The Beehive Shelter @museum.de

M: "De lütje Immenhoff" – "The little bee garden" stands beneath a shelter with a sloping roof. This simple structure is lined with peat sods at the sides and at ground level – an ideal environment for insects in general, and bees in particular. The Ammerland farmers' beehives once stood beneath such roughly finished sloping roofs – protected from wind and weather.

F: Bees have been living on earth for between 40 and 50 million years – twenty times as long as human beings! Their high level of organisation and diligence still commands our respect today. As soon as humans settled down, they took up bee-keeping. And it hardly needs saying that the Ammerland farmers kept bees. It was a side line to supplement the crop growing, animal husbandry and crafts. And it was doubly practical, because the bees not only pollinated the crops; they also provided many important ingredients for everyday life:

M: For centuries, tasty and wholesome honey was the only sweetener available. Sugar didn't become a staple until the processing of cane sugar and ultimately sugar beet came along.

F: The wax was turned into candles: an important everyday necessity in the days before electricity!

M: And propolis – sometimes called bee glue – is a resinous mixture also produced by bees. It was once used in wound care or for inflammations and injuries, and sometimes still is today.

F: Traditionally, bee colonies were kept in baskets woven in the home. These were quite portable and could be moved close to plants that were flowering at any given time. To harvest the honey, the baskets were flipped upside down.

M: The mobile beehives that are common today – wooden ones with removable frames – were only developed in the 19th century. Woven beehives have almost completely disappeared from beekeeping.