is that of early bee-keeping, not only in a general, but in a local sense. Many counties can lay claim to either some ancient bee- keeper or writing or custom worthy of note, if some histoiian oould be found to undertake the necessary research work. This has been done for Herefordshire by Mr. A. Watkins, , , and the result of his labours was given in a paper read for his retiring address as President of the well-known Woolhope Naturalists" Field Club, which has its headquarters -1 Hereford. Mr. Watkins very kindly sent the paper on to us for publication, and it was printed in *^ full in the Eecord for July. , Space—or the want of it—proh^iiils printing the full text, but we give tho following extracts :— That variety of bee known as the hive- bee is probably indigenous to Great Britain. I can find no information to the contrary, and no suggestion that the Romans introduced it, as they did pheasants and other fowls. Our local bee is not quite the same as the varieties in and about Italy, but identical with the bee of Northern and Middle Europe. Records of bees, hives, and honey come early in the Anglo-Saxon period, and the Normans did not supply the words bee, hive, honey, wax, which all come from roots common to original Teutonic and Northern European languages. Although in modern Welsh, the words bee and bee- hive are Celtic (gwenyn and cwch- gwenyn), the words for honey and wai (mel and cwyr) are of Latin origin. This suggests that in Romano-British days, Britain produced and traded in both pro- ducts long before Hengest and Horsa landed the first of the Engleland and Saxon invaders in 449 It is certainly a fact that in the time of Domesday, it is the Welsh tenants—as in Archenfield—who chiefly pay their cus- tomary rents in ho
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