William Charles Cotton - Apiarist

Apiarist

From his childhood Cotton had a passionate interest in bees and beekeeping. At Oxford University he was a founder and the first secretary of the Oxford Apiarian Society. In 1837 he published his first work about bees, A Short and Simple Letter to Cottagers from a Bee Preserver, which sold 24,000 copies. A second Letter followed three years later. In 1842 he published My Bee Book which amongst other advice suggested ways to render bees semiconscious to obtain the honey rather than by killing them.

New Zealand had two native species of bees but neither was suitable for producing honey. The first honey bees in New Zealand had been introduced by Mary Bumby, the sister of a Wesleyan minister, in March 1839. While Cotton was in Sydney in April 1842 he arranged for hives of bees to be sent to him after his arrival in New Zealand. This took longer than Cotton had expected and it was not until March 1844 that he received his first swarm of honey bees at Waimate. When he moved to Bishop's Auckland he successfully transferred them. He spent much time in training settlers and Māori in the practices of keeping bees and gathering their honey. Towards the end of 1844 he published A Few Simple Rules for New Zealand Beekeepers. He later wrote a series of articles on beekeeping in The New Zealander and these were published together in 1848 as A Manual for New Zealand Beekeepers. Another book, written in Māori, Ko nga pi (The Bees) was published the following year. There is a tradition that Cotton introduced bees to New Zealand but this is incorrect, although he was largely responsible for teaching the skills of beekeeping to the immigrants and the natives.

When Cotton was later appointed vicar of Frodsham he continued his interest in beekeeping and carried out experiments on bees. On one of his trips to the Continent Cotton purchased a copy of a book called Schnurrdiburr by Wilhelm Busch which contained comical illustrated stories about a beekeeper and his bees. Cotton produced his own version of the book with his own verses attached to the illustrations entitled Buzz a Buzz or The Bees – Done freely into English. He took an active part in the discussions which led to the formation of the British Beekeepers' Association and became one of its vice presidents. He collected a library of over 200 books on bees and beekeeping which was bequeathed to the parish of Frodsham on his death. In 1932 it was deposited with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and in 1987 transferred to Reading University Library.