Bee Knowledgeable: Honeybee History Facts!

The honeybee has been heralded throughout history. Here are some fun facts about the honeybee in history!

• Evolving from short-tongued, spheciform wasps, honey bees first appeared during the Cretaceous period about 130 million years ago. About 120 million years ago, the honey bee developed its morphologies specifically to collect pollen and nectar such as increased fuzziness, pollen baskets, longer tongues, and colonies to store supplies.

This bee was captured in tree sap 10-15 million years ago and is now entombed in this chunk of amber. The pollen on her back is from an orchid, and is the earliest example of orchid pollen found to date.

• The American Museum of Natural History in New York holds the oldest bee remains known to exist (over 80 million years).

• The earliest record of honey bees and people interacting is a rock painting found in Spain (about 6000 to 8000 years old).

• The honeybee was the symbol of Lower Egypt and papyri dated 256 BC tell of a beekeeper with 5000 hives. Honey was an ingredient in over 500 Egyptian medicines and beeswax and propolis were important products used in the embalming process.

Egyptian hieroglyphs featuring bees.

• The Greeks and Romans were keeping bees 3000 years ago. They called honey "nectar of the Gods”.

Coin from ancient Greece featuring a bee.

Bee Goddess

• Scrolls of the Orient, the Talmud, the Torah, the Koran, the Bible, and the Book of Mormon all mention the honeybee and the healing foods she creates and keeps in her hive.

• Honeybees did not exist in North or South America, Australia or New Zealand until Europeans settled there. By the mid 1600's, records show that the honeybee population was widespread on the East Coast and the bees spread to the West Coast before the settlers. Native American called the honeybee "White Man's Flies".