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HISTORY OF THE HONEYBEE
 - -The latest bee find, one preserved in amber found in Myanmar (Burma), now dates bees to an estimated 100 million years ago, during the Cretaceous. This is the time of dinosaurs, and makes bees even older than Australia. (These were solitary, non-social bees.)
- -Honey-storing social bees developed during the Miocene, between 20-10 million years ago. These bees made their nests in hollow trees, caves, crevices, rocks and holes in the ground.
- -Hives have been in existence since Palaeolithic times, about 10,000 years (as depicted in early rock paintings in a Spanish cave in Valencia, in which a ladder was used to reach the nest and a container was used to hold the honey combs).
- -Ancient Egyptians used honey in religious rites, for feeding the sacred animals, in many ceremonials, and even for preserving corpses.
- -Honey as been found in Egyptian tombs, dating back 5,000 years. It was edible, although the colour had changed significantly.
- -In 3000 B.C., Egyptians kept written records of beekeeping activities.
- -Egyptian hives were transported down the Nile on barges to access floral sources.
- -The Rig-Veda, India’s oldest sacred book (between 3,000-2,000 B.C.), contains many references to both honey and bees. Here, honey was also used in many rituals and ceremonies, and in pharmacy.
- -In Greece, during the “golden age” (600-140 B.C.), bees were studied for their own interest rather than their exploitation. Aristotle’s Natural History (344-342 B.C.) contains a variety of direct observations on honey and bees. The Iliad and the Odyssey make many references to honey.
- -Ancient Romans wrote much about beekeeping and honey production during the Roman expansion (400 B.C. - A.D. 200).
- -Roman law declared that bees were the property of the man who placed them in hives, not the person who owned the land.
- -In the first Century A.D., honey was listed among the main imports into China from the West, and was highly prized, and used as a medicine.
- -In the Middle East, the Arabs, with their Muslim religion (founded by Muhammad the Prophet, A.D. 571-632), built a vast empire which included Northern Africa, Spain and eastwards beyond what is now Iran. An Arab writer (Ibn Magih) quotes Muhammad as saying, “Honey is a remedy for every illness, and the Koran is a remedy for all illnesses of the mind, therefore I recommend to you both remedies, the Koran and honey.”
- -Honeybees are not indigenous to the New World, but were introduced by European settlers, although in the sub-tropics and tropics, there did exist another social stingless bee. The Mayas were the greatest honey producers of this area, where hieroglyphs show bees, honeycomb, honey jars and vigorously fermenting mead. Native Americans in the U.S. called honeybees the “white man’s flies”, and they were dreaded as they heralded the arrival of the pale-faced intruders.
- -Early European manuscripts (the earliest dating around A.D. 400) describe honey as used for food, drink, medicinal, various preservative purposes, and in magico-religious rites.
- -Among many people throughout history, honey has been highly valued and regarded as a magico-religious substance.
- -Among ancient civilizations, honey was regarded more as a medicine rather than a food.
- -Many cultures did not eat honey, but instead used it to make an alcoholic drink, using the fermentation of honey sugars.
- -Until about the 1500, bees were killed in the process of gathering honey from various locations where they lived and made honey. After that time, Europeans made many developments in beekeeping techniques.
- -By !850, honey was being produced by bees and harvested by man, over almost the whole world. At this time, the modern movable-frame hive was invented, and its use became widely spread.
- -Honey bees were introduced to Australia in 1822.
- -European bees were successfully introduced to Tasmania in the 1831.
Recommended Reading:
The Sacred Bee by Hilda Ransome (1937)
The Concept of the Sacredness of Bees, Honey and Wax in Christian Popular Tradition
By A.E. Fife (1939)
Beekeeping in Antiquity by H.M. Fraser (2nd ed. 1951)
Food in Antiquity by D. & P. Brothwell (1969)
Honey and Health by G.D. Beck (1938)
Honey- A Comprehensive Survey by Eva Crane (1975)
The Hive- The Story of the Honey Bee and Us by Bee Wilson (2004)
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