PARWICH.ORG

I was chatting with a neighbour about bees, and we were wondering how much is known about the history of local bee keeping and honey production.

The Domesday Survey of 1086 mentions the Royal Estate’s income from Parwich before 1066 as having been “£32 and 6½ sesters of honey“, suggesting that in Saxon times Parwich was a net exporter of honey. However by the time of the survey the income is recorded as being worth “£40 of pure silver“, making no mention of honey. There is a place name ‘honeylands’, located below Hawkeslow, suggesting this was associated with bee keeping. Before the Enclosures of the late eighteenth century and land improvement that would have eradicated heather here, this is likely to have been somewhere where the hives would have been taken in summer to take advantage of the heather blossom.

As well as honey being an important sweetener before the import of cane sugar, bee hives were an important source of candle wax. Only the wealthy would have had wax candles in their homes, but for everyone, particularly before the Reformation, obtaining wax candles for the Church would have been very important.

In recent years a number of people have kept bees locally and I particularly enjoyed the Flaxdale honey I had a couple of years ago. Is local honey production under threat from the varroa mite, or colony collapse disorder? Does anyone know any more about the history of local bee keeping?