Ancient Irish Import - "the full of his bell" of bees

[TooBee...]

This is the opening to an article I am reading:

According to Irish mythology honeybees, wheat and rye were
first taken to Ireland all in the same boat by three Christian monks
some time after AD500. Brother Finan Cam took "the full of
his shoe" of wheat, Brother Declan "the full of his shoe" of rye
and Brother Modomnoc, under the orders of St David of Wales,
"the full of his bell" of bees (Mac Oengobann, c.805).

Does anyone with a bit of knowledge of ancient Irish history / lore know from where I could find more information on this myth ?
I've found this link which expands slightly on it,
http://www.ancientpages.com/2017/10...ssing-bees-ancient-tradition-revived-ireland/

OR even more important to what I'm researching into at the moment, does anyone else know of other accounts of bees being imported into these islands in or around the 500's AD give or take a few hundred years?

And before anyone says, yes I know this is just mythology. BUT it's very existence may suggest that monasteries, etc. where ancient centres of beekeeping and they may have aided in the spread of bees throughout Europe, and possibly also the mixing of different bee races? - There's a couple of may bees in there, get it ;-)

 

[Beefriendly]

OR even more important to what I'm researching into at the moment, does anyone else know of other accounts of bees being imported into these islands in or around the 500's AD give or take a few hundred years?

Eva Crane's books will probably have some relevant details. World History of Honey hunting and Archaeology of beekeeping.

 

[Quis Custodiet]

This is the opening to an article I am reading:

According to Irish mythology honeybees, ......................mixing of different bee races? - There's a couple of may bees in there, get it ;-)

There is much anecdotal evidence that honey bees were imported throughout the millennia. Perhaps they crossed the land bridge, perhaps they did not, perhaps they survived the last ice age,or they may have been introduced afterwards;who knows?The name of "Dark European Honeybee" is likely to be an accurate name for the sub-species. It is probable that bees have been brought across the Irish sea many times, also the Vikings when they settled here, possibly introduced bees from their homelands. Who can know what was done.

 

[TooBee...]

...Perhaps they crossed the land bridge, perhaps they did not, perhaps they survived the last ice age,...Who can know what was done.

Hi

Very Unlikely that they "survived the last ice" ... and the land bridge between Ireland and Britain is believed to have disappeared 2000 years before England's with France, meaning that the climate in Ireland whenever there was a land bridge would have been Tundra, in which bees cannot survive, meaning that they were most likely imported. That's why I'm trying to narrow it down a bit, the real question is why would the Welsh or the Vikings as you say have imported them?

 

[madasafish]

Hi

Very Unlikely that they "survived the last ice" ... and the land bridge between Ireland and Britain is believed to have disappeared 2000 years before England's with France, meaning that the climate in Ireland whenever there was a land bridge would have been Tundra, in which bees cannot survive, meaning that they were most likely imported. That's why I'm trying to narrow it down a bit, the real question is why would the Welsh or the Vikings as you say have imported them?

Surely the answer is obvious. The local bees were bad tempered and horrible
or unproductive or both...And the imports were considered to be better.

 

[Beefriendly]

, the real question is why would the Welsh or the Vikings as you say have imported them?

Mead.....they were all piss heads. Mead (at that time) was about the only alcoholic beverage around.
Until Br Adam came along...

 

[TooBee...]

Surely the answer is obvious. The local bees were bad tempered and horrible
or unproductive or both...And the imports were considered to be better.

But for that to be correct and successful then they would have had to have had a basic understanding of bee breeding, and they certainly didn't have that.

However any hive / colony imported would stop being good after the second year due to the new queen breeding with the local bad bees.

There is a small question mark over the date of the arrival of bees here in Ireland, and I was just wondering if there was anything about bees coming here to Ireland in our folklore over 1000 years ago. Anyone know of any apart from St. Modomnoc?

 

[madasafish]

But for that to be correct and successful then they would have had to have had a basic understanding of bee breeding, and they certainly didn't have that.

However any hive / colony imported would stop being good after the second year due to the new queen breeding with the local bad bees.

There is a small question mark over the date of the arrival of bees here in Ireland, and I was just wondering if there was anything about bees coming here to Ireland in our folklore over 1000 years ago. Anyone know of any apart from St. Modomnoc?

No.. Just travel and see bees that are calm and non horrible and compare vs local horrible bees. No knowledge of genetics required.
(Just as I do with the same level of ignorance..

 

[Poly Hive]

I visited a couple of times the Bird Observatory at Machrihanish on the Mull of Kintyre and from there to Ireland is roughly 10 miles. The coast is clearly visible through binoculars and the area was well travelled at the time with Vikings running salt pans on the Ardnamurchan peninsula and trading with France and so onl

Now given the religious importance of the candles to the Monks not to mention the light quality I would imagine that possibly not on the first "wave" of crossing to establish a new monastery but very likely on the 3d or fourth that bees would have been organised pretty rapidly.

Certainly, from a logistics point of view it was very possible indeed.

PH

 

[Quis Custodiet]

That would also have been the location of a land bridge, though some authorities now claim there never was a bridge. As a matter of interest, Scotland can be seen from from many areas in Ulster, even as far west as Inishowen in Donegal. A long low line just above the water, the Scottish Highlands, they can be seen easily when the atmosphere is clear before rain, if they cannot be seen; it is a clear sign that it is already raining!

 

[mbc]

Mead being important is a good call, many of the earliest welsh law codified as triads sets out the importance of the family's(tribe) mead maker, cellar man and butler, positions of great importance, also the rules governing swarm finding and capture were codified, I'll have to have a dig in some old books to see if I can find something about the export of bees to Ireland, iirc there might be something in Ransome's "Sacred Bee".

 

[mbc]

That would also have been the location of a land bridge, though some authorities now claim there never was a bridge. As a matter of interest, Scotland can be seen from from many areas in Ulster, even as far west as Inishowen in Donegal. A long low line just above the water, the Scottish Highlands, they can be seen easily when the atmosphere is clear before rain, if they cannot be seen; it is a clear sign that it is already raining!

I can see balers in wexford from home on a clear day!

 

[mbc]

Ok, nothing about the export/import of bees as yet but plenty of pre christian stuff about honey and mead (therefore pre roman from a welsh point of view).
Apparently Clonmel in Tipperary (Cluanmela) was named as such for its abundant wild bee nests.
A Latin writer, Solinus, wrote in the third century that there was no bees in Ireland, but Ransome argues he was certainly misinformed and that this was just a libel on the soil of Ireland as the truth was that great attention was paid in Ireland to the care of bees, which is proved by numerous mentions in early codes of law.
edit:
OK , the legend of the monkish export of bees to Ireland:
St Domnoc (or Modomnoc!?)(a monk at one of St Davids monasteries in Wales) was very fond of bees and a large swarm followed him and settled on the prow of the ship where he sat. He returned them to the monastery and tried to get away again but the bees followed him, this happened three times until he asked St Davids blessing to take them with him; and David (Dewy Sant) blessed him and the bees and bade them depart in peace, saying that henceforth bees should prosper in Ireland.
Obviously a load of nonsense considering the pre christian Irish laws pertaining to bees and honey but typical of early christians stealing foundation myths and making them their own .

 

[Uncle Betty]

Ok, nothing about the export/import of bees as yet but plenty of pre christian stuff about honey and mead (therefore pre roman from a welsh point of view).
Apparently Clonmel in Tipperary (Cluanmela) was named as such for its abundant wild bee nests.

The name Clonmel actually means 'The meadow/pasture, of honey'.

Tipperary is still, I'm told, the most populous beekeeping county in Ireland.

 

[Quis Custodiet]

mbc. The Brehon Laws would be among the better known laws to which you refer. They were as you suggest a code of behaviour as opposed to strict legislation. There is a copy with jurisprudence notes from a dim and distant past somewhere in the attic, from memory such issues as ownership of swarms, giving honey to invalids were dealt with, did not quite get as far as the ownership of slaves! They also treated men and women as equals. My interest has now been piqued, I shall have to go rooting among the cobwebs.

 

[Uncle Betty]

I posted this on a nice thread a few months back...

Here's a taste of Brehon law as applied to bees.

The Brehon Law tract on "Bee-judgments," of which the printed Irish text occupies twenty pages, enters into much detail concerning the rights of the various parties concerned, to swarms, hives, nests, and honey: of which a few examples are given here. If a man found a swarm in the faithche [faha], or green surrounding and belonging to a house: one-fourth of the produce to the end of a year was due to the finder, the remaining three -fourths to the owner of the house. If he found them in a tree growing in a faithche or green: one-half produce for a year to the finder: the rest to the owner. If they were found in land which was not a green: one-third to the finder and two-thirds to the owner of the land. If found in waste land not belonging to an individual, but the common property of the tribe, bees and honey belonged to the finder, except one-ninth to the chief of the tribe. As the bees owned by an individual gathered their honey from the surrounding district, the owners of the four adjacent farms were entitled to a certain small proportion of the honey: and after the third year each was entitled to a swarm. If bees belonging to one man swarmed on the land of another, the produce was divided in certain proportions between the two. It is mentioned in "Bee-judgments" that a sheet was sometimes spread out that a swarm might alight and rest on it:

http://www.libraryireland.com/Social...III-XVII-7.php



https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/showpost.php?p=612022&postcount=3