Bee Bole - Introduction

Introduction

Bee keeping was a very common activity in the past before sugar became plentiful and affordable as a sweetener. There was also a high demand for candle wax, especially from the pre-reformation churches, cathedrals and abbeys. Tithes and rents were often paid in honey and/or beeswax, or even bee swarms.

Bee boles are found across the whole of the British Isles. Other names were bee holes, bee shells (Cumbria), bee keps (Cumbria), bee niches (Derbyshire), bee walls (Gloucestershire), bee houses (Yorkshire), bee boxes (Kent) and bee garths. They were often built close to the dwelling house so that swarms could be detected and captured quickly; in addition it helped to familiarise the bees with human presence and activity. Honey was often stolen, so keeping the bees close to the house helped to deter this, together with the use of a padlocked metal bar that served to both prevent the removal of a skep from a bee bole and to hold a wooden board across the front when the bees were overwintering.

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were the heyday of bee bole construction, especially on large country house estates. The shapes of old bee boles can sometimes be seen in walls where they have been filled in with brick or stone, with only the outline remaining.

The International Bee Research Association maintains a comprehensive record of bee boles in the UK and Ireland. Started by Dr Eva Crane in 1952, the Register contains paper records for 1480 sites (as at 12 June 2009), and photographic prints, transparencies and/or digital images for most of them. To improve accessibility to the records and to encourage conservation and further recording, the Register was put into a database and made available online in 2005.