Bartnictwo na ziemi bytowskiej w okresie nowożytnym = Beekeeping in Bütow land in the modern period

Even though beekeeping is one of the fields of modern forestry that is most fully described in the literature, it is still in need of detailed research. Bütow Land, which was organized as a princely domain in the Times of the Pomeranian princes and as a non-town starosty in the times of the Republic, is a district concerning which we have relatively much information concerning the breeding of forest bees in that period.Thanks to the preserved and long-known codices of beekeeping laws that were in effect in the Tuchola Forest, and thus also in Bütow Land, we know the organization of beekeeping guilds in the 17th century. A codex of Bütow beekeepers from that period also survived and it describes in details the laws that people of this profession had to obey.At the same time, numerous pieces of information concerning beekeepers in the neighboring lands - especially Człuchów and Świecko starosties of the Polish Kingdom (of which the Bütow Land became a a part for twenty years in the 17th century) are a good comparative material for the period.The recently discovered documents concerning the Bütow domain from an earlier century allow us also to look closer at Bütow beekeepers in the second half of the 16th century. By analyzing the information from those two periods we can see many coinciding elements that support the hypotheses that the 17th century codices are vastly based on the earlier laws established still in the Teutonic times.An interesting novelty, however, is the fact that in the year 1560 we encounter many examples of co-usage of beekeeping trunks by a few people, which stood in conflict with the known laws of the period. The exact listing of the numbers of trunks and the people using them not only allows us to form an opinion concerning the significance of this profession, but also shows irs diversity and creates new questionsabout beekeeping in Tuchola Forest in this period