Noting much changes

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Currently reading a book which I found tucked away in a bargain bundle at a spring bee auction (well, that's what I told SWMBO anyway )
'Beekeeping in the Tropics', written by Francis G Smith in 1960, he was head of the beekeeping division of what is now Tanzania and was based at Tabora in the West which is not that far from the area where I am helping WWF set up a new beekeeping project.
It was pre Top bar beekeeping and he had a lot of assistance from Eva Crane, R O B Manley and A S Rowse amongs others in writing it.
The preamble discusses the development of commercial and moveable frame beekeeping in Europe and America and discusses all species of honeybee not just Mellifera.
It's just a few paragraphs in the first chapter that tickled me espeially his comments on how beekeeping was held back by the usual suspects until some look further afield for knowledge and expertise..

The fathers of beekeeping in England, who demonstarted in frock coat and top hat, considered that it was not possible to make a living from bees, but recommended it as a profitable hobby, a source of entertainment and possibly pocket money for the cottager.........their teaching held British beekeeping in thraldom for fifty years

[only fifty!!]

until a few hardy types, already having lost quite a bit of money experimenting with the fancy hives of the orthodox school, turned to those across the atlantic already making a living from beekeeping.......and so, casting off the traditions of the exponents of hobbyist beekeeping, they took up the approach and techniques of the commercial beekeepers of America and Australia.

I can see Manley's fingerprints all over that
I must say my chuckling did wake SWMBO from her slumbers.