23/03/2024
They cut down a giant tree for a mere 30 lbs of honey...and I'm sure it was 🐝-licious!!
circa. 1895 ~ Cutting a Bee Tree, Elk Lake, Victoria, British Columbia
Cutting a Giant Red Cedar to obtain wild honey, women with baskets to collect pristine sections of comb honey for use in the kitchen, men with buckets to collect the miscellaneous messy honey dripping bits of honeycomb to be strained and bottled. Leftover comb to be melted to make candles and water proofing polish for leather and wood.
Mr. Peers, an old resident of Ontario, but for the last 20 years a residents in the district of New Westminister, British Columbia, said he found a bee tree there from which he extracted 30 lbs. of honey and 14 lbs. of wax. He said that bee-keeping in British Columbia was yet in its infancy, but think it is a good country for producing honey as the Winters are very short. Last winter was the coldest ever known there; the thermometer registered three degrees below zero for one week. The "snow-fall" is very light and never remains more than two or three days at a time. He planted potatoes this Spring about the middle of March. The farm crop is usually put in during February and March; there never is snow enough for sleighing; if bee pasture was cultivated it certainly would be a good honey producing country, but the people of British Columbia know very little about bee-keeping. He likes the country well and would not care to remain here during the winter season again. Some of the trees in British Columbia are simply monstrous; he has seen them 300 feet long, and the circumference in proportion to length. (circa. 1885)
The first two honey bee colonies arrived by ship in Victoria in May 1858. (Circa. 2015)
In the northern part of British Columbia cleaning out the glaciers, and clearing forest, cultivating soil and planting trees will make what is now a wilderness a nice dwelling place. At creation the soil was gifted with endless variety of berries, on which the bees thrive well in large numbers, while wild bees fill the forests with honey, showing that flowers will flourish, while the hills are here and there stocked with wild goats and sheep. (circa. 1897)
Source:
Image Source:
BC Archives, Royal BC Museum
Richard Maynard and others looking for a swarm of bees at Elk Lake.
https://search-bcarchives.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/richard-maynard-and-others-looking-for-swarm-of-bees-at-elk-lake
Canadian Bee Journal, Volume 1, August 1885, Page 345
https://books.google.com/books?id=XCdGl0YRUoYC&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&pg=PA345 =onepage&q&f=false
Beekeeping in British Columbia
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/farming-natural-resources-and-industry/agriculture-and-seafood/animal-and-crops/animal-production/bee-assets/api_fs101.pdf
California Banker's Magazine: c. May 1897 Page 58
https://books.google.com/books?pg=PA58&dq=1&newbks_redir=0&id=1VRYSShE9AIC =onepage&q&f=false
