Wren wrote a letter to Hartlib describing how two swarms introduced to the hive had occupied the lower boxes but had not made use of the top storey. However, the bees did not quite follow the intended schedule. He tried out a hive of this design in practice. The key mentions small sheets of glass serving as windows.Ĭhristopher Wren's drawing of a 'transparent hive' from Samuel Hartlib, The Reformed Common-Wealth of Bees It shows a structure built from three stacked octagonal boxes, again with small doors closed with sliders. In any case, Hartlib’s description in his book of the ‘transparent hive’ designed by Mewe is illustrated with a figure by Wren, possibly the first architectural drawing that he ever made. Perhaps it was Evelyn or Wilkins who introduced Hartlib to Wren. Samuel Hartlib was a scientific friend of Evelyn and Wilkins who, amongst many other passions, was a devoted apiarist, and wrote a book on the subject, The Reformed Common-Wealth of Bees, published in 1655. Wren did however play a minor role in the design of these beehives with windows. When Evelyn was in Oxford in 1654, Wilkins introduced him to a ‘much accomplished and very ingenious Gentleman, Fellow of All-Soules Colledge in Oxford, Mr Christopher Wren.’ Wren was then aged 22 and was to spend the next decade working on mathematics, astronomy and optics before turning to architecture.
TH HIVE DRAWIT FULL
But in the text, Evelyn writes: “Hives of this kind may have 2 or 3 windows to command a full view of their works, but two will be sufficient, because they do not so much delight in the coldnesse of the glasse, & too great intromission of light distracts them.” The glass windows are nowhere in evidence, either in the drawing or the key. The small rectangles at the bottom of the classical arch are the doors for the bees. “But the Hexangular seems to be the most agreeable because it resembles the forme of their cells.” In the key to his drawing however, in the original manuscript, Evelyn writes: “ABCD the Hive or Box an hexog… octoganal Forme.” (One can almost hear him cursing as he realises that the hive in the figure has eight sides, and crosses out ‘hexog…’.) In the book Evelyn writes that “…the Bee is a rare Architect, forming her hexangular cell for every foote or Angle…” Hives, he says, can be different shapes.
John Evelyn's design of octagonal beehive, from Elysium BritannicumĮvelyn included a copy of this drawing in his great encyclopaedia of gardening, the Elysium Britannicum, a work which occupied him for most of his life. Evelyn made a drawing, and Wilkins gave Evelyn an empty hive for his gardens at his country house Sayes Court. His friend the diarist John Evelyn visited in 1654 and was very taken with their architecture, describing the hives as “built like Castles and Palaces” decorated with sundials, little statues and weathervanes. Wilkins installed some glass hives in the Wadham gardens. Mewe sent a model of his design to John Wilkins, Warden of Wadham College in Oxford and author of a wonderfully entertaining book on Mathematical Magick. It seems that a Gloucestershire clergyman, William Mewe, was the original inventor of these ‘glass hives.’ Mewe wrote that it was his habit to look in on the bees after dinner, and to offer his friends a ‘diary of the bees’ negotiations’. They had glass windows through which the occupants could be watched. These consisted of separate wooden boxes that could be stacked up vertically and lifted off as necessary, with removable frames for the combs.
In the 1650s a group of English gentleman gardeners and natural philosophers, several of them founder members of the Royal Society, became interested in bee-keeping and in new forms of hive, closer to modern designs. And when the time came to harvest the honey and wax, the skep was dismantled, and the bees were often deliberately killed.
It was not possible to observe the bees, to check for diseases, or see when they were swarming. There were several disadvantages for the apiarist. There were no frames inside to which the bees could attach their honeycombs, and they fixed them directly to the baskets. Christopher Wren and friends watch the bees A skep for keeping bees: photo from Mr.Homegrown, root, 'How to make a bee skep'īee-keepers in England used to keep their bees in skeps: upturned straw or wicker baskets with small openings for the bees to come and go.
0 kommentar(er)
