SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: This week’s research took DAVID MORGAN back to the turn of the 18th Century and a Croydon physician whose detailed studies revolutionised what we know about bee colonies and honey production
A book written nearly 400 years ago by a doctor from Croydon created a huge amount of interest and a good deal of controversy. The ripples from his prose spread far and wide and got people thinking, arguing and debating.
Joseph Warder was a physician who had lived in Croydon since about 1688. His great hobby in life was beekeeping. He kept many hives, observing the behaviour of the bees, their lifecycles and their honey production. One of the main objectives in writing his book was to improve the amount of honey that apiarists could expect to harvest at the end of the summer season.
Not very many people in Croydon who were alive at the turn of the 17th century had their portraits painted. Warder can be added to that list as the Dutch painter Henry Hulsberg completed his picture of him, wearing a glorious, fashionable wig, in 1708.
Warder’s book was called The True Amazons, or the Monarchy of Bees, and was published in 1693 . There was a second edition in 1713. The book proved so popular, it was reprinted nine times in total, the ninth edition published in 1765, long after Warder’s death in 1724.
In the late 17th Century and early 18th Century, British tastes were changing. There was a much greater demands for sweet foods. One way of creating sweetness in cooking was the use of honey. The alternative was sugar from the plantations.
The bee’s knees: Joseph Warder, as painted in 1708
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It is not certain where Warder’s house was in Croydon, but we do know that he kept several hives in his garden. He was very aware of the conditions which would sustain a thriving bee colony. In 1712, he noted that a hive of bees in and around Croydon would be worth 10 shillings – almost £90 at today’s prices – whereas in other parts of the country a hive might be worth five shillings, while just a half crown, 2/6d, would buy a hive in the least productive areas.
Warder wrote that by the end of August, the beekeeper should look to see which of their hives weighed the most and which were the lightest. The heaviest could be harvested of a lot of honey because the colony wouldn’t miss it so much. The lightest had little honey but it could be taken, as it was unlikely that the colony could successfully over-winter with only a small food supply.
Close observations of his bees over many years made Warder an expert. He watched how the continuous flights of the worker bees wore out their wings and that by the end of June and into July the edges of those wings would become ragged. Sometimes bees with a full load of pollen couldn’t fly any further because their wings “couldn’t bear the weight”.
He watched how other creatures looked at a colony of bees as a food source. Swallows, he wrote, “were great destroyers of bees”. The birds caught the bees in their beaks and took them back to their young in the nest. Warder told bee keepers to destroy swallows’ nests, which were usually in the chimneys of local houses, so that they could cut down the losses in their colony.
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Standard text: Warder’s book remained the go-to manual for beekeepers for half a century
Another bird which predated his bees was the sparrow. Warder observed the little birds hopping about on the ground near the hives, trying to catch any bees on the ground. They would also fly up to catch bees on the wing if that was possible. A very coldhearted beekeeper, Warder suggested giving a few farthings, now and again, to local boys to disrupt the sparrow nests.
The observation which most ruffled feathers though, was his statement that it was a Queen bee, a female, that ruled the colony in the hive.
Perhaps it was the position of the male drone at the bottom of the colony pyramid which so angered some folk, going against what was seen to be in Restoration England the natural order of things – at least until Queen Anne took the throne, that is.
In the hive, Warder had found, the Queen bee was at the apex, the other female bees were responsible for the majority of the work and the males were at the bottom of the pile. Not only that, but many males were deemed surplus to requirements and kicked out to die at the beginning of winter.
Bernard de Mandeville, a Dutch writer based in London, also wrote about bees. In 1705 he penned The Grumbling Hive and three years later wrote A Fable of the Bees. He, like other writers of his time, used the notion of hierarchy in a bee colony but never looked critically at the gender roles. In other poems of that era where “speaking bees” were commenting on their lives, they were invariably male.
Warder was an interesting local figure. He was a leading figure in the local non-conformist, possibly Congregational, chapel. Some books referred to him as a pastor of the congregation.
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Detailed advice: Warder’s book was reprinted nine times
He was admitted as an extra-licentiate of the College of Physicians in 1691 and subsequently spent his working lifetime of more than 30 years in his medical practice in Croydon. On April 9, 1702, Warder married local woman Rachel Hammon. They had two daughters who survived into adulthood. Both Jane and Mary were left legacies in their father’s will.
Warder’s will also yielded clues about his life and about Croydon in the 1720s.
He owned various properties, one of which was occupied by Nathaniel Lane who was described as a painter. Lane had a brother, Matthew, whose lifetime was the limiting factor for his brother’s use of the property.
Warder had links with the Elis Davey almshouses.
He held an orchard and various buildings “by seale from the Tutor and poor of the Alms House of Elias Davey”, which he bequeathed to his loving wife Rachel. Whether there was a link or not to that Davey family, Warder named his son-in-law in the will as John Davey.
Sadly, nothing in the will gave any clue to what would become of his beehives, other than the word “orchard”.
The second edition of his book, published in 1713, contained an interesting entry. Warder dedicated the book to Queen Anne, who had been crowned in 1702 and would, because of the passing of the Act of Union, become the first monarch of Great Britain.
Warder’s book dedication directly compared Queen Anne with his bees. “The queen bee governs with clemency and sweetness, so doth your Majesty.”
Warder went on to add that both Queen Anne and the queen bee were only gentle, “if not affronted nor assaulted”.
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Final bequest: Warder’s will made no mention of his valuable bee hives
He followed this statement with another controversial remark: “Tho’ there be both male and female among them, ‘tis not for nothing, nor by chance, that He who is Wisdom itself should thus place the Government of their famous Monarchy in a Queen.”
Advice for honey wine makers was also included in the manual. Warder wrote that 120lb of honey would make a very good barrel of mead. If clear honey was to be used, then it should be 4lb to every gallon. He wrote down his instructions and said that the liquor produced was as fine as any wine, including straining the mixture through “swan skin” to remove any impurities.
Warder provided the name of another local bee keeper in his book. He described walking the two miles from his Croydon home to Selsdon where he met with his friend, Mr Bowyer. Warder went out in the garden to see Bowyer’s hives. Although he could see that there was a good stock of bees, the amount of honey produced in the first hive was disappointing.
Looking more carefully, Warder found evidence that a mouse had nibbled his way into hive, driving out the bees and eating the sweet honey. A search resulted in the rodent being found, caught and dispatched, “as in time he might have endangered other stock in the garden”.
Warder was ruthless in his pursuit of an ideal environment for bee-keeping. Warder’s manual on bee-keeping remained the standard work for half a century. Joseph Warder: a physician who was a beekeeper or an apiarist who earned a living in the medical world? Warder certainly left his mark on the world.
David Morgan, pictured right, is a former Croydon headteacher, now the volunteer education officer at Croydon Minster, who offers tours or illustrated talks on the history around the Minster for local community groups
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at [email protected]
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
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