FOCUS ON PHILATELY: Beekeeping in Ukraine (03/03/02)

FOCUS ON PHILATELY

by Ingert Kuzych

Beekeeping in Ukraine

Ukrainians have appreciated their hard-working insect friends from the very earliest of times. Originally, among prehistoric people, the idea was solely to gather honey and wild hives were simply raided in haphazard fashion. It wasn't long, however, before the settlers of the Ukrainian forest-steppe devised a way to collect honey in a more systematic and dependable fashion. Many of the greatest advances in beekeeping (apiculture) were subsequently made on the territory of Ukraine. It is not surprising, then, that Ukraine has already released four stamp issues in its first decade of independence that depict bees or beekeeping.

The first innovation in domesticating bees was to keep them in hollow logs or gums (borti). These would be placed high in trees to mimic natural tree trunks. This method, called "bortnytstvo," was practiced until the middle of the 18th century. In a few forested areas - Volyn, northern Chernihiv, or the northern Kyiv regions - it persisted to the beginning of the 20th century.

Last year the Ukrainian stamp production firm Marka Ukrainy produced a splendid souvenir sheet that illustrated much of the history of beekeeping in Ukraine (Figure 1). The trees on the right and left selvedge of the souvenir sheet display examples of borti. Also shown are some of the tools used to collect honey by honey gatherers ("bortnyky") and various methods used to protect the borti from marauding bears. Platforms that prevented an animal from climbing upward or spiked devices (fixed around the foot of a tree or freely swinging around the bark) proved to be clever and effective deterrents.

Bortnytstvo was replaced by "pasichnytstvo," which involved placing hives on or by tree trunks in forest clearings or orchards. This method is first mentioned in documents from the 14th century. During the medieval princely period, honey and wax were very important items for domestic consumption, for trade abroad and for use as tribute. The beekeeping industry was deemed important enough to be protected by law. In the 15th and 16th centuries famous wax warehouses ("voskovi komory") were set up in Lviv, Lutsk, Volodymyr, Berestia and Bilsk. In the 16th and 17th centuries beekeeping developed rapidly and spread further east into the steppes proper.

Figure 2 is the first Ukrainian stamp to show apiculture. Released in 1994 as part of the Ethnographic Scenes stamp set, it carried the letter "E," which was the regular letter rate to countries of the former Soviet Union. Shown on the stamp is an apiculturescene from centuries past: beekeepers tending to two different types of primitive beehives ("vulyky"), some covered by a flat wooden block, others with a peaked, thatched roof.

A number of additional types of beehives were developed in Ukraine over the centuries. Three types of historic hives are illustrated along the bottom of the souvenir sheet (Figure 1). On the left is a woven type, constructed of some of the same materials used to make baskets. In the center is a stacked round hive, resembling a small, limbless tree. Its sections could be removed to extract wax and honey.

The square hive on the right is also a stacked type, but it contains square frames that can be easily removed one at a time. The introduction of removable, wooden frames upon which bees make their honeycomb is the key invention that launched modern beekeeping.

The frame hive was invented in 1814 by Petro Prokopovych, a landowner from the Chernihiv area, who also organized industrial beekeeping. He founded a beekeeping school in 1826 in the village of Palchyky, near Baturyn, where he taught progressive apiculture.

Prokopovych is shown holding his frame invention both on the central illustration and on the stamp of the first day cover from 2000 that honored his contributions to apiculture (Figure 3). The simple, practical, wooden frame design has not changed significantly to the present day.

The creature responsible for honey and wax production in Ukraine in centuries past and to the present day is the central European gray bee (Apis mellifera). A variety of this species - the Ukrainian bee ("bdzhola"; Apis mellifera var. ucrainica) - produces copious honey and overwinters well. It is shown up close on yet another philatelic issue honoring beekeeping, this one from 1999 (Figure 4).

Both this single stamp and the upper left stamp on the souvenir sheet present the most common bee caste, that of the female worker bee ("robitnytsia"). Positioned on a flower, the bee is shown with pollen ("pylok") on its hind legs (bees, like all insects, have six legs). The pollen is picked up in the course of the bees' meandering from flower to flower. Each of these hind-leg pollen baskets contains thousands of pollen grains that are used back at the hive to make food for the young. The upper right souvenir sheet stamp shows another worker bee, this time on hexagonal combs within the hive.

A worker bee's lifespan during summer months is only about 40 days (she may live up to six months if she is part of the overwintering generation that experiences the quiescent winter months). The worker develops from the egg, through the larval and pupal stages, in 21 days. The first eight days or so of maturity are spent as nurse to the larvae; the next several weeks are spent busily foraging afield for flower nectar. The nectar is slightly converted by enzymes in the bees' body into honey, which is then stored in combs. The constant trips back and forth with nectar and pollen literally cause the worker bee to wear herself out.

The lower left and lower right souvenir sheet stamps show the other two bee caste types: a queen bee ("matka") and a drone ("trut"), respectively. The queen is the true mother of the bee colony. Her only duty is to lay eggs for the propagation of the hive. She is a little larger than the worker but has shorter wings and her abdomen tapers to a point. The queen bee develops in about 15 days. At about five or six days of age she takes flight to mate with a drone outside on the wing. After being fertilized, she remains so for life. About two days after mating she commences laying and, if very prolific, can deposit up to 3,000 eggs per day. Eggs are laid in brood cells that differ from honey storage cells. Queens often live for three or four years.

The male drones are shorter, thicker and bulkier than the queen, with wings that reach the entire length of the abdomen. Stingless, they do no work and their only function is to serve the queen on her bridal flight. In hives with healthy queens, beekeepers will frequently kill (by squashing) excess drones when they are encountered and thus preserve the honey that would be fed to these "malingerers." Drones mature in about 24 days and make up only a small percent of the total population of a typical hive. After the spring breeding season, or should the honey crop be short, drones are eventually destroyed by the worker bees.

A more detailed overview of the intriguing world of bees and beekeeping would require a much longer article. Suffice it to say that Ukrainians have appreciated the efforts of these useful insects from time immemorial. Many additional helpful products are derived from the beekeeping industry and are represented by the upper, middle stamp on the souvenir sheet (labeled "apiterapia," or bee therapy). Bee pollen is promoted as a health food and bee venom has been used to successfully alleviate rheumatism. Research has also been carried out on bee venom as a cure for some types of cancer. Who knows what other amazing attributes remain to be discovered about this humble yet fascinating little insect?

Ingert Kuzych may be contacted at P.O. Box 3, Springfield, VA 22150 or at his e-mail address: [email protected].

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