Beehives

This list of beehives includes depictions of skeps and tile hives.

For more links on bees, beehives, beekeeping, and apiculture in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, click here.

The properties of bees are wonderful noble and worthy. For bees have one common kind as children, and dwell in one habitation, and are closed within one gate: one travail is common to them all, one meat is common to them all, one common working, one common use, one fruit and flight is common to them all, and one generation is common to them all.

De proprietatibus rerum

• An Anglo-Saxon charm for a swarm of bees
• Bees, Exultet (BNF NAL 710), 1136
• A beekeeper releases bees from a sack to a beehive, Worksop Bestiary (PML M.81, fol. 58r), c. 1185
• Bees, The Aberdeen Bestiary (fol. 63r), c. 1200
• Bees, a bestiary (BNF Lat. 6838 B, fol. 29v), 13th century
• Beehive, a bestiary (Bodl. 764, fol. 89r), second quarter of the 13th century
• Bees and a beehive, a theological miscellany (Brit. Lib. Harley 3244, fol. 57v), c. 1236-1275
• Beekeeping, Bestiary of Love (BNF Fr. 1444), second half of the 13th century
• A man tries to catch a swarm of bees in a bag, The Maastricht Hours (Brit. Lib. 17, fol. 148r), c. 1310-1320
• Veiled beekeper hangs a drum near a beehive, psalter (Douce 6, fol. 136v), c. 1320-1330
• Beehive with bees, Luttrell Psalter (Brit. Lib. Add. 42130, fol. 204r), c. 1325-1340
• Fols. 18v, 81v, and 100v, Concordantiae caritatis (Lilienfeld Stiftsbibliothek 151), c. 1349-1351
• Beehives, Tacuinum Sanitatis (ÖNB 2644), c. 1370-1400
• Honey, Tacuinum Sanitatis (Casanatense 4182, fol. 27), late 14th century
• Harvesting honey, Tacuinum Sanitatis (BNF NAL 1673, fol. 82), c. 1390-1400
• Detail from February in the Très riches heures du Duc de Berry, c. 1412-16
• September in the Rohan Hours (BNF Latin 9471, fol. 13r), c. 1430-1435
• Honey, Tacuinum Sanitatis (BNF Lat. 9333, fol. 91v), 15th century
• Bees, De proprietatibus rerum (Musée Condé MS 339, fol. 155v), 15th century
• Bees, The Bestiary of Anne Walsh (Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. kgl. S. 1633 4, fol. 47r), 15th century; see also Medieval Bestiary: Bee
• A bear with bees and beehives, Flore de virtu e de costumi (Brit. Lib. Harley 3448, fol. 10v), second quarter of the 15th century
• Beehives, an herbal (Brit. Lib. Sloane 4016, fol. 57v), c. 1440
• Bees, De proprietatibus rerum (BNF Fr. 136, fol. 16), c. 1445-1450
• Bees, Book of simple medicines (BNF NAF 6593, fol. 137v), 1452
• Beekeeping, Georgica (BNF Lat. 7939 A, fol. 38v), 1458
• Bees, Book of simple medicines (BNF Fr. 1310, fol. 26v), mid-15th century
• Bees, Book of simple medicines (BNF Fr. 12320, fol. 128), mid-15th century
• Bees, Book of simple medicines (BNF Fr. 12321, fol. 152), mid-15th century
• Bees, Book of simple medicines (BNF Fr. 19081, fol. 130v), mid-15th century
• Bees, Book of simple medicines (BNF Fr. 12319, fol. 215v), third quarter of the 15th century
• Beehives, Georgics (KB 76 E 21 II, fol. 42v), c. 1450-1475
• Bees, Book of simple medicines (BNF Fr. 9137, fol. 210v), second half of the 15th century
• David attacks a lion whose forepaws are on an overturned beehive, Hours of Englebert of Nassau (Douce 220, fol. 184r), c. 1470-1490
• A beehive (Brit. Lib. Burney 272, fol 43v), c. 1473
• Bees, Book of simple medicines (BNF Fr. 1307, fol. 183), c. 1480
• Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, 15th century
• St. Christopher by Hieronymus Bosch
• A fable about bees and hives, works of Erasmus (Musée Condé MS 316, fol. 28v), 16th century
• Cupid the Honey Thief by Albrecht Dürer, 1514
• Bees, Book of simple medicines (BNF Fr. 12322, fol. 193v), c. 1520-1530
• Bears devour the honey from hives, Fleur de vertu (BNF Fr. 1877, fol. 21v), 1530
Saint Mihel byd bes, to be brent out of strife:
saint Iohn bid take honey, with fauour of life.
For one sely cottage, set south good and warme:
take body and goodes, and twise yerely a swarme.

At Christmas take hede, if their hiues be to light:
take honey and water, together well dight.
That mixed with strawes, in a dish in their hiues:
They drowne not, they fight not, thou sauest their liues.

A hundreth good pointes of husbandrie (ll. 84-88), 1557

• Venus and Cupid by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1531
• Venus and Cupid by Lucas Cranach the Elder, c. 1531
• Alciato's Emblems: Lez choses doulces quelque fois deviennent amères and Presque le semblable, extrait de Theocrit, 1549
• Stained-glass design for a married couple by Hieronymus Lang, 1553
• The Beekeepers and the Birdnester by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1568