Life of the Honey Bee

Learning Outcomes and Objective

1. Discuss the historical relationship

between the honey bee and human society.

Welcome To
Your First Folder
 Life of the Honey Bee
Required Reading – Chapter 1

Welcome To Your First Folder

 Life of the Honey Bee

“The men of experiment are like the ant;

they only collect and use.
But the bee gathers its materials from the
flowers of the garden and of the field, but
transforms and digests it by a power of its
own."
~ Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519) ~
 Historical Look at the Relationship Between
the Honey Bee and Human Society

• Bees are studied from many perspectives, ecology apiculture,

behavioural, entomology, & agriculture
 Life of the Honey Bee
To Begin our Course
Required Reading - Chapter 1

• The relationship between humans and the

honey bee has been recorded since
ancient times

• The human-bee duo is not the

only partnership of historical
significance
 Life of the Honey Bee
Required Reading - Chapter 1

• For millions of years bees have

been evolving with flowering
plants
• At that moment, bees and
plants became intimately
connected
 The historical relationship between the honey
bee and human society

• While there are approximately 20,000 bee

species globally that play a role in the
pollination process
• Only 7 are responsible for creating the world's
sweetest treat
Humans and Honey Bees
 Napoléon Bonaparte 1769 - 1821

• French statesman and

military leader
• Rose to prominence during
the French Revolution
• Led several successful
campaigns during the
French Revolutionary Wars
• He was Emperor of the
French from 1804 - 1814
Napoléon Bonaparte 1769 - 1821
• Napoleon
dominated
European and
global affairs for
more than a
decade
• According to
Legend The bee
never sleeps
 Napoléon Bonaparte
& The Honey Bee
• Thus, they have also
come to imply zeal,
diligence,
industriousness and
orderliness
• Attributes Napoleon
wanted happy to
embrace
 Napoléon & The Honey Bee

• The Honey bee is also the producer of

honey, thus,
• She also symbolized sweetness and
benevolence
Napoléon Bonaparte &
The Honey Bee
• Numerous versions
of the bee were
commissioned by
Napoleon
• From embroidered
motifs on clothing,
curtains, carpets and
furniture
• Printed or painted
images on wallpaper
 Napoléon & The Honey Bee
• In Napoléon’s
coronation ceremony
• He wore a robe
decorated with what
was said to be 300
bees
• So it’s not surprising
that his nickname
was??
• “The Bee.”
• Napoléon
Bonaparte
• 1769 - 1821
Age 51
 Napoléon & The Honey Bee
• The bee symbol sent several different
messages to Napoleon’s constituents
• It referred back to earlier French kings who
chose the bee as a symbol of immortality and
resurrection
 Just how far back does it go?
The Historical Relationship between
Humans and the Honey Bee
• Beekeeping is as old as written history
and probably much older
• Evidence exists signifying human
society’s fondness of the Apis mellifera
–And studying and recording it is
not new either
 The Beekeepers, 1568,
by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
• Photo Image
1.4: Cupid
Complaining
to Venus
Specific Regions
 In Valencia, Spain

• 8000-year-old cave painting in the Mesolithic

Cueva de la Araña rock shelter
• Depicts a man climbing a ladder to get to the
bees

A UNESCO World Heritage Site - dates to around 8,000 to 6,000 BC.

Specific Regions
 Required Reading - Chapter 1

• In Egypt (2400 BC)

• There is a stone bas-
relief in a temple
• Depicts peasants
removing honeycomb
from a stack of
cylindrical clay hives
and also packing the
honey in pots
 Required Reading - Chapter 1

• The positive impact honey and beeswax

had on their economy and medicinal use
• Also fostered this diminutive creature’s
exalted status as a Goddess
• The Ancient Egyptians
Experienced physical injuries, infections
and some of the same medical concerns
that people do today
 Required Reading - Chapter 1

• Over 700 health remedies written in

hieroglyphics are described in The Ebers
Papyrus (circa 1552 BC)
• Many of these medicines and ointments
contained honey
 Required Reading - Chapter 1

Crocodile Dung In Sour Milk And beeswax & Honey

1500 B.C: Ancient Egyptian
 Required Reading - Chapter 1

• The Papyrus provided a detailed

prescription for contraception
• Included a gummy mixture made of
beeswax honey and sodium carbonate
combined with crocodile dung

• That would be applied to the inside of

the vagina ~ to cover the "mouth of the
womb" (cervix)
Just how far back does it go?
• In Tutankhamun’s
Tomb
• Sealed pots of honey
were found in the
graves of many
pharaohs
 Required Reading –
Chapter 1
• In the Tel Rehov in the
Jordan Valley of
Northern Israel
• Scientists unearthed
the remains of the
oldest known honey
production facility,
• Dated back to the
• 10th – early 9th
centuries B.C.E.
 Required Reading - Chapter 1

Greece - Over the centuries;

• The bee was the emblem used on coins
in the Greek City of Ephesus
• Aspects of bees and beekeeping were
discussed at length by Aristotle
 Required Reading - Chapter 1

• In Prehistoric Greece (Crete and

Mycenae)
• There existed a system of high-status
apiculture
 Required Reading - Chapter 1

• In Prehistoric Greece (Crete and

Mycenae)
• Beekeeping was considered a highly
valued industry controlled by beekeeping
overseers
• in Knossos - Depicted from the finds of:
• Hives, smoking pots, honey extractors
and other beekeeping paraphernalia
Required Reading -
Chapter 1
• They where
put in niches in
rubble walls
• Kept under
Carob trees
• To cover and
protected from
the sun
 Required Reading - Chapter 1
• Honey was an important
food
• Greek recipes books were
full of sweetmeats and
cakes made from honey
• Cheeses were mixed with
honey to make cheesecakes
and Mead
 Required Reading - Chapter 1

• Mead - a honey-based alcoholic

drink has a rich history from many
lands and civilizations
• Mead, the earliest form of wine
• The Ancient Greeks called mead
Ambrosia
 Required Reading - Chapter 1

• References exist within historical

and in literary sources describing
mead’s prominence
• Philosopher Plato
• R.R. Tolkien in, The Fellowship of the Ring,
“The years have passed like swift draughts of
sweet mead in lofty halls beyond the west”
• In The Hobbit Tolkien (1937), would also
reference mead in The Hobbit,
“they sat long at the table, with their wooden
drinking bowls filled with mead.”
• In more recent times in Harry Potter and
the Half-Blood Prince

“
 Required Reading - Chapter 1

• Mead production eventually became

popular and proficiently made in Europe,
India, and China
• The earliest known mead production
took place on the Island of Crete
• It was considered the Golden Age of
Greece’s most famous beverage (500
to 300 BC)
 Polish Mead
Required Reading - Chapter 1

• Mead was very popular in Northern

Europe
• Was a desired drink among the Polish-
Lithuanian nobility
• Produced by monks whose monasteries
were in surroundings unfit to grow grapes
 Mead & Beeswax – Chapter 1
• The Christian monasteries and convents
were also centers for beekeeping
• Among the many yields produced
through the honey bee’s handiwork,
beeswax was highly prized for making
candles
 Beeswax

• Candles –
• An essential requirement for their
monasteries since beeswax did not
create soot or blacken the walls when it
burned
 Required Reading - Chapter 1

• 1536 - 1541
• Life within the
monastery would
significantly change at
the beginning of
• England’s Reformation
Period
• English apiculture
centers were closed by
Henry VIII
 Required Reading - Chapter 1

• Science’s Contribution To
The Human-Bee Relationship

• We move to Part Be
Knowledge Would Grow
And
Progress Would Continue

See Chapter 1 – Part B

Videos and Internet Links
To Check Out
History Of Beekeeping: Ancient Times

• Medicinal uses of ancient Egyptian

beekeeping
• 1.08
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=EQhySgBkMKM
 Required Reading - Chapter 1

• Check out this link!

• Mead - history
• https://norse-mythology.net/viking-
mead/