On the Origin of the Manchester and Salford Bee: New Edit

 

Cotton flower in a Manchester mini-greenhouse with a Manchester hoverfly. 

I tried to get a photo with a bee but the cotton was late flowering and 

there were no bees around on the few sunny days that a flower was open.

 

This article arose from annoyance that so many reports about the Manchester Bee just stated that "it represents Industry". I knew that there must be more to the story. I was not prepared for how much more there was and how carried away I got while researching the history of symbolic bees in Manchester and Salford. 

I wrote most of this article 6 years ago. I have finally got around to editing it properly over the last couple of months. I have reorganised the sections so that it makes a more readable progression, hopefully. I have also added a few new things, not just the photo of the cotton flower that opened this week.

The Manchester and Salford Bees appear to have been chosen as symbols by those Councils out of respect for the reforming Prime Minister Robert Peel, whose coat of arms included a Bee. Peel had helped carry through the changes in local democracy that allowed the Manchester and Salford councils to be set up. He also changed the tax system to remove a huge burden on the poor against the wishes of his Party, almost destroyed the Tory Party and sacrificed his political career. By that act he changed Britain into a fairer and more inclusive country, relative to the horror show it had been before. The Manchester and Salford councils had both been ardent supporters of those law reforms and celebrated Peel's success. Peel and the cotton kings who formed Manchester Council were all representatives of reforming, non-conforming Industry, opposed to the oppressive landowners of the Establishment. 

The Manchester Council motto may also have come from a 17th century bee-keeping manual.

I also put together some appendices on the local history of other bees in Manchester and Salford.

This article is dedicated to those who lost their lives or were wounded by the bombing at the Manchester Arena on the 22nd of May 2017 and all those killed or scarred by all the wars and atrocities throughout human history. 

We all just get one short life and to decide to destroy that life is an unspeakable treachery against humanity.

My version of the "terrestrial globe, semée of bees volant".
Midsummer Manchester unusually hidden by clouds.
Thanks NASA

 

 

↓ An excessive amount of reading follows the jump break, with quite a few nice illustrations.

My Garden

My Mum asked for a few pictures of the garden so I just popped out and took some wide shots. I will add some of the close-ups I have done in the last week. I will add a few more close-ups of plants over the next weeks in separate posts, hopefully.

I have a 5 metre by 5 metre garden. Rather than constantly adding annuals and tender bedding plants I believe in putting plants in the garden that are going to continue and increase for years. Which they have been, so it is now absolutely full.

Pictures after the break.

UPDATED: Manchester Bee swarm

On the 1st of June I was walking along Brantingham Road where it meets Manchester Road in Chorlton, at about 5pm. I saw a young man pointing his phone into a tree. I assumed he was just a fan of elder-flowers until I got nearer. I could then see a few insects orbiting around a clump on a branch of the elder tree. The young man said he had called a bee-herd.

More pictures after the break.

A Swarm of Golden Space Bees can't find Manchester because it is raining.

A Swarm of Golden Space Bees can't find Manchester because it is raining.
or
A terrestrial globe semée of bees volant, all proper.
Totally ©-free. Use as you like. If you care give me credit.

This is my interpretation of the top of the crest of the coat of arms of Manchester Council, made a little more realistic than the usual stylised heraldic cartoons such as that at the bottom of this page. I had a desire to know what it would look like done properly and realised the only way I was going to get to see it was to do it myself.

More after the break.