Europe Honey hunting

hole hive in old tree in swarzedz



a mannequin dressed honey hunter

as stone age, people collected honey of wild bees, not done commercially. middle ages became trade, known in german-speaking central europe, example, zeidler or zeitler, job collect honey of wild, semi-wild or domestic bees in forests. unlike modern beekeepers, did not keep bees in man-made wooden beehives. instead, cut holes hives in old trees @ height of 6 meters , fitted board on entrance. whether colony of bees nested there or not depended entirely on natural environment , change every year. tree tops cut off in order prevent wind damage.

distribution

extremely valuable, if not prerequisite tree beekeeping, conifer stands. important locations honey hunting in middle ages in regions of fichtel mountains , nuremberg imperial forest. in bavaria forest beekeeping recorded year 959 in vicinity of grabenstätt. in area of today s berlin, there extensive honey gathering, in larger grunewald.

in area around nuremberg there still numerous references earlier flourishing honey hunting tradition such castle of zeidlerschloss in feucht. honey important nuremberg s gingerbread production; nuremberg reichswald ( bee garden of holy roman empire ) provided plenty of it.