Letter

My reading of your journal makes me think that someone ought to make study of the types of traditional bee hives used in developing countries before it is too late. I notice that shapes vary very much sausage-shaped, round like tambourines and so on and also the materials from which they are made. Soon they will be superseded as frame hives are adopted. Is there any way of providing a scholarship for someone to undertake such a research project? Perhaps developing countries’ governments would club together each giving small sum.

The questions to be answered are:

1. Is anything known of the history of bee hives: have shapes changed?

2. What materials are they, and have they been made of?

3. What is put inside the empty hive wooden rack, scent etc?

4. Is there particular way of putting the hive up in a tree?

5. What are the rituals connected with the making and placing, and also with the gathering of honey?

6. Are there any other cave paintings or drawings like those already known from Southern Africa?

Dorothy Galton