In the 1950’s, over a four year period, a beekeeper wrote a series of poems for the NZ Beekeeper magazine. He published them under the name “Box-hive Bertie”…
Some were witty, some were a bit forced, and just about all of them had some references to the other beekeepers of the day. Happenings at the NBA conferences were the subject of several poems.
It is highly unlikely that we’ll ever get to confirm the identity of “Box-hive Bertie”. Using the obvious clue (?) reveals that there were several “Albert’s” in the industry, though no references to them using “Bertie”. Harry Cloake’s father, B.T. Cloake, was called “Bertie”, but by the time of these poems he was not so active in beekeeping.
And from other bits of information in the poems, it would seem the writer lived in the Waikato. He will have regularly attended a number of the NBA conferences during the 1950’s, as well as events like the Waikato branch field days. He had an interest in bee breeding and improving his own stock of bees. And he had a reasonable sense of humour and was not afraid to poke fun at the issues and dominant industry personalities.
Full on speculation here, with little grounding in fact: I think the writer could perhaps have been Albert Pearson. Albert and his brother Tom started beekeeping in the Waikato in 1912, having worked with their father’s bees even before that time. So the name of “Box-hive Bertie” might just have been a pseudonym that would appeal to Albert Pearson…
Box-hive Bertie’s first poem appeared in August 1954, and it described people and events at the 1954 NBA Conference in Wellington. While the poem makes it sound like it had been the poet’s first NBA conference, that seems sort of unlikely. The poem refers to Des Williams, who had been elected NBA President one year earlier, and the conference arguments relating to the recently established Honey Marketing Authority.
The second poem was short, and appeared three months later in November 1954. It was a tribute to Garnie Fraser, the NBA’s General Secretary who had recently died. This would be the only poem that didn’t aim for some degree of humour.
The third poem was written in August 1955, following the 1955 Greymouth NBA Conference. There is a reference to some beekeeper from South Auckland who was able to down a “schooner” of beer in one gulp, and a reference to the Editor of the magazine John McFadzien, then living in Dunedin, ordering a “strong glass of lemonade”!
The poem for November 1955 describes a Waikato branch field day held in Hamilton. The “chappie up from Oamaru” would have been Ivor Forster, talking about queenrearing. Bob Walsh, the honey grader, was teased for being able to use the word “thixopropicity” (which I believe to be an error on Box-hive Bertie’s part – the word was almost certainly “thixotropicity”). Allen Bates from Matamata was described as being taken aback when his own voice was amplified through the sound system. In the final few lines, mention is made of “Wally and Percy”, referring to Wallace Nelson and Percy Hillary.
Box-hive Bertie tried to be topical with his poems, and the entry for February 1956 focussed on the all-too-common loss of honey bee colonies to the insecticide use of the day. The somewhat despondent and helpless note of the poem was widespread at the time.
The poem for May 1956 introduced the topic of bee breeding, about which Box-hive Bertie would write several more poems. He referred to getting a “fine breeder from Canterbury” to mate with his own “Waikato drones of a quality hard to beat”. He claimed the resulting colonies had plenty of bees, but were simply not working. He eventually determined they were “sitting arguing about the Ranfurly Shield”. (After a long defense of the shield, Canterbury had been defeated by Wellington in September 1955.)
The August 1956 poem was again a series of jocular descriptions of activities at an NBA conference, this one the 1956 Invercargill conference. A few beekeepers were mentioned by name, including Sefton Line (a Dept of Ag Advisor) and Billy Bray from Leeston. Box-hive Bertie related several other incidents without naming people, and I would fully expect those stories to have been known by many others at the time.
February 1957 brought the next poem, called Inside Information. It describes (with expected literary excess and embellishment) the making of alcoholic spirits. The brewer is easy to identify as Ashley Lennie from Southland, who had been made a life member of the NBA at the previous conference.
A poem for May 1957 bemoaned the rising prices of that time. It seems to have less relevance, and makes only brief mention of the honey industry.
August 1957 saw a poem making fun of the idea that royal jelly production could be the economic saviour of beekeeping! Bob Walsh, the honey taster, would be the first “jelly juggler”. The poem is a return to the style of some of his earlier poems, and he appears to have enjoyed writing this one.
In The Servant, appearing in the November 1957 magazine, Box-hive Bertie questions whether bees are really “an invaluable servant of man”, or whether it is that he, the beekeeper, is in fact fully the servant of the bees!
In February 1958 Box-hive Bertie returned to bee breeding again. He doesn’t mention any beekeepers specifically, but refers to introducing vigour to his hives by crossing them with local bees, Carniolans, Caucasians and black bees.
Box-hive Bertie’s last poem appeared in August 1958. He again talks about bee breeding, but ends the poem by making it into a joke about a mother-in-law.
There were never any mentions in the NZ Beekeeper in later issues about Box-hive Bertie or his poems. They just appeared for a while and then didn’t. It is, again, quite likely that beekeepers of that time were aware of Bertie’s real identity, but it was never mentioned in print that I can locate…