A Brief History Of Honey

Honey has been around far longer than the little squeezable plastic bear containers we may have in our cupboards! It is impossible to say how long people have been gathering and consuming honey because even our earliest historical records indicate that we have enjoyed the work of bees.

Cave paintings believed to have been created in or around 7000 BC show that people were keeping bees even then. Honeybees predate that record by centuries, though. Fossil evidence shows that bees were working their magic over 150 million years ago, which means that even the earliest people may have made use of honey.

We know that ancient Egyptians kept bees in specially made hives. The bee makes regular appearances in Egyptian hieroglyphics and was often used as a symbol of royalty as far back as 2400 BC. The Egyptians used honey in a variety of capacities. It was, of course, used to sweeten food and drink. It as also used as an ingredient in embalming fluids and was offered the gods as a sacrifice!

The ancient Greeks also used honey. It was an important feature of early Greek cuisine and was also used as a health aid. The Romans relied heavily on honey within their diets and beekeeping was one of the Roman Empire?s growth industries.

The growth of Christianity, in time, led to an increased demand for Bees wax for church candles. Honey also grew in popularity as a sweetener. The appeal of honey continued to grow, unabated, through the Renaissance. At that time, however, sugar from other parts of the world became more common and the use of honey went into decline.

By the 1600s, sugar was actually used more often than honey as a sweetener. Honey production, however, did not die. Beeswax remained a valuable commodity and the discovery that kept bees could help in the pollination of fruit-bearing trees also helps support the industry. At the same time, honey was still the preferred sweetener of many people and significant numbers recognized the valuable medicinal and health-related properties of honey.

Honey continues to be an important component in a great deal of cooking, its relative health superiority and the resurgence in interest in traditional medicine and healing is also encouraging to the honey industry. Bees have been used to signify ancient royalty. They were embroidered on the robes of Napoleon. Today, they fill cute plastic bears and sit on our tables and within our pantries. Beekeeping and honey have always been an important part of human history.