Petro Prokopovych, Founder of Movable Frame Hive Rational Beekeeping.
Jeff Kennedy
The Ukrainian beekeeper Petro Prokopovych began his beekeeping endeavor during a time where bees were housed primitively, in hives comprised of sectioned logs. By 1808, he had amassed a collection of 580 colonies and was already contemplating methods that would permit the removal of honey without causing total destruction to the colony’s comb and brood nest.
Petro worked tirelessly over the next six years and in 1814, developed the first ever, removable frame beehive. His “Dismountable Frame Beehive” made it possible to manipulate the brood nest and actively manage the colony within. In addition, he is also credited with developing a wooden partition with apertures the size of workers, making it possible to harvest pure honey from the frames.
During his time, Prokopovych was heralded as a gifted researcher and teacher, publishing more than sixty articles on beekeeping. Bee Culture’s own Amos Root praised Prokopovych’s innovations, citing: “His frame has much in common with a modern section frame with openings for passage of bees, the walls of his beehive were joint in the lock. He applied methods, which far outstripped his time.”
Patented on October 5th, 1852 (38 years later), Lorenzo Langstroth’s “Movable Comb Hive” was a modernized rendition of Prokopovych’s seminal work and major contribution to beekeeping. Over the past 169 years, little has changed or needed improved upon in regards to its design, or the way we house our bees. Sure, those of us in a more northerly climate can see the benefits of having a thicker walled hive, something similar to the natural tree cavities of Petro’s time, but our hives are already heavy enough, aren’t they? I am getting older, and so is my back, therefore I am not willing to take on the additional weight of a thicker walled, wooden hive. Problems require solutions and solutions require innovative people. In recent years, a handful of companies have begun making thicker walled and uber light, polystyrene hives. However, I am a traditionalist in that respect and prefer wood, but I appreciate the innovativeness.
At its core, the Langstroth “Movable Comb Hive” is an improved version of Prokopovych’s “Dismountable Frame Beehive,” yet most of us are only familiar with the Langstroth name. Perhaps his demographic and his (still) popular treatise Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee are some reasons to which Prokopovych fell off the radar and is rarely mentioned. Perhaps it’s confirmation bias.
A More Peaceful Existence
I never set out to be a beekeeper, but here I am, a sideline beekeeper. I’ve spent the last twenty years working in law enforcement. It’s been a mentally demanding career, one in which I have had an immense amount of exposure to complex trauma. When I began keeping bees, I quickly discovered that the constant hum of thousands of bees flying to and fro, the floral aroma infused with warm wood and wax wafting from the hives, the intense focus required to effectively inspect and assess a hive’s vitality, all was therapeutic for me. Meditative even.
What I have also learned about myself through healing from trauma is that one of my ways of handling stress is overworking. As for me, this is another benefit of beekeeping because there is always something that needs to get done. Building new equipment, painting boxes, leveling hive stands, cleaning up outyards, repairing old equipment, are all tasks that quickly pile up on the beekeeper’s ever growing “to-do” list.
Beekeeping welcomes innovativeness and fuels our creativity. It scratches the inventor itch within us, and prompts us to tinker in the garage during the off season. With the space heater warming us and our cup of coffee, we begin planning for the next season, tweaking our equipment designs, assessing what did or didn’t work last year, and researching or brainstorming new management techniques that we might try implementing during the upcoming season. Will these new techniques make our tasks easier? Will we yield more honey as a result? Can repeated frame manipulations cut down on swarming? Our potential can only be restrained by our lack of drive and determination.
Life is Still Beautiful
This time of year affords much clarity. It is the calm before the storm. Most fruit buds have come and gone and clover is on the cusp of exploding after each successive cut. The natural world that surrounds us is pulsating with life. As are we. Take the time to revel in this brief moment of our beekeeping season. As we proceed on in to June, most of us will start to fall behind and will spend the rest of the season trying to maintain stride with the bees.
There is one certainty in beekeeping and that is at times, you will fail. This is a sobering reality with all agriculture endeavors as despite our absolute best efforts, the bulk of the heavy lifting is done by nature. In a moments time, something can happen that drastically alters the trajectory of one of our outyards or the operation as a whole. Therefore, don’t be afraid to try new things. To be inventive.
As we have grown our operation over the last several years, I have had to force myself to pull the reins back on multiple occasions. When we start focusing solely on “growth” we start to lose focus of what drew us in to this remarkable hobby/industry in the first place. When we race around from yard to yard, doing the work that “has to get done,” we become disconnected from the bees and nature. We no longer have the time to be present. To REALLY read a brood frame. To take in all the fuzzy rump shaking that accompanies waggle dances during a heavy nectar flow.
The modern world is a scary place, but our bees and their actions remind us that life is still beautiful. We just have to be willing to slow down and take it all in. One bee yard at a time. Take time to tinker. You won’t regret it.
