American Bee Journal

TWO BOOKS ON THE HISTORY OF THE SPANISH BEEKEEPING

Dr. José de Jaime Gómez started several years ago an investigation about the Spanish beekeeping. Now, in collaboration with his son, these studies have culminated in the publication of two volumes on the History of Spanish Beekeeping that we are going to comment on briefly .
 
From cave paintings to the end of the Middle Ages  

The first book tells us all about the apiculture and its origins in Spain. Since the fossilized bees or cave paintings with scenes of honey hunting from the Levant (all along the Eastern Spain, Teruel, Valencia, Albacete, …), to the arrival of the Modern Age, before the discovery of America.

We analize the Iberian bee’s filogeny and the birth of the main European races, with a review of the apiculture on the cave paintings art. On the Iberian stage we found the Tartessus with the legend of “Gárgoris el Melícola”. But it is in the Greek Spain and, mainly, the Roman Spain when we found for the first time authors specialized on Beekeeping as Higinio and Lucio Junio Moderato Columela.

At the beginning of the Middles Ages starts the Visigothic Stage, with Saint Isidro de Sevilla and his “Etimologías” or “El Fuero Juzgo” on the law. With the arrival of Arabs to the peninsula began one of the most prosperous and important periods of the Hispanic culture that extended for several centuries. On beekeeping, people as important as Aben Cenif or Abu Zacharia emerged. On the other hand, the happy harmony that sometimes was established with the Jewish population made that many people emigrated to the Arab Spain’s cities from many places of Europe, appearing then great authors like Maimonides, who reviewed old honey knowledges, even from the Holy Scriptures.

The Arab Spain suffered a gradual loss of influence and power, in benefit of the Christian ones who were extending on the Peninsula. This political change brought a new way to see and to understand the cultural reality, but the great beekeeping authors didn’t appear yet. A corporate body started to regulate the beehive’s working and a good use of the honey and other bee products. Each conquered city receives, as a privilege to facilitate its establishment, a series of rights for its inhabitants. This law system had much influence during several centuries. We are speaking, for example, about the Fueros system that could be found in Baeza, Teruel, Cuenca, Soria and other cities that will culminate in the Fuero Real.

On the other hand, the apiarist, and all the people who lived on the beekeeping, formed guilds and associations in order to guarantee the privileges obtained during the Reconquest. They were looking for shelter from the Nobility and the intruders. They also used the guilds to transmit the knowledge of their own jobs. These associations made the beekeeping became a closed group, even monopolist.

This was the situation of Spain until the America’s discovery, when a period started on which the Spanish Kingdom became an Empire for more than one century. The hegemony wasn’t just in politics, but in science and culture. This interesting Spanish Stage required another book, Historia de la Apicultura Española, 2. Desde 1492 hasta 1808, that will be explained later.

The first book has been divided into historical stages and in each one we speak about the bee’s biology and its nectar flowers, the working techniques, bee’s patology, honey and wax uses for gastronomy, medicine, etc., main beekeeping writers, mythological and religious symbolism, and the appearances of beekeeping on art and literature.

The book is illustrated with drawings and lithographs of every period, trying as far as possible to use those from a Spanish author or that were more spread on the peninsula.

Let’s remember the importance honey had in the classical Mediterranean cultures as a sweetener and as a medicine. The sugar-cane crop was restricted to small and specific zones with tropical climate. The sugar production just arrived to the manufactured of medicines. The honey was almost the only sweetener, so beekeeping was in great demand. When the American techniques for sugar-cane crops, appeared the sugar took the place of honey in markets and pharmacopoeia irreversiblely.

The wax had almost a divine condition in many cultures. The bees were considered sacred animals for its purity and chastity. So the products elaborated by these insects were thought to be pure and chaste, also the wax. That’s the reason why the Catholic Church used it widely during centuries to illuminate and to add lustre to the religious cult, against any other cheaper ways of illumination.

The Renaissance splendour and the first shipments of honey bees to America

In the second volume we approach other historical and scientific fields not as well known and researched. The Renaissance began with which we have called the "Golden Century of Spanish Beekeeping". We can find in this period so noted authors as Alonso de Herrera, Méndez de Torres, the unknown Toledanian writer Alonso de la Fuente and, specially, the Aragonesian Jaime Gil with whom the Hispanic superiority on beekeeping rised to the top.

The beginnings of the American beekeeping deserve a special chapter. Spain, as the authors document, had the primacy on the bees shipments to the New World. It’s supported by the “Cronistas de Indias”. But the main evidence is a document that allowed the officers of the “Casa de Contratación de Sevilla” to send hives to Española island, San Juan and Cubagua, because the demand of wax and honey. This document is a Royal Certificate issued on December, 7th of 1543 on Valladolid and found by us on the “Archivo de Indias”

The peak of Spanish beekeeping takes place in 1621 with the publication of the “Perfecta y curiosa declaración de los provehcos grandes que dan las colmenas bien administradas" (The perfect and curious declaration of the great profits from the well-working hives) written by the  mentioned Jaime Gil. But the scientific isolation with the European research and its great advances motivated Spanish beekeeping to lose the primacy and started a decrease period on the bee world knowledge. During the Renaissance the Spanish authors wrote the most advanced books of beekeeping, but in the Baroque period there were no publications of any book about the bee world, just a few manuscripts with little interest.

During 18th Century, Spain lived a change in the dynasty. Then it began a little recovery of interest about the scientific studies. But we have to wait until the Enlightenment for the main authors to translate the French beekeeping books. In the last years of this Century, the “Sociedades Económicas de Amigos del País” (Friend’s Country Economical Societies) try to foment the hive working on the peasants for reducing the wax and honey shortage; it resulted in the publication of a few beekeeping books without much originality.

It is, broadly speaking, what the two volumes Historia de la Apicultura Española contain. These books reveal the importance and significance of the Spanish beekeeping throughout the centuries, also its knowledge and techniques.

Jose Mª de Jaime Lorén
Pablo de Jaime Ruiz
Universidad Cardenal Herrera-CEU (Valencia, Spain)

Notes
1. We suggested reproducing as illustrations the book covers that we sent.
2. You can take a liberty to publish the review in one or several numbers, also to modify or to eliminate part of the content if you consider it excessive.
3. We will be thankful if you don’t mind to send some issues with the review to us.

1.- JAIME GÓMEZ, J. DE; JAIME LORÉN, J.M. DE (2001): Historia de la Apicultura Española, 1. Desde los orígenes hasta 1492. Calamocha (Teruel), 338 p.; JAIME LORÉN, J.M. DE; JAIME GÓMEZ, J. DE (2002): Historia de la Apicultura Española, 2. Desde 1492 hasta 1808. Calamocha (Teruel), 455 p.