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Skeps

Bees have appeared in early art as being kept in Skeps and so the typical advertisement picture we see today of bees is not in a bee hive but in a skep.  The romance of beekeeping is surely back to the yesterday of keeping bees in skeps. Many U.S. beekeepers quickly adapted to the the wood hive with moveable frames but in other areas of the world, beekeepers kept at the tradition of keeping bees in skeps and other hive containers.

Keeping bees  in the United States in a skep is illegal and if you know of a state where it is permitted, please correct me.  The reason for this is the inability to examine the comb for American foulbrood.

As a symbol, it has served well.  

We have found some beekeepers who dislike seeing pictures of skeps displayed in commercial ads because they do not represent the true present day home of the honey bee.   From a practical point of view,  the honey bee is much less threatening by the presentation of a skep in an ad than by a wood box hive.   The other advantage of showing a skep is the fact that it takes up much less of the picture area than would be required by a full size hive of bees.

The charm of the "age of skeps" can not escape any beekeeper.  The history of beekeeping can not be ignored.       The skep for  many centuries was the best way of keeping bees.   One will find much material in  The Archaeology of Beekeeping   by Eva Crane.  She has a complete chapter on Bee Boles which covers over 600 years of beekeeping in Britain and Ireland.

It is the state symbol for the state of Utah (The beehive state) and appears in numerous religious drawings.  What fortune the honey bee is held in such high esteem.

Beekeepers of old used the method shown in this picture from an old (1941) American Bee Journal to examine a colony of bees kept in a skep.  

There is a renewed interest in collecting these old skeps and prices are quite steep.   I know of one that sold to the Walter T. Kelley company at auction that brought over $200.00.     Many people make reproduction skeps.  There is a demand for them.  Materials used are wire, grape vines, and even clay.  I tried to purchase a real reed skep but they are no longer available because labor cost to make one are very high.    In fact, the art/skill of making skeps is almost a  lost art.   Many of the old English bee books have details about these skeps and one that I have read is The Handy Book of Bees by A. Pettigrew and published in 1870 in London, England.    Pettigrew maintained that the straw skep was still better than the wooden box hive with frames of his day.  "Straw hives, we sewed with split canes or bramble briers, are incomparably better for bees than any other kind of hive yet introduced."