beeherd

English

Alternative forms

• beehird

Etymology

From Middle English beehyrde, equivalent to bee +‎ herd (“herder, keeper”).

Noun

beeherd (plural beeherds)

1. (rare) Beekeeper.
   • 1814, John Keys, A Treatise on the Breeding and Management of Bees, page 87:

     There is no sure way of securing swarms but by a constant watching of a beeherd, retained on purpose, from seven or eight in the morning until three or four in the afternoon, till all the prime swarms have issued.

   • 1890, William Cunningham, The Growth of English Industry and Commerce, page 160:

     The beeherds, swineherds and others enumerated in that document are apparently grouped together under the single heading of servi in Domesday Book.

   • 1919, Walter Herbert Burgess, Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society, volume 2, page 81:

     The peasantry were oxherds, shepherds, swineherds, gooseherds, beeherds, thatchers, ploughmen and drivers of oxen, and there were among the craftsmen blacksmiths, wood and leather workers and weavers, and in some villages, slaves.

   • 1974, Cricket, volume 2, page 53:

     “With this I shall purchase a pig and become a swineherd, or bees and become a beeherd.”

   • 2016, Aprilynne Pike, Arabesque:

     The cowherd and beeherds did, certainly, but in Avalon there simply wasn't much reason to exert control over members of the animal kingdom.