Famous Beekeepers

Abe Collin - This beekeeper invented the queen excluder in France, in 1865.

Alexander the Great - Conquered the world, then died thousands of miles from home - his men carried his preserved body home for burial in a golden coffin filled with honey.

Aristeaus - Virgil's character in Georgics, was the Greek patron of beekeeping; he played a scandelous role in the death of Orpheus' love, Euridice.

Aristotle - This Greek beekeeper and scientist used simple hives with wooden strip top-bars. Some of his observations about bees were pretty clever, others were dead wrong.

Butler - This naturalist and beekeeper realized the "King Bee" is a "Queen Bee" - he wrote Feminine Monarchie in 1609.

Cave Folks - These early impressionist artists created the first images of bee culture in history with their cave paintings in Spain, 6000 B.C.

Charles Mraz - Mraz was a pioneer in bee sting therapy. As a beekeeper and apitherapist for more than 60 years, he also used bee venom to treat patients with arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and a host of other disorders.

Cook and Beals - These beekeepers took a lot of the fuss and muss out of beekeeping by designing the automated uncapping system - 'good-bye hot knives!'

Columela - Born in Gades (Cádiz) in the first century BCE - wrote "De Rustica" which spoke about the honey bee, and the first system of "cuadros móviles".

Dan Quayle - This former U.S. vice-president's response to beekeepers seeking price-support help was "Beekeeping is a sweet subsidy that has been ripping off taxpayers for years."

Democritus - This famous ancient (lived to be 109) Greek apicultural researcher, beekeeper and philosopher taught that new bees could be made from rotting oxen - the King Bee, he figured out, came from decaying bull brains.

Dobbs - This beekeeper and botanist discovered that bees pollinate flowers while gathering nectar and pollen.

Dr. D.C. Jarvis - This Vermont doctor's book Folk Medicine made honey very popular in the 1970's - honey prices went from about $0.20 US to $0.50 US per pound after the release of his million-copy selling book!

Dr. Eva Crane - This beekeeper, bee researcher, and nuclear physicist was author of several books, including Archeology of Beekeeping, and Honey.

Dyce - In the 1930's, this Canadian developed the creamed honey formulas for soft, 'spun', semi-granulated honey.

Gregor Mendel - Monks aren't usually fathers, but Mendel was the father of genetics and a beekeeper when he did his famous experiments that proved tall peas begat tall peas most of the time. Gregor Mendel, discovered the fundamental laws of genetics in pea plants, then spent the rest of his life trying to breed better bees, without success.

Henry Fonda - The star of 96 films, this hobby beekeeper gave away honey in jars that he labeled Henry's Honey. When he was a youngster, he'd earned the Eagle Scout badge for beekeeping.

Hippocrates - The father of medicine frequently recommended honey as a remedy for whatever ails you. He wrote, 'Honey and pollen cause warmth, clean sores and ulcers, soften hard ulcers of lips, heal carbuncles and running sores.' (Does anyone know what a car bunkle is?)

Hruschka - This beekeeper invented the honey extractor in Austria, in 1865, after watching the centrifugal effect of a bucket of milk being swung in circles by a milk maiden. (Makes you wonder, doesn't it?)

Huber - In the late 18th Century, the blind Swiss naturalist and beekeeper Francois Huber developed special bee hives to improve scientific observation of his bees. His work, viewed through the eyes of his assistant, resulted in the first clear understanding of the concept of "bee space" - the secret to the building of modern hives with moveable frames.

Icarus - This ancient Greek astronaut flew too close to the sun and the beeswax holding the feathers to his arms melted - the feathers came loose and he is still falling.

Indra - Goddess and namesake of ancient India - her first food as a little baby goddess was honey.

Janscha - Maria Theresa's Royal Beekeeper, from Slovenia. In 1771 Anton Janscha discovered how bees mate.

Johannes Mehring - This German beekeeper invented wax comb foundation, 1857.

Karl Kehrle - Better known as Brother Adam. The Benedictine monk (Buckfast Abbey, England) developed the famous Buckfast Bee, and became the leader of a short-lived beekeeping cult movement.

Karl von Frisch - Translated the bee's dance into German and won the Nobel Prize for this and related animal beehavior studies.

Krishna - The Hindu deity, has often been depicted as a bee. Four thousand years ago, Hindu ancestors taught that eating honey and pollen would lead to a long life... If Krishna is a bee, this could change our perspective on the 'Hairy' Krishnas.

Le Quy Quynh - A military strategist and medical healer, Le Quy Quynh resides in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam. He is well known and respected in Vietnam as a "Hero of the Revolution" for leading forces from the North first against the French, then against the US. He served as Adjutant to General Giiap, and as defense minister in Ho Chi Minh's first post-war cabinet. However, his real claim to fame is his 50 years as a beekeeper and his research, cultivation and medical treatment using bees and bee products. He is famous in Vietnam for his healing techniques -many of his patients are victims of severe war related injuries - he has worked wonders on their wounds. He is interested in exchanging information with others - through his American grandson.

Leo Tolstoy - This Russian author was a beekeeper. His wife, Sonja, talked about him "crouching in front of his hives, net over his head." Tolstoy mentions beekeeping twice in War and Peace (it's a long book, you'd expect beekeeping to come up, wouldn't you?) Tolstoy describes the evacuation of Moscow: "Moscow was empty. It was deserted as a dying, queenless hive is deserted."

L.L. Langstroth - This minister discovered the practical use of Bee-Space and designed the beehive commonly used in North America, in 1851. His 1853 book, The Hive and the Honey Bee, is brilliantly written, and is the first descriptive treatise of our modern bee management techniques which are still used 150 years later.

Lord Baden Powell - Founder of the Boy Scouts in England. This beekeeper, once when producing honey for showing, mistakenly allowed it to overheat and the honey became dark. He showed it anyway and due to his prestige this created a fashion for dark honey in England for many years.

Marcus Aurelius - This famous Roman emperor, philosopher, and potentially world's first Socialist said, "What is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee."

Maria von Trapp - Yes, after the family escaped Austria, the little nun and governess from the Sound of Music kept bees on her Vermont farm.

Martin John - In 1684, this English beekeeper discovered that bees make wax, they don't gather it.

Maurice Maeterlinck - This Nobel Prize Winner in Literature (1911) - author, playwright, leader in symbolist drama was a beekeeper for sixty years and wrote The Life of the Bees, 1901, his work in prose that deal with philosophy and nature.

Mew - The Reverend Bill Mew developed one of the first really modern hives in 1649 - complete with multi-story honey holding boxes and top bar frames. He got many of his ideas from the common Greek hive he had seen on his travels.

Mohammed - The founder of Islam said, "Honey is the remedy for every illness." We have more from the Quran thanks to Farzaneh Shahrtash.

Mohammed Ali - Former heavy-weight champ ate lots of pollen and honey and attributed this as part of the reason he could sting like a bee.

Napoleon Bonaparte - used the bee as his person symbol of his personal immortality. His red cape is remembered for its bee print, perhaps stitched on by his wife, Empress Josephine, or perhaps not.

Nichel Jacob - This scientist/beekeeper discovered that workers could raise a new queen from a young larvae - in 1568; discovery led to modern queen rearing systems.

Olga - A Saint of the Slavic persuasion, Olga was also a pretty brutal warrior. She invited her enemies to her son's funeral, gave them her most potent honey-wine (five times as much alcohol as regular wine) and then had her soldiers kill all four thousand of the drunks. Olga remains the patron saint of not getting drunk in our enemy's home.

Peter Fonda - actor, activist, was named Beekeeper of the Year by the Florida State Beekeeping Association for deftly portraying Ulee in Ulee's Gold, and for his contributions to beekeeping.

Pope Urban III - used the bees as his official stamp and symbol in Rome in 1626.

Presidents of the United States - A motley duo may have distinguished themselves as successful revolutionaries, but both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson poked their hands into bees nests more than a few times in their careers. One visitor to this web site tells me that the first president, agricultural experimenter and beekeeper honest George Washington, who never told a lie nor exaggerated about the size of his honey crop, probably kept bees in progressive wooden boxes (instead of gums or skeps) according to records in the storehouse at Mount Vernon.

Prince Cesi - In 1625, this Italian prince and beekeeper made the world's first microscopic drawings of honeybees.

Peter Prokopovich - From 1800 to 1810, this Ukrainian beekeeper kept 10,000 hives (!) in the Ukraine - the first truly large-scale commercial beekeeper in the world.

Pythagoras - Ancient Greek mathematician, cult founder, and beekeeper - the strictest of his followers ate only bread and honey.

Quinby - This beekeeper invented the modern bee smoker in 1875.

Ramses III - This ancient Egyptian Pharaoh, King, Deity, and Ruler of Heaven and Earth (but only from 1198-1167 BC), offered a lesser river god a 30,000 pound honey sacrifice by dumping beekeepers' honey into the Nile.

Rob Smith - This Australian beekeeper produced a world record 784 pounds from each of 450 hives in 1953.

The Romans - The ancient Romans shot beehives as catapult projectiles. They found this ammunition so effective that they depleted most of central Italy of bees.

Samson - The bible guy, discovered a swarm of honey bees living in a lion's carcass (Judges 14).

Shakespeare - Old Willie had something to say about everything, including the honey bee: "Where the bee sucks, there suck I."- The Tempest

Sherlock Holmes - This great detective retired to a simple life of puttering around with bees. As a beekeeper, he continued to demonstrate his problem-solving expertise.

Sir Edmund Hillary - A commercial beekeeper (he and his brother owned 1200 hives) from New Zealand, along with Tenzing Norgay, first scaled Mount Everest, in May, 1953.

St. Ambrose - In legend, a swarm landed on this infant's mouth, predicting a life as a great orator. No information has ever been given on the amount of honey harvested from his face.

Thomas Edison - We don't know if Tom himself was a beekeeper, but his estate in Fort Myers, Florida, continues to keep bees in the fashion that Edison may have had them when he was producing beeswax for use in his scientific experiments.

Ulee - This fictional Florida beekeeper, played by Peter Fonda, became famous with the release of the dramatic, acclaimed feature film Ulee's Gold, starring Peter Fonda and Patricia Richardson - released June 13, 1997.

Vicente Fox - The president of Mexico says that they used bee stings as a test for bravery on the family ranch when he was a youngster.

Virgil - A beekeeper and poet, he wrote about bees in the Aeneid. "Sich is their toil and such their pain; As is the bees' in their flowery plain... All with united force combine to drive, the lazy drones from the laborious hive...."

Warwick Kerr - Kerr is the great-grandson of a Confederate army colonel from the southern states who settled in Brazil after the American Civil War. Dr. Kerr has been an outstanding spokesman for Brazil's poor and politically oppressed, and this has led to a brief internment in prison a few years ago. As an apicultural researcher, social activist, and beekeeper, he brought African bee stock to Brazil in an attempt to improve honey production and the standard of living for poor and indigenous beekeepers in the South American tropics. An assistant accidentally released 26 mated African queen bees into the wild in 1957.

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