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| Between Man and Bee; A Little History
 According to author: Gojmerac (1980), “primitive people interested in honey were not beekeepers, but honey hunters. Etchings on cave walls in Spain, dated around 7000 B.C., could be interpreted as depicting a person using smoke to rob a colony of bees of its honey.” Such petroglyphs are not unusual, as anthropologists have noted similar depictions in prehistoric caves, and even Egyptian tombs.
It would be a rather linear progression then to assume that their importance in early human society held much more weight than just producers of a sweet commodity. There is evidence that the honeybee was worshiped in many cultures as a demi-god. At several African sites, petroglyphs were observed to include representations of the honeybee alongside known sacred animals. Anthropologists concluded that “because the bees were shown in close proximity to the sacred animals...they too must have possessed some religious significance for the people living in the region” (Buchmann & Repplier 2005:15-16)
Worldwide, honeybees have played prominent roles in cultural folklore. While the depictions varied from society to society, the notion of the honeybees’ powerful stinger and willingness to sacrifice itself for the well being of the hive played a prominent role in devising moral based stories and songs. In addition to their significance in cultural folklore, “...bee stings have been regarded as having medicinal value, especially for rheumatism, arthritis, and neuritis” (Gojmerac 1980:10-11), and such medicinal use is still frequently employed in medical establishments with a more holistic approach to medicine.
As society began to advance technologically, so did the art of beekeeping, and it wasn’t until the sixteenth century that it was seen as a lucrative industry for both pollination and honey production. Trends in societal revolutions such as that of the Industrial period in Europe also brought about significant changes not only to commercial honey production, but also to agriculture as a whole. The honeybee industry kept pace with the changes, while still maintaining many of the simplistic, artful techniques used by the beekeepers of the past. Despite globalization and the introduction and incorporation of new honeybee species and methods, the history mankind shares with the bee continues to be a mythical, and rather natural one.
  
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