Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: Stove on February 20, 2009, 06:08:21 pm

I don't really like the idea of apiaries, though... Without apiaries to increase the availability of honey, mead could be a particularly valuable drink.

Well, on this point, from what I can find out in the 5 minutes or so I researched beekeeping history, reuseable apiaries are actually a fairly modern invention (1800s+), while more ancient, DF-safe, apiaries, were apparently build more for the sake of convenience, higher yields, protecting the honey from theft and the elements, etc. in that the hive structure itself was basically destroyed in the collection process.

Five minutes more search would have brought you Apiculture / Beefarm (?) from the year 1000 bc in Tel rehov.  They had ~ 100 Beehives with 3 Hives stacked over each other. Tel rehovs beefarm produced around a half Ton (500 kilograms) of Honey a year. The hives were build in pipes. This Pipes were made from loam and Straw with one hole for the bees and a cover on the backside. They were around 80 cm long and 40 in diameter.

Agyptian Roman Greek and other texts also describe Apiculture like the one in Tel rehov. In Agypt there are even pictures found of apiaries with reuseable baskets to the Pharaos time.

The romans and greeks used Amphoras like careamics as apiaries.

Karl the great did, around 800, release laws on apiculture and creates beefarms with baskets on all his Residencies.

The First european Apiculture Guilds show up around the 14th century.

Even today beehives die out at the harvest cause only some (iirc 1 on 20) Hives are needed for repopulation but here exists different technics all over the world.

edit: Most modern befarmers allow the behive to survive today thanks to "magazin loot" (where honey and brood combs are partet) and the honeyoverproduction of the bees.

Hey wounds is almost done. Good work Toady and thanks for the new announcment system.

Quote from: Tormy on February 19, 2009, 02:18:44 pm

Hm, do you ever heard about Joan of Arc for example? 

Ayup...  Didn't say you shouldn't be able to, just that the easiest way to deal with the (historically accurate) problem of females getting preggers is to not let them be soldiers in your fort.

As previously mentioned, if you don't have reliable control over your fertility, 6 months of (debilitating) pregnancy plus ~6 months of breast feeding is costly.  Add to that the decreased muscle mass in a time period where strength of arms was the determining factor in combat proficiency, and you've got a recipe for keeping women out of the army.

Well to slowly shrinking degree you can work hard and train for the first Months of the. Getting in shape is also relativly fast if you were in shape before the pregnancy.

Daycare makes absolutely no sense for a medieval setting. For one thing, formula didn't exist for another 500 years and without breast milk the kids either perished or grew up weak.

Thats is false info. The fisrt mention of an Amme (wet-nurse) is done 1780 B.C. in Agypt . This womans did also feed the children with theyr own breastmilk. You can also feed a children with other Milks as substitutes for mothers milk thought it was not as healthy. A good amme or nanay can handle up to 3 or 4 babays at once if she does the job a bit longer.

Ok you are right there.

Its the main domestic animal of borgly Borgles. 

Quote from: JoRo on January 23, 2009, 07:37:12 pm

At first I thought, 'Oh, another thread about things that remind you of DF,' but damn if those aren't totally awesome, and also reminiscent of your heavily decorated DF masterworks.
Note to self: take trip to Vienna.

Quote

NOTE: The Vienna Kunstkammer will be closed until 2011.

Well instead you can visit the "Grünes Gewölbe" in Dresden (Germany).

They have also some nice Stuff like this this or this.

Well a place could get "nicknames" like people for different stuff.