Francis G. Smith (1994) Three cells of honeycomb

In this autobiography by Dr Francis Smith, the three cells in the title represent his three periods of beekeeping work: in Britain, Tanganyika and Australia. He studied forestry and kept bees in Scotland from 1946, and was Beeswax Officer in Tanganyika from 1949 until independence in 1962. Thereafter he worked in Western Australia, as Senior Apiarist until 1975 and then as Director of National Parks. Beeswax and honey were important exports of Tanganyika and Western Australia, respectively, and Francis Smith initiated many improvements in the production and quality of both products. The book also includes details of some of his scientific work on bees and a list of his publications, of which Beekeeping in the tropics (1960) became a standard text book.

Quoted material for review purposes only:

With simple log or bark hives, management was confined to baiting the hives with wax or propolis to attract swarms of bees and to siting the hives high in trees where they would be safe from ants and the honey badger. Such hives could be visited only once a year to collect the honey crop, often depriving the bees of the food they needed to survive the dry season and causing them to abandon the hives and form hunger swarms, many of which died of starvation.
Generally the hives were widely scattered in the bush, so the beekeeper spent much of his time walking from hive to hive, climbing trees, lighting up his bundle of twigs or grass to make smoke and lowering the crop to the ground. Because of the viciousness of the bees, most of the work had to be done at night.

What was required was a beekeeping system which would enable the beekeeper to collect the crop from a large number of hives quickly, in daylight and without much danger of being severely stung. The hives needed to be protected from thieves, the honey badger and from ants , and to be grouped together in sufficient numbers to make the provision of a supply of water practicable. It was desirable that sane management of the bee colonies be possible to stock hives other than by the chance occupation by swarms, and to maintain and increase the productivity of individual hives.

After experimenting with keeping the African bees in frame hives in an open sided banda, as well as on stands in the open, I decided to try keeping them in a bee house. Bee houses are used in parts of Europe, mainly for protection from the winter weather. The hives are arranged along the walls. Each hive has its entrance in close contact with the wall opposite a hole through the wall. The bees fly in and out of the hives through the walls without entering the roam itself . The house is constructed so that it is completely bee tight but the windows are fitted with a bee-escape arrangement so that any bees which do get into the roam can escape to the outside. I built my first bee house on the research station site on the aerodrome road. It had a concrete floor and walls of cement blocks up to 120 cm above the floor. 

Above that, 90 cm high window - frames were fitted with expanded metal to keep out thieves and mosquito gauze to keep out the bees. A gap at the top of the wire with a hardboard baffle on the inside formed an escape for any bees flying in the room. As I was going to use frame hives for my research, these stood in pairs on stands at a convenient height for working, with their entrances in contact with a piece of timber secured to the wall. A hole in this timber led to a length of pipe fitted in the wall and projecting on the outside about 45 cm. This was needed to give the bees the chance to defend themselves against driver ants. To assist the bees to identify their own entrance, I painted different patterns on the walls, and used colours which the bees could see as being different.

This research bee house was quickly stocked with bees and results cane up to expectations. It was at last a pleasure to work with African bees, even when the colonies had built up to full strength. I was able to do a demonstration for the Chief Conservator of Forests in which none of us found it necessary to wear any protection whatsoever. The bees in the hives were controlled with smoke in the normal way, and the guard bees, who cause all the trouble, just flew around outside, unable to get at us in the bee house. And because they could not sting anybody, they did not arouse the other bees in the hive.

Beekeeping with African bees now became a pleasure and the bees themselves thrived. I was able to use the more complex methods of hive management normal to bee farming in Europe and America, including the raising of queens from selected stock. I was also able to conduct proper courses in beekeeping for my more senior staff and give them confidence in the handling of bees.


 

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