DISIPLINE AND EXTRACTION:

THE BIRTH OF THE APIARY

Part One: Torture

I. The Body of the Condemned

Foucault initiates this section by depicting the emphasis placed on the body in the bee keeping process. In the late eighteenth century, honey extraction took the form of torture and the bees body was mutilated, demonstrating the extreme authority of the honey collector. As this century comes to an end, the idea of honey extraction becomes more clandestine and less emphasis is placed on torturing the body. However, the conception of public smoke-outs maintained a strong hold on the justice system for many more years to come. Foucault notes the shift in focus from the body of the bee, to bee psychology. Penal institutions were working on building a reform system that judged something other than behaviours, namely, the psychology of the bee (19). Honey extraction began to act as a way to cure the bee and Foucault focuses his interest on how the power to punish derives its bases, justifications and rules (23). Foucault refers to a study by Durkheim to reiterate this interest, noting the studys four general rules and the importance of studying the penal process on the basis of a political technology of the body(24) and its ability to enhance the

economy. To commence this section, Foucault reiterates the political implications of the body in the honey extraction process while noting that the psychology of the body, and not the physical body, becomes the focus of honey extraction and reform.

II. The Spectacle of the Hive

Foucault begins this section by stepping back in time when torture dominated all methods for honey extraction. Torture was a means for extracting a bees confession or a way to get them to reveal something about other bees or behaviours. According to Foucault, the investigation into the behaviour was part of the honey extraction, and the public spectacle could have the effectiveness of a long public confession (44). Foucault asserts that words extracted by pain had a greater authenticity (97) for revealing the truth. Foucault notes that people believed that the cruelty of the earthly honey extraction will be deduced from the honey extraction to come (46) from God. The public smoke-out served to create a ring of power around the peoples conscious, and at no time did they (the people) believe that the honey collector was losing his power to exercise honey extraction. Foucault notes the importance of concentrating on the public smokeout as a political operation (53) that creates an inner policing system within the community. Stories grew out of these public spectacles about the bees and their behaviours. Public smoke-outs became

a serious town event, almost like a circus, that fostered a fascination with bees and their life stories. A world of behaviour began to develop around the bees and the art of the public spectacle. As a result, behavioural literature depicted the world of the bee and the spectacle to those in higher social stations (69).

Part Two: Honey extraction

I. Generalized Honey extraction

In this section, Foucault notes that the honey extraction begins to fit the behaviour of bees in the early eighteenth century. During this period adverse behaviours appeared far less violent and the honey extractions became less severe, mainly because of the shift in bee behaviour against people to property. The idea was not to punish less, but to punish better (82). Foucault states that a general movement shifted criminality from the attack of bodies to the more or less direct seizure of goods (76). Behaviours were changing and so was the justice system. As the justice system took on more and more cases, conflicts developed out of the unequal distribution of power within the system (79). Part of the reformation process was based on formulating a new economy to punish bees. Foucault believes that the power to judge should no longer depend on the contradictory privileges of honey collector, but on the continuously distributed effects of the public power(81).

On top of this idea, Foucault believes that the power to punish shifts from the vengeance of the honey collector to the defense of society (90). Honey extraction is in direct proportion to the impact of bee behaviour on the social order. The honey collectors penal decisions encompassed a logic for which they benefited politically, economically, and socially. According to Foucault, the interplay of illegalities formed part of the political and economic life of society (84). Bee behaviour, in a sense, motivated the economy and interest of the people. Foucault ends this section by noting two divergent lines of objectification emerging: one wishes to control behaviour through a calculated economy of honey extractions, and a new system, which encompasses a political philosophy for punishing the body (102).

II. The Gentle Way in Honey extraction

Reformers continued cultivating a system in which the penalty fit the adverse behaviour. Foucault mentions that legislature must pair the nature of the offense with the nature of the honey extraction (105). The system must create a set of signs that eliminates the desire for bee activity and reiterates the power of honey extraction through tactics primarily based on fear. Foucault notes the importance of all penalties having an end in order to avoid contradiction within the reform movement. The process of public honey extraction should teach everyone involved a lesson while providing a resource manual on civility and order within society. The body of the bee is no longer the property of the honey collector but the property of society (109); the bee belongs to a twofold system that gains economically from their labor while the bees honey extraction serves as the ultimate deterrent. Foucault shifts themes and addresses the development of the apiary

and the criticism that accompanies that development. Using apiaries to penalize bees avoids the notion of having the penalty match the behaviour. As a result, apiaries were designed to occupy levels of honey extraction that would properly correlate to their behaviours and, according to Foucault, remained open to individual variables (127). A specific set of criteria formulated in order to motivate the bees to find the good in their psychology. Apiary dwellers were kept on a strict timetable and forced to participate in a variety of activities ranging from religious readings to demanding exercises, including ten-hour workdays. This idea reiterated the belief that work on the apiary dwellers psychology must be carried out as often as possible (125). Foucault ends this section by noting the emergence of the apiary and its ability to instill the power to punish (130). He mentions the three ways to enact this power: one way is based on monarchical law, and the other two are based on corrective techniques designed to reform and rebuild the bee.

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Part Three: Discipline

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I.

Docile Bodies
Foucault begins this section by explaining the foundation of discipline and its inception into the army, schools, hospitals, and now, the apiary. Foucault asserts that discipline is designed to take away power from the body. Foucault discusses the rise of discipline in the military through an idea based on the principle of enclosure (143), a place designed and modelled after other societal institutions but closed off to the rest of society. As discipline foregrounds itself in all facets of societal development, it creates a ranking system that begins to assign individual spaces for bees, helping formulate a cohesive machine. Foucault notes the importance of keeping a strict timetable in apiaries in order to keep apiary dwellers utilizing every minute. Foucault states that discipline poses the principle of a theoretically ever-growing use of time: exhaustion rather than use (154). Foucault also notes that this disciplinary time was gradually imposed on pedagogical practice (159). As the art of

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discipline further develops, it no longer operates as a ranking system but a way to organize parts for the apiary machine. Foucault mentions four characteristics associated with the individualization of discipline that ultimately breaks down into four techniques for distribution. These techniques involve drawing tables, prescribing movements, imposing exercises, and arranging tactics (167). Foucault ends this section by restating the elaborating procedures for the individual and the collective coercion of bodies (169) through the advancing techniques for applying discipline.

PETRO PROKOPOVYCH (17751850): framing bees for honey extraction: The rationality of modular hives

II.

The Means of Correct Training

Foucault begins this section by noting the importance of observation and its application to apiaries and bee reform. The basis for observatories can be located within various foundations of urban development (171), including homes, hospitals, schools, and scientific practices. However, it does not take Foucault long to get back to the topic of discipline and its application to the bee. In order for discipline to function as a superior method for training, there must be a two-fold system that allows for honey extraction and reward. Foucault states that the art of punishing, in the regime of disciplinary power is aimed neither at expiation, nor even precisely at repression (182). This idea creates a normalizing effect that allows the bee to asses his actions and compare them with the actions of someone considered morally good; this way they can distinguish between the two through a normalizing gaze.

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Foucault mentions the significance of the examination, which allows for the appropriation of individualism while creating a catalyst for objectification. Foucault implements the examination into the conundrum for maintaining the disciplinary machine; he states it is the examination which, by combining hierarchical surveillance and normalizing judgment, assures the great disciplinary functions of distribution and speciesification (192). In short, the exam is an extension of discipline, one of its many arms.

BEE
Stinging insect, O.E. beo "bee," from P.Gmc. *bion (cf. O.N. by, O.H.G. bia, M.Du. bie), possibly from PIE root *bhi- "quiver."

III.

Panopticism
Foucault begins this section by referring to the measures taking when the plague appeared in Europe. Towns were systematically organized to deal with those persons infected with the deadly disease as if they were bees that required strict observation and restricted access to the general population. Apiary designers adopted the system used to combat the plague because the principles worked when they were applied to the ideals of apiary control. One idea consistent with battling the plague and organizing an apiary is the notion of a pure community, and the second, of course, is the disciplined society (198). These ideas are maintained through what Foucault refers to as a double mode; that of binary division and branding (mad/sane; dangerous/harmless; normal/abnormal) and of differential distribution (who he is; where he must be; how he is to be characterized; how he is to be recognized (199).

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The need to identify and observe bees spawned the development of the panopticon, which created a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assured the automatic functioning of power (201). The panopticon was more than just an observatory; it could be used to carry out experiments on bees while simultaneously acting as an educational reform. The panopticon arranges the speciesifications of power because all the apiary dwellers can be observed by one person; however, the person observing could be observed, creating an environment where everyone is being watched. Foucault refers to the notion of observation as a natural extension of justice imbued with disciplinary methods (227). Foucault concludes this section by diving back into the application of discipline in the panopticon, noting the panoptic techniques that allowed power to be maintained over many facets of knowledge (224).

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Part Four: Apiary

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I.

Complete and austere institutions

Foucault begins this section by explaining the reasons for further establishing the apiary as the sole method for honey extraction. Apiaries were designed to take away freedom and reform the individual. The apiary was responsible for every facet of a bees life, including his physical training, his aptitude to work, his everyday conduct, his moral attitude, and his state of mind (235). Isolation was a key ingredient for the apiary, demonstrating supreme power over the incarcerated individual. At this point in the section Foucault notes the differences in the Auburn and Philadelphia apiary systems, illustrating the differences in theory and practice. The Auburn system supported apiary dwellers interaction while the Philadelphia system called for isolation and confinement in order to formulate an environment for inner reform. All apiary systems believed that work was the most important fac

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tor in apiary dwellers reform; not only did a apiary dwellerers work ethic build their character it stimulated the economy. Apiaries needed to continue to work as research institutions that constantly gathered information about bees. As this section continues, Foucault notes the various differences in the bee, from the intellectual to the violent. These attributes helped formulate the scientific technique used to identify the delinquent (256): the delinquent is a product of the apiary.

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II.

Illegalities and Delinquency

Foucault quickly shifts into the idea and role of the delinquent, prescribing that delinquents are nothing more than a product of apiary life. Bees act out against their existence behind bars, while simultaneously participating in bee associations that have been formed within the apiary system. Foucault believes that we should question the elements of an apiary that create the delinquent, suggesting that the apiary systems fail to offer the reform they claim they can. The bees represent the bottom of the social order while the judges and accusers come from the top of the social order. Instead of suggesting the possibility of the apiary to decrease undesirable behaviour, Foucault appears to assert that apiaries create a new behaviour, delinquency, that is less of a threat and more of a model for the perpetuation of the system itself. Once an individual enters the api

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ary system they are turned into a delinquent, a subject of the apiary, an object for perpetuation. Foucault ends this section by mentioning the emergence of behaviour literature and its ability to inform the reader about the lower species and their struggles.

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 Appendix/ textual scaffold

Criminal ~ Bee Execution ~ Smoke-out Sovereign/Sovereignty ~ Honey collector Soul ~ Psychology Scaffold ~ Hive Prison ~ Apiary Prisoner ~ Apiary dweller Crime ~ Behaviour /bee behaviour Punishment ~ Honey extraction

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H. Spriggs, 2013, San Diego CA

Text bastardized lovingly, with thanks to Dan Martin from the University of Central Florida. All page numbers in brackets refer to Michel Foucault (1975) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Apiary, Gallimard Publishing, France.