Rev. Eric Milner, MA, RN. 1910 - 2000

His contribution to beekeeping and bee breeding in Great Britain and Ireland. 

Eric’s pastoral work as a priest in the Church of England and as a Chaplain in the Royal Navy was always his primary concern and that in which he took most pride, and his experiences in his chosen profession were of much greater interest to his many relatives and friends.

Beekeepers will remember the outstanding contribution he made to beekeeping here in these islands by introducing Morphometry to beekeepers generally.

Eric acquired his first colony of bees in 1925 at the age of fourteen. It does not seem that he first sought his parent’s permission, nor considered the feelings of his brothers and sisters, still less that of the neighbours. The site itself would today be considered most unsuitable. It was in a small garden in a residential area of detached, semi-detached and terraced houses, mostly with small or very small gardens, separated by low hedges or fences. The site of the apiary was not more than sixteen yards from the door of the house, and only a yard or two from a road along which pedestrians and vehicular traffic (including horse-drawn carts) frequently passed. But it was a tolerant community and no objections were raised, either by his family or by the neighbours.

The bees were dark in colour, and apparently docile; for the first year he operated without a smoker, and although he used a veil, he worked without gloves and his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He suffered few stings. The hive was a second-hand “Cottage” hive consisting of a single-walled brood box, and a deep lift, which would hold two supers or section racks. When turned upside down the lift enclosed the brood box, converting it effectively into a double walled hive for wintering.

Eric was naturally studious and sought to improve his knowledge of beekeeping by: consulting the West Riding County Bee Adviser (known as the “County Expert”), by reading such books as were readily available, by reading journals devoted to beekeeping e.g. the British Bee Journal and the Bee World etc. and by joining the local branch of the Yorkshire Beekeepers’ Association (The Wakefield, Pontefract and District Beekeepers’ Association), and attending demonstrations and evening lectures by well-known experts of the day. He quickly realised that beekeeping in one hive was not sustainable, and commissioned the construction of two “Tickner-Edwards” hives by a cousin who was a skilled joiner and shopfitter. The hives although well made, suffered from two major disadvantages; they were exceedingly heavy, and the lifts, being held in position by plinths, tended to jam when exposed to humid conditions. Even so, one of the hives was transported to the heather moors near Ingbirchworth in South Yorkshire on the folding luggage rack of a friend’s motor car; a slight mishap during loading broke off the only rear light!

From the literature of the time together with conversations with old beekeepers, Eric learned of the superlative qualities of “the old English Black Bee”. From the same sources he also learned that this bee was extinct, having been wiped out by the “Isle of Wight disease”, conventionally equated with Acarine, such dark bees as remained were useless mongrels. The same intelligence sources also advised that the best type of honeybee was the Italian or Ligurian bee, although there was talk of the Carniolan bee. Eric therefore decided to purchase a fertile Italian queen direct from the second best-known bee breeder in Italy; it cost him 4 shillings including postage and packing. (A queen from the best-known breeder would have cost him 4s.6p which was more than he could afford). The queen accompanied by a few workers, duly arrived in her travelling cage and was introduced to a colony without difficulty, and in due course produced Italian worker bees in large numbers. The bees were fairly docile and easy to handle, but it cannot be said that honey production benefited. However numerous swarms were produced and further hives were needed; this time the chosen design was the WBC hive that was becoming very popular in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. (With hindsight it is clear that Italian bees require a much larger brood box, and also a continuous honey flow over a long period: Eric’s main honey source was Sycamore; some clover was available at a considerable distance, and about the only other source was the neighbours gardens).

The young queens mated with local drones; and the temper of the bees rapidly deteriorated, and the bees developed “following” tendencies. However, honey production, although never spectacular did improve and become more consistent. Generally speaking, the bees only caused inconvenience when the hive was disturbed or when swarming. Opening of the hives was kept to a minimum, but swarming was always a problem in spite of the efforts to control it. The neighbours quickly developed defence strategies and in spite of occasional grumbles probably took a perverse pride in their sufferings, and never raised any serious objections to the operation.

In October 1930, Eric was admitted to Merton College, Oxford, as a Commoner, and from then on he could only give attention to his apiary during vacations. His beekeeping mantle descended upon his sister Lanah, who had shown the most interest in his apicultural activities. From then on she became the beekeeper and Eric became her assistant as and when available.

After leaving Oxford in 1935 his visits home became even less frequent and of shorter duration, and for the next thirty years Lanah remained the beekeeper, with occasional help from Eric on the rare occasions when his leave enabled him to spend a brief period at home. On such occasions he was always ready to undertake such menial tasks as cleaning and painting hives, assembly of frames etc. He never lost his interest in beekeeping, and his letters home frequently contained enquiries as to the state of the apiary. He also tried to keep abreast of developments in the beekeeping world, notably the research that was going on in various parts of the world, especially the Continent of Europe and the U.S.A. While stationed in Hong Kong he took the opportunity to visit beekeepers in Mainland China.

It may be worthwhile to follow the history of Eric’s bees under Lanah’s management, as this may have had a bearing on Eric’s later attitude especially with regard to BIBBA. Lanah taught at a school about three miles from her home, in a rather more rural area where better forage for the bees might be expected. With her headmaster’s permission she installed three colonies at the school. Some of the children took an interest in the project and assisted in the operation. Honey yields were in fact quite good, but without her own transport there were problems, particularly during school holidays. After two or three years this project was abandoned, and the hives returned to the original site. Beekeeping continued much as usual until the winter of 1940/41 when her hives were vandalised and all the colonies destroyed. Undeterred by this set back she started again with three colonies from three different sources: one colony of allegedly pure Italian bees from a beekeeper in South Elmsall, one obviously of Italian descent from a very successful beekeeper in Wakefield, and the third, a colony of dark bees from a very successful honey producer in Thornhill, Dewsbury, who had never seen a queen bee! This same strain had been kept by his family since the middle of the nineteenth century; no other bees had been introduced, and none of the strain had ever succumbed to Acarine. From this unpromising mélange, Lanah rebuilt her apiary.

By the summer of 1946 the apiary had expanded to about half a dozen hives, but some colonies were predominantly dark and others predominately yellow. During the following winter the hives were repeatedly buried under snow, in spite of Lanah’s valiant attempts to keep them free. When the thaw finally arrived more than half the colonies were dead. But two survived, and the apiary was re-built from these two, without further introduction of colonies or queens from outside. By 1965 when Eric retired from the Royal Navy and came home for good, there were about a dozen colonies divided between the home apiary and an out apiary at another garden about a mile or so distant. The bees in all the colonies were dark, docile and good honey producers.

In 1967 Eric was offered the living of St. Peter’s Church, Bentley, near Doncaster and he and his two sisters moved there, taking all but one or two hives that were left in the out apiary in Ossett. The writer recalls attending an Open Day for the Doncaster Beekeeper’s Association in 1971 and remarking on the gentleness of Eric’s bees compared to his own. All twelve hives were examined and in spite of the large number of beekeepers crowding round the hives and obstructing the flight paths, the only casualty was a visitor who had thrust his hand into his pocket, having failed to notice a bee resting on it. Alas, this happy state of affairs was not to last; the honeybees in the Doncaster area were notoriously aggressive, and when Eric retired from the living at Bentley and returned to his native Ossett, his colonies were as ill-tempered as any of their predecessors.

After his return home Eric frequently referred to himself as the “Beekeeper’s Assistant”, but at Bentley his sister gradually reduced her contribution and Eric took on all the apiary work. He appears to have made no systematic attempt at queen rearing or swarm control, and indeed the demands of his calling may have prevented his giving all the attention that his apiary needed. He had become a member of the Doncaster Beekeeper’s Association and took an active interest in its affairs.

Most of his own and his sister’s beekeeping experience had been with aggressive bees of Italian descent, but both had experienced the pleasure of handling gentle dark bees. It is scarcely surprising therefore that he subscribed to the idea of breeding from the best representatives of the native bee as advocated by Beowulf Cooper. In 1976 he became a member of BIBBA and struck up a close friendship with Beowulf and Griselda Cooper.

In 1980, sister Lanah died, his eldest sister having died some four years previously, Eric now approaching the seventieth anniversary of his birthday retired from the living at Bentley and took up residence near to his oldest brother Raymond, in whose garden he established his apiary.

Then In 1981, having settled into his new home he felt the need of a holiday, and decided to attend the BIBBA International Conference at Celle in North Germany. According to his own account he attended the conference more as a social occasion than with any expectation of deriving any educational benefit. However he found himself particularly impressed by the systematic approach of the German beekeeping community to increasing honey yields by raising the quality of the bees themselves. The proceedings of this conference were competently reported by Bernhard Möbus and Job Van Praagh in “Pedigree Bee Breeding in Western Europe” published by BIBBA    in 1983. Eric fully appreciated that, as in other fields of bioculture, improvement in honeybees will be brought about by breeding selectively within pure strains; Cross breeding may produce spectacular results in an F1 or F2 cross, but thereafter breeding from hybridisation will only lead to degeneration. This is brought out in the report, but only one paragraph is devoted to the “Merkmale” ie the physical characters which enable the pure strains to be distinguished from hybrids. It seems likely that, other than Beowulf Cooper and Bernhard  Möbus, Eric was the only member of the British contingent at the Conference, who fully comprehended the significance of “Biometry” or Morphometry as it is now more correctly described. It was not only necessary to have some means of determining the purity of a strain so that breeding for improvement might be undertaken with confidence, but because queens mated in free flight with a number of drones, a means of checking the integrity of the queen mating station and of detecting mis-matings was also necessary. This would be particularly the case in Great Britain since the possibility of securing the use of off-shore island sites was unlikely in the foreseeable future.

Unfortunately Beowulf Cooper died before “Pedigree Bee Breeding” was published. It is impossible to say how the breeding of mellifera bees in Britain would have progressed had he survived. If he had supported the work subsequently undertaken by Eric Milner and John Dews, it is likely that progress would have been more rapid, having regard to his status as Founder of BIBBA.

On returning to England, Eric sought out his friend John Dews, an excellent beekeeper and a colleague in the Wakefield and Pontefract and District Beekeepers Association. John was a lapsed former member of BIBBA, and Eric was aware that some time previously he had used Morphometry in a survey of honeybees in Great Britain that had indicated the continuance of the cline known to exist in A.m.mellifera from the Pyrennes to Northern France. John had used what is now called the “Discoidal shift”. His knowledge of this character was derived from a paper by Prof. Louis in France, but he himself had not read the original paper, through his inability to translate French. Eric obtained and translated the paper. Professor Louis put him in touch with other French researcher workers and also recommended that he consult the original papers by Professor Goetze. It appeared that Goetze only developed the test as a simple qualitative field test using a pocket magnifier; a positive reading, i.e. a shift towards the wing tip indicated a Ligustica or Carnica type, a negative reading indicated a mellifera type, and a near neutral reading a hybrid or possibly a Caucasica. Goetze also gave his opinion that the evolutionary factors which determined the Cubital Index also determined the Discoidal Shift. Cubital Index therefore remained the principal character used in Germany for determining the race, and the racial purity of the bees used in the breeding programme.

Eric persuaded John to join him in a Morphometry survey of the honeybees of the British Isles, with a view to establishing where good stock might be obtained for a mellifera breeding programme. The collaboration proved fruitful; John provided the technical and mathematical skills needed for the work, and had a clear understanding of the objectives; Eric provided the vision, a broad knowledge of honeybees and beekeeping, literary and translational skills, contacts with beekeepers and research workers not only in Britain but, more importantly abroad, and an enthusiasm for the work which overcame all obstacles and discouragements.

Following the Celle conference William Beilby suggested the Spurn Point peninsular at the mouth of the Humber, as the nearest approach to an off-shore island that was likely to be found in the short term. Careful inspection showed that this was free from honeybees, and so in 1982 a trial of controlled queen mating along the German lines was carried out at this site. Eric assisted in setting up the trial but did not supply any bees. The trial was repeated in the following two years but the results were disappointing, and it was thought that the site itself was unsuitable. Later use of this site proved it was an excellent site, and it is assumed that the methods of siting the nucs was the main reason for the earlier failures.

Eric also served on the BIBBA committee for a couple of years. Upon finding that his partial deafness was a disability that prevented his taking a full part in the discussions, he resigned.

He was also disappointed but not discouraged to find that some members were somewhat sceptical of the whole concept of morphometric evaluation.

Meanwhile the survey proceeded. All the characters included in the German Beekeepers Federation (D.I.B.) bee breeding rules, namely Cubital Index, Colour marking on the abdomen. Hair length and Tomenta width, were measured, as also were Tongue Length and Discoidal Shift.

John Dews measured the wing characters of each bee examined, while Eric measured the other characters on the corresponding body.

John also used his mathematical skills to develop a procedure which speeded up the interpretation of the results. Whereas Prof. Goetze had not taken the determination of the Discoidal Shift beyond noting whether it was positive, negative or zero, John gave it a numerical value by measuring the angle of deviation from the vertical. Although Discoidal Shift is dependant on racial character in the same way as Cubital Index, the correlation between the two is not close. When D.S. is plotted against C.I. a scatter diagram is obtained which indicates the racial character of the sample; if the dots form a fairly tight group in either the lower left hand quadrant, or the centre or the upper right hand quadrant it indicates that the bees are all from one or other of the main European sub-species of honeybee, in the same way as a sharp peak on the C.I. distribution curve. If the pattern is elongated into both quadrants it suggests hybridisation between two or more sub-species.

Plotting of a scattergram is less time consuming than plotting a distribution curve (although the difference may be of less consequence with an appropriate computer programme).

In all some 1800 bees were examined, and a number of samples showed the racial characters of pure mellifera bees. In some instances the samples came from apiaries that were in areas of predominately ligustica colonies, but generally the dark bees came from remoter areas, particularly those with a harsher climate. One sample from Northern Scotland had longer abdominal hair and a lower cubital index than any other, lending support to John Dews cline hypothesis.

A beneficial fall-out from the survey was the discovery of the “Fountains Bee”, or as Eric preferred it, the “Skelldale Bee”. These bees live or lived, wild in the woods in the grounds of Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Park in Yorkshire. They were first recognised as probably A.m. mellifera by William Beilby when he was asked to remove a colony from one of the buildings in the Fountains Abbey grounds. At the time the means of establishing their racial purity was not available to him. Beilby raised a number of daughter colonies in a small apiary that he kept in the Fountains Abbey grounds with the permission of the National Trust.

(Following the BIBBA Conference of 1982, members visited this apiary before going to see Bill’s other hives on the heather moors). Other colonies were transferred to his apiary at Askham Bryan Agricultural College, and hybridised with the bees of that apiary.

When Bill Beilby emigrated to New Zealand his apiaries, including the one at Fountains Abbey, were acquired by Ken Ibbotson and removed to Durham. Samples from all Ken’s hives were examined by Eric and John and the four from Fountains Abbey were shown to have the physical characters of mellifera bees. Ken provided breeding material from these hives, from which John raised queens that were successfully mated at a site in the Fountains Abbey grounds provided by the National Trust, pure mellifera matings being obtained. These queens and their daughters were used to re-queen John’s and Eric’s apiaries. Ken also used this queen mating site for his own queens. Unfortunately in later years a number of mis-matings occurred, owing to Italian bees having been introduced into the neighbourhood. Following this Eric and John returned to Spurn point peninsular and again had excellent mating results using selected drone colonies from their own apiaries.

Having secured sufficient colonies of native bees it was possible to observe their behavioural characters. They were found to be docile and easily handled without smoke, but somewhat nervous when disturbed. Indeed it was preferable to examine them without the use of smoke, as even one puff might send large numbers rushing out of the hive, even taking the queen with them. The bees also showed lower swarming, with a tendency to supersede.

Although absorbed in proving the existence of the native bee, and demonstrating that pure mating could be achieved given the right conditions, Eric had not lost sight of the need to educate the beekeeping public in the importance of pure race breeding for the improvement of beekeeping, and the means to achieve it.

After Celle he maintained contact with the German experts, notably Prof. Ruttner, Dr. Maul and Job van Praagh, and he did not hesitate to seek information and advice from other experts.

In 1985 Eric was invited to the International Conference on Breeding Bees for Performance held at the Bee Research Institute, Lunz an See, Austria. Although unable to follow the proceedings which were all in German he was able subsequently to translate the printed copies of the papers. Fortunately many of the participants spoke English. He was able to have a long conversation with Prof. Ruttner and renew his contacts with Dr. Maul and Job van Praagh, he also made other useful contacts such as Dr. Frau Kühnert, an assistant to Prof. Ruttner at Oberursel, and Dr. Frau Schaper of Erlangen. He maintained a regular correspondence for many years with Frau Schaper, each keeping the other informed of any new developments of which they were aware.

It was clear to both Eric and John Dews that knowledge of honeybee genetics was fundamental to a rational breeding programme. Hearing from Professor Morse that there was no book in English that dealt with bee genetics, at John’s suggestion he undertook the translation of J. Mesquida’s “Elements of Genetics with special reference to the bee”  Eric was not of course a trained biologist or geneticist, but he had a good scientific understanding and and took care that his translation was checked by trained biologists. This translation was published by OPIDA in France and by BIBBA in the U.K. in 1986.

He next attempted the translation of “Breeding Techniques and Selection for Breeding of the Honeybee”, by Prof. Ruttner, but his knowledge of German, being wholly self taught, was not quite up to this and so he enlisted his brother as a collaborator in the work. The translation published in 1988 by BIBBA, was first available that year at the BIBBA Conference, in Cardiff, and was received with considerable enthusiasm. It had been hoped to get Prof. Ruttner to address the Conference, but pressure of other engagements prevented this. However he sent the paper that he would have read, and at his request it was presented by Eric in his absence.

In spite of the enthusiasm with which “Breeding Techniques” was received its purpose was misunderstood by many, even some BIBBA members, as advocating the importation of Carniolan bees.

Eric now spent a good deal of his time lecturing and conducting workshops to explain the objects of BIBBA and the techniques by which they might be achieved. He visited various parts of Great Britain on this mission but never visited Ireland although he won the respect of leading Irish beekeepers.

Dr. Ruttner now asked Eric to assist him in testing the validity of the morphometric standards used for defining the  Dark Bee, as these had been determined long after the importation of  foreign bees into Germany had commenced.. This was to be achieved by examining museum specimens of Dark bees from about or before 1859, when the first imports into Great Britain took place. In addition to samples of bees from the British Museum, the National Museum of Scotland, the Hope entomological collection, Oxford, specimens collected by Carl Von Linne himself were examined and photographed. To these were added wing fragments from the Jorvik excavations at York and an archaeological dig at Oslo.

The British Museum and Linnean samples were photographed by Adrian Waring using the special planar camera lens purchased by John Dews for this kind of photography, and the rest by John Dews himself. These photographs were sent to Prof. Ruttner, and were examined by Agnes Mohr, the leading expert on the morphometric examination of bees. The results completely validated the accepted standards, thus confirming that the Dark Bee still existed in a pure state in Great Britain as well as in other parts of the world. An account of the investigation, together with a description of the bee was given in “The Dark European Honey Bee Apis mellifera mellifera Linnaeus 1758”, by Friedrich Ruttner, Eric Milner and John Dews and published by BIBBA in 1990.

Two further slim volumes were published by BIBBA in 1991. The first, “Beekeeping in Britain – The Way Ahead”, advocated and sought to justify the breeding of the native bee, as opposed to the continued importation

 Of foreign sub-species unsuited to the British Climate, as a means of improving the quality of beekeeping in Britain. The second, “Breeding Better Bees, using Simple Modern Methods” advocated pure race breeding as described in “Breeding Techniques and Selection for Breeding of the Honeybee”, applied to the native bee, and conditions in Britain.

In 1991 John Dews left the Wakefield area and settled in Whitby, after this the highly productive collaboration gradually wound down. John continued to use the Spurn Point peninsular for a year or two as a mating site. Eric had hoped to maintain a breeding group in the Wakefield area, and to that end enlarged his apiary slightly in 1993. However his advancing age and infirmity were such that he could not handle the apiary work unaided, and the technical skills that John had provided were no longer available. In 1995 he disposed of all except two of his hives and these had to go the following year.

But the vision inspired by the Celle conference had produced lasting results. Many beekeepers had favoured the Dark Bee but hitherto had been unable to detect the pure native bees that were needed if improved strains were to be bred. In recent years there has been a growing interest in the Dark Bee and a growing demand for pure native queens. The East Midlands group, the first of its kind, found an isolated mating site in Wales and was making good progress in queen rearing and queen mating until interrupted by a Standstill Order following the spread of Varroa. In recent years progress has resumed with a new site in Derbyshire and with the establishment of a mono-strained area in the Hope Valley to act as a guard ring.

The most spectacular development occurred in the Irish Republic however. Although Eric had not personally visited Ireland, the morphometric examination of bees was demonstrated there by Claire and Adrian Waring and was taken up with enthusiasm by Michael MacGiolla Coda and his friends and associates. The whole of the Galtee Vee Valley was converted into a protection Zone for queen mating stations in the valley. Pure mated Irish queens have been produced on a substantial scale and have proved popular all over Ireland and also in Great Britain.

Michael and his friends have acknowledged their indebtedness to BIBBA by making membership of the Association one of the conditions of joining their Breeding Group.

Eric lived long enough to be told of these developments, but the acknowledgement of his achievements had already taken place when in 1994 he was made an Honorary Life Member of BBKA, having first received a similar honour from the Yorkshire Beekeepers Association.

Eric Milner was one of a long line of clergymen and pastors in a number of different countries, who have made beekeeping their hobby, and some of them have made important contributions to our knowledge of bees and beekeeping. Some of them may have neglected the needs of their congregations to attend to their bees: but Eric was not to be numbered among the latter. His duty as a priest towards his fellow men was always his first consideration. Even in his retirement he was frequently asked by neighbours to visit a sick or bereaved relative, and he always responded to such requests. He was also in frequent demand to take Church services when the resident Vicar was absent and as long as his health permitted he did not refuse such requests.

Eric died on 13th April 2000 after a long and distressing illness. The funeral service took place at the Church of the Holy Trinity, Ossett, and was conducted by the Rev. Brian Harris, of York, a life-long friend. He was cremated at the Dewsbury Crematorium with full Naval Honours, a guard of honour being provided by his comrades in the Royal Naval Association and the Yorkshire Fleet Air Arm, a fitting tribute from the officers and men of the Royal Navy, whom he had served for 21 years.

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