Appendix B: Historical References

It is important to recognize that it wasn’t just white male colonizers that innovated beekeeping in North America. There were many people who worked with bees and generated new innovations in beekeeping that were in alignment with natural cycles of the honey bee hive. For example, Charles Henry Turner’s discovery of color and pattern vision in honey bees.

Often the voices of people of color and women are erased from history because they were not in positions of power or did not have networks to get information out to broader networks. Latinx beekeepers have been working with bees since the 1950s, though we don’t have documentation of what was happening before then. Many Indigenous communities harvest honey using pre-Hispanic techniques, such as clay pots. African-American and Indigenous populations in the US were honey hunters, farmers and gardeners as Tammy Horn references in her book, Bees in America: How the Honey Bee Shaped A Nation.

Below are some resources to learn more on the “forgotten” contributors to beekeeping history.

Beekeeping and African-Americans

Annotated bibliography on Beekeeping and African Americans

Charles Henry Turner

Black and white portrait of Charles Henry Turner
Figure B.1 Charles Henry Turner

Charles Henry Turner and investigations into color vision and pattern vision in honey bees – follow link to download full text PDF for free (another online version is available if your institution has a subscription to Annual Reviews in Entomology.)

Short bibliography on Charles Henry Turner

Booker T. Washington, Margaret Murray Washington, and Black Lady Beekeepers of the Tuskegee Institute, Alabama

Portrait of Booker T. Washington and his family, Margaret Murray Washington to his right
Figure B.2 Booker T. Washington and his family, Margaret Murray Washington to his right

A.I. Root tribute to Booker T Washington after his death

Magazine page of Margaret Murray Washington in Gleanings in bee culture from 1874
Figure B.3 Margaret Murray Washington mention in Gleanings in Bee Culture, 1874
Right side profile photograph of Margaret Murray Washington in Gleanings in bee culture from 1874
Figure B.4 Margaret Murray Washington
Magazine page of Margaret Murray Washington from Gleanings in bee culture: Class of girls learning bee-keeping
Figure B.5 Class of girls learning bee-keeping, Gleanings in Bee Culture

Six African American women are standing around a beehive and lifting up the cover. A man with a hat, who is presumed to be the teacher, is standing in the center
Figure B.6 Black women beekeepers

A.I. Root writing about Margaret Murray Washington and lady beekeepers

Digitized excerpt of Bees in America by Tammy Horn that talks about A.I. Root writing about lady beekeepers and getting some flack for that 

George Washington Carver

Black and white head on portrait of George Washington Carver circa 1910
Figure B.7 George Washington Carver circa 1910
George Washington Carver standing in field, probably at Tuskegee, holding piece of soil
Figure B.8 George Washington Carver, probably at Tuskegee

Excerpt on George Washington Carver and beekeeping

Beekeeping and Asian Americans

Magazine page of Leung Chung, Gleanings in Bee Culture, Volume 34. 1906 with text reading "Cutting Bees Out of a Side of a Building"
Figure B.9 Leung Chung, Gleanings in Bee Culture, Volume 34, 1906

From Gleanings in Bee Culture: article on Chinese American beekeeper Leung Chung

Excerpt from Bees in America referencing above article on Leung Chung

Francis Huber and Marie Lullin

Black and white illustrated portrait of Francis Huber from American bee journal 1861
Figure B.10 Francis Huber, American Bee Journal, 1861
Illustration of bees in red, black, and yellow against black and white forage
Figure B.11 Frontispiece from The Naturalist’s Library Volume VI. Bees by William Jardine, 1840

Excerpt on Francis Huber and illustration of bees, including up-close drawings of anatomy, and lots of info on queen bees

Francis Huber’s wife, Marie-Aimee Lullin: “Mdlle. Lullin…During the forty years of their married life, her tenderness and devotion toward her husband were unfailing. She was his reader, his secretary, his observer; he said of her, in his old age: “As long as she lived I was not sensible of the misfortune of being blind.”

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Radicalize the Hive by Angela Roell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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