“He takes the honey, but preserves the bees”

As discussed yesterday, in the early 1770s there were two men named Wildman exhibiting bees in London.

The uncle, Thomas Wildman (1734–1781) of Plymouth, appears to have been an apiarist who discovered a way to impress people with his bees. One witness wrote:

He walked about with six swarms about him, which covered his head, breast, and shoulders, leaving only his nostrils and his mouth clear. These he shook off upon a table, and then drove them into their hive.

That seems to have been the limit of Thomas’s exhibitions; his heart was in the hive.

The nephew, Daniel Wildman (d. 1812), brought a bunch of circus and conjuring skills: standing upright on a galloping horse, doing tricks with cards, seemingly cutting the head off a live chicken and restoring it, and so on. He then added his uncle’s bees to his repertoire.

In 1772 the Mirror praised the Wildman beekeeping method, presumably developed by Thomas:

HE with uncommon art and matchless skill,
Commands those insects, who obey his will;
With bees others cruel means employ,
They take the honey and the bees destroy;
Wildman humanely, with ingenious ease,
He takes the honey, but preserves the bees.

But of course Daniel’s tricks commanded more attention. In 1774 the younger man took his performances, including the bees, to the Colysée in Paris.

Over time, however, Daniel also became a bee man. In 1775 he published a much-condensed version of his uncle Thomas’s compendium on beekeeping, which he titled A Complete Guide for the Management of Bees, Throughout the Year, and kept that in print for the rest of the century.

By the 1780s Daniel was running a shop: “Wildman’s Honey and Wax-Candle Warehouse, No. 326, Holborn, almost opposite Gray’s-Inn-Gate.” His stock included “a great VARIETY of the New-invented Mahogany, Glass and Straw Bee-Hives, (Both for CHAMBER and GARDEN,) so much approved of by the Nobility, Gentry, and Others.”

Curiously, Wildman’s shop also manufactured and sold archery equipment. Was this another of his skills, or did arrows just seem to offer good synergy with bees?

When Daniel died in 1812, he was still a listed as a “Honey-Merchant” from Holborn. I wonder if he ever cut the head off a live chicken for old times’ sake.