1791 - Floating Apiaries and Bee Bells

What a laid back life...shepherding honeybees on a barge lazily making its way down a river or canal system, timing your arrivals to coincide with flowering crops and vegetation!   

This post references the earliest mentions of this movable apiary concept.

1908, on the Nile...

A Mr. Cotton, whose book I cannot find, but is much quoted, says 

'In France they put their hives in a boat, some hundreds together, which floats down the stream by night, and stops by day. The bees go out in the morning, return in the evening; and when they are all back and quiet, on the boat floats. I have heard they come home to the ringing of a bell, but I believe they would come home just the same, whether the bell rings or no.'—Cotton, p. 89.

'I should like,' he continues, ' to see this tried on the Thames, for no river has more bee-food in spring ; meadows, clover, beans, and lime-trees, in different places and times, for summer.'

I don't think I can top the charm of the bee bell anecdote! :-)

This following excerpt from the Apiary section of 1834  The Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Difussion of Useful Knowledge  describes the bee barge business. 

The expedient of transporting apiaries to distant places, so as to take advantage of the seasons when different flowers are in blow, has been resorted to in various countries, particularly in Egypt, and along the great rivers of Europe. 

Benoît de Maillet...Getty Images

 M. Maillet, who was French consul in Egypt in 1692, informs us that, about the end of October, all such inhabitants of Lower Egypt as possess hives, embark them on the Nile, and convey them upon that river to Upper Egypt; calculating to arrive there at the time when the inundation is subsiding, and the lands having been sown, the flowers begin to bud.  

The hives being come to this part of Egypt, are there placed pyramidically in boats prepared for that purpose, after being marked and numbered by the several owners. Here the bees feed in the fields during some days, and when it is supposed that they have got in all the honey and wax that can be met with within two or three leagues round, their conductors convey them in the same boats two or three leagues lower, and remain there as long as is necessary to enable them to collect all the riches of the new station. 

Thus the earth forwards its productions, and the plants come into bloom in proportion as they come nearer to their place of abode.   In time, about the beginning of February, after having travelled through the whole length of Egypt, they arrive at the spots whence they had set out, and return to their respective habitations: for care is taken to set down exactly, in a roll or register, every district whence the hives set out in the beginning of the season, their number, and the names of the particular persons who sent them, as likewise the mark or number of the boats, in which they were placed according to their several habitations. 

Niebuhr saw upon the Nile, between Cairo and Damietta, a convoy of 4000 hives in their transit from Upper Egypt to the Delta.  (The honey contained in the hives that Niebuhr met upon the Nile was the product of Apis fasciata, a species of bee extensively cultivated in Egypt.)

'
Goldsmith describes, from his own observation, a kind of floating apiary in some parts of France and Piedmont.

They have on board of one barge,' he says, 'three-score or a hundred bee-hives, well defended from the inclemency of an accidental storm; and with these the owners float gently down the stream; one bee-hive yields the proprietor a considerable income.'

 Why,' he adds, 'a method similar to this has never been adopted in England, where we have more gentle rivers, and more flowery banks, than in any other part of the world, I know not; certainly it might be turned to advantage, and yield the possessor a secure, though perhaps a moderate income.'  

1791 - Oliver Goldsmith - A history of the earth: and animated nature

Later, from the 1865 American Bee Journal, the writer comments:

From verbal information imparted to Dr. Gerstacker, we learn that neither Ehrenberg nor Dr. Earlmann observed during their travels the transportation of bee-hives on the Nile.   Hamiueischmidt's careful inquiries in the year 1865 have established the fact, that at present migratory bee-keeping is not pursued in Egypt. All modern accounts, therefore, which represent migratory bee-keeping as being still customary in that country, are, of course, unfounded.