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A Look at Honey Bees Throughout History
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Honey Bees, there is no doubt about it they are such amazing little insects and we must work together to ensure their survival before it is far TOO late! You may like to read:
Honey bees are the most vital of living creatures there are. Our whole eco system depends on their survival because their survival will ensure our survival.
There is no getting away from this, even our scientists and governments realise this extremely tiny creature is the reason we have food on our plates and clothes on our backs.
If you are seeking specific information about honey bees please use my Site Map to help you find that information quickly.
There are many campaigns which are on-going to save the honey bees, however, the majority of people believe that there is nowhere near enough funding and our bees are disappearing fast! Which in turn also means we won't benefit from the raw honey the bees make.
They evolved approximately 180 million years ago from the first primitive bee. This was in fact a solitary bee that originated in Southern Asia around 200 million years ago. We as humans began our life cycle in the same place.
Slowly, as with most forms of evolution, this bee became a highly social creature and started their life’s work of producing honey whilst plant pollinating our beautiful earth.
This delicious golden and nutritious end product called honey was and is of course their very own food source, however we do know through the famous cave drawings found in a cave known as the “Spider Cave” in Valencia that "honey hunting" became fashionable for us humans between 10,000 – 15,000 years ago.
In Zimbabwe and South Africa there are rock formations with crude pictures of bees dating back some 15,000 – 20,000 years.
The first believed keepers of are the ancient Egyptians. By 2,400BC this art was very well established along the River Nile and they are believed to be their first transporters.
The Chinese are also recognised as prolific keepers of honey bees. Interestingly this art is still an established business in China; the Chinese are our largest honey exporters.
In the 1st Century AD Vergil’s Georgics tried to explain the social organisation of these bees. He did however get this wrong believing their leader to be a King” rather than the Queen we now know who is the truly dominant leader of the beehive.
In 1568 AD Nickel Jakob wrote an extensive journal describing how they could raise a queen from eggs or very young larvae.
Around 1586 AD after much research, discussion and observation by various people it was pretty much agreed upon and accepted that the head of the hive was in fact female and it was she, the queen bee who laid ALL the eggs. This was documented by Luis Mendez of Spain. And in 1609 AD
And an Englishman named Charles Butler was able to prove that drone bees were in fact male.This was accepted as absolute fact when the author of “A Discource of Historic Bees” Richard Remnant showed that worker bees were female in 1637 AD.
Interestingly, nothing was really known about the mating habits of a queen with a drone for about another 150 years, that is until Anton Janscha of Slovenia described the act in 1771 AD.
I’m sure that by this time there are many who had discovered the art of making honey wine, perhaps this is the reason the Romans were such a merry bunch enjoying their lavish parties. Although it was in 300 – 600 AD in Europe the first manufactures of honey wine originated.
By 1538AD the Spanish introduced the European variety to South America by transporting the first beehive. I’m sure they did not envisage then just how large scale this was to become.
In the early 1600s AD Captain John Smith famous English explorer introduced them to Jamestown in Virginia, North America. Honey was needed he thought to provide his New England settlers with sweet treats.
The Native Americans called these bees "White Man’s Flies" They were introduced to Guadeloupe in 1688, Australia in 1839, and California in the early 1850's.
In 1668 AD a Dutch microscopist called Swammerdam produced extremely detailed anatomical drawings of the queen, the worker and the drones (male).
These insects do not like laziness and although highly social team-workers they kill of their drones because they are of no use in the hive.
Their only purpose is to mate with the queen and once this has been completed they either die or are literally kicked out of the hive to starve to death.
Now into 1685 AD some very detailed drawings were emerging of these amazing insects. The Accademia dei Linceria, an Italian Science Academy actually performed microscopic observations to enable these drawings!
It was in the 1700s AD it was first realised that bees make honey, until then it was widely believed the bees collected it ready made from the flowers and plants they visited.
A few years later around 1744 AD it was discovered that the young bees in the hive were responsible for producing bees wax. This honour is given to Hornbostel of Germany.
Nectar, it was assumed fell from the sky until a Frenchman, Vaillant, showed in 1717 AD that nectar was produced in flowers. And in 1750 AD it was an Irishman by the name of Arthur Dobbs who wrote a report stating the pollen collected by bees is the male seed needed by plants in order for them to pollinate.
It was a further 43 years in 1793 AD when Sprengel clearly established their part in fertilizing flowers. And Francois Huber, who was a blind Swiss beekeeper, who published his observations a year before in 1792 AD.
By 1750 AD further observations revealed that they are flower-specific, preferring certain nectar sources and the pollen they collected were from flowers which were blue, yellow, purple and white, their favourite colors!
In 1788 AD man discovered the intricate honey bee dances that take place in the hive. These are performed as a highly developed form of communication between them.
The emblem of the bee and bee hives has been adopted by many societies throughout history because most probably they have an air of mystery about them.
It is interesting to note that in the 1700s AD these images were adopted by French Republic propagandists.
The 1830s AD Thomas Nutt formed a group named “The Never Kill a Bee Movement”. The reason for this was the cruel and crude methods used at the time to kill honey bees in order to collect their honey. This was usually performed in a burning ritual.
This is rather strange because Francisan monks in the mid 1700s had developed a method of smoking the bees into a sleepy state by using Juniper wood which meant the bees came to no harm and their honey was extracted quite safely.
Around 1848-1849 the Mormon movement migrated to Utah and named the place "Deseret" which translated means "Land of the Honeybee".
Introduced to New Zealand in 1842 AD and interestingly their parliament buildings in Wellington depicts and is named "Beehive".
The first Honey Bees were introduced to Australia in 1862 aboard a steam ship which docked in Victoria from Italy; however it is thought they may have arrived earlier by other means in New South Wales
In 1847 AD a very Contraversional German artist produced sculptures of honey bees amongst other bee related sculptures.
In 1851 AD the Rev. Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth invented the first completely moveable honey bee hive which he constructed in Philadelphia. This has remained a firm favorite over many years although today there are many more variations.
Langstroth was part of a group that imported the first Italian Queens to the America in 1860 AD. And F. Benton who imported the first Carniolan bees to America. from Germany in 1891 AD.
Now into 1919 AD Lenin who was a bit of a visionary and very well aware of the importance of honey bees decided those beekeepers would be exempt from paying taxes and issued a decree for the "Protection of Bees". This I understand still exists to this very day.
By 1949 AD IBRA short for "International Bee Research Association" was founded in England. This group are thriving and work very hard for the protection of our little furry friends.
1953 AD brings us to the Nobel Prize winner Karl von Frisch a German ethlogist who explained the dances of the honey bees and apian communication in his "The Dancing Bees" masterpiece. His prize was awarded in 1973 AD.
By 1957 AD the escape of Africanized honey bees into the Brazilian rainforest caused all kinds of a stir. People were very frightened by this even believing (quite wrongly) that this was a particularly nasty "Killer Bee"!
1989 AD in a small town called Spitak, in Armenia close to the Georgian border; beekeepers noticed that bees had deserted their hives one hour before a huge earthquake.
They realised this behavior by the Caucasian bee who lived in cracks in rocks could detect in advance that a calamity was about to arrive!
In 1990 AD, Dr. Eva Crane published a paper named Bees and beekeeping: science, practice, and world resources. There are now extensive modern day writings outlining the importance of bees to our very survival.
Alison Benjamin and her partner Brian McCallum wrote an amazing book in 2008 AD entitled "A World without Bees" this book gives far more detail than I can possibly list in this one article but is a highly recommended read.
So here we are some 200 million years later surrounded by the beauty of our planet earth which includes our own gardens we love to grow and we are destroying it!
Not slowly but rather quickly. They are dying in their millions, our scientists and governments know this to be true.
In fairness many millions of dollars and pounds sterling are being pumped into research programmes who are investigating the cause or causes of why they are disappearing.
Many factors have been recognised but no single cause has been identified, not at the time of writing this article.
I will continue to watch for any results and up-date any findings and news when they are released to the public. For those of you who are looking for other types of honey bee information there are many links to different pages I have written to help you.
This article was a general timeline about these amazing creatures and the way they have inspired many a collection of civilizations over many centuries. Let us please not forget, these insects are by far the largest plan pollinators we have, without them we will probably not survive.
If you would like to discover even more Further Facinating facts, some of which are really quite fun facts then please do read honey bee facts and share any you may know with my readers and I.
My Site Map will help you discover other information you may be seeking.
You can read my readers contributions below and read the adventures of Emma, Amy and Stacey the Honey Bees. Even if you're not a child, these short stories are really good fun. Why not write your own, you can enter these by using the form below.
Click below to see contributions from other visitors to this page...
Plan Bee campaign ~ Help to Save the Honey Bees
I recently wrote to the co-operative society who have a national campaign to bring awareness to the plight of our honey bees and not just those in England....
Emma Bee and Her Honey Beauty Party
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Emma buzzed home after a long day of collecting pollen. Her wings were tired and she could barely drag herself through the hive entrance. She went to curl ...
Emma Bee and Her First Cold
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Emma hopped around her favorite yellow tulips late in the day. She knew she had to be going soon, but she was so excited by the nectar. After she was done ...
Emma Bee and Her Propolis Adventure
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Emma, Stacy and Amy huddled in their hive. Wind whipped through the honeycomb, fluttering their wings and antennae. The hive shook under their feet.
"It'...
Emma Bee and Her First Dance Lesson
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Emma, Stacy and Amy huddled in the back of the classroom. Today was their first dance lesson as members of the hive. The teacher, Madam Barre, stood in ...
Emma Honey Bee and Her Nectar Adventure
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Emma buzzed around the hive with her friends, Stacy and Amy. “The Queen Bee wants to see us,” she told them, jumping around the honeycomb.
