James Fischer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>So, 3000 years ago, beekeepers were moving their hives
>to specific crops for a specific bloom of a cover crop
>overtly planted by a grower. 

This is an assumption on your part.  There is nothing in your quoted 
material that should lead one to conclude that the Egyptian beekeepers 
were moving their hives to cover a specific crop. 

>This was not mere seasonal movement, this was a hive
>placement so specific that they had to move their hives
>to avoid the collateral damage

I will say that you are in extreme error here.
This WAS seasonal movement of hives.
And I will provide supporting evidence.

The bees were NOT in the farmland to cover specific blooms, and the 
donkeys were NOT needed to transport bees to cover a specific bloom 
either.  Evidence shows that a seasonal movement of honeybee colonies in 
Ancient Egypt was required for the purpose of escaping the Nile flooding 
which came every year from June to September, caused by the heavy summer 
rains in the Ethiopian highlands.  So this makes the movement of hives in 
Ancient Egypt seasonal OR ‘transhumance beekeeping’.  

You write:
 “The growers
>were waiting impatiently for the beekeepers to move their
>hives, as the growers wanted to burn the weeds and brush
>and then flood the fields.”

You provide an erroneous statement.  
Farmers in Ancient Egypt did not ‘purposely flood fields‘, evidence shows 
they had NO control over this.  The Nile, or as the Egyptians believed the 
God Hapi, was in total control, and they had to get around on boats for 
much of the time during the flooding.  Each year, farmers would burn the 
fields prior to the flooding season.  To water their crops they had to 
have a canal connected to a river, and to lift the water from the canal 
you would have a shaduf  (a shaduf is a large pole balanced on a 
crossbeam, a rope and bucket on one end and a heavy counter weight at the 
other). Again, flooding was NOT 'controled' by farmers.  

If they were burning the fields, would this not suggest that the growing 
season as well past? and the beekeepers, if they were migratory should 
have had their hives long since ‘migrated’ to the next specific bloom, 
perhaps a month prior?  Evidence suggests, they were basically stationary 
beekeepers with seasonal movement of hives in and out of the low lying 
cropland to escape the Nile flooding. 

Intentional flooding of fields by farmers in Ancient Egypt; debunked.
The theory that the movement of hives by the Ancient Egyptians is not 
seasonal OR  ‘transhumance beekeeping’ ; also debunked.

Best Wishes,
Joe

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