The history of beekeeping in the ancient Mediterranean stretches back to ancient Egypt. We can find wall paintings showing honey collection in an apiary dated to 2400 BCE. In Crete, terracotta beehives and iconography related to bees can be seen as early as 1500 BCE. Greek authors such as Hesiod and Simonides in the early archaic period mention bees and drones, and the honey of Attica was prized as early as the 6th C. BCE. The Athenian lawmaker Solon, for instance, instituted that new hives could not be placed within 100 m. of previously established hives. Bees and honey are identified with poetry and with an elegant speaking voice. Sophocles was called "the bee" because of his sweet voice, while bees were said to have been found making honeycomb in the mouth of Pindar when he was a baby. Pindar compares his own poetry, which celebrates victors in various city-states throughout the Greek world, to bees that flit from flower to flower. In Plato's Ion, the poet is compared to a honey-carrying bee (Ion 534ab). Callimachus' poetic project was compared to bees: "Not from any source do bees carry water to Demeter, but from what comes up pure and undefiled from a holy fountain, a small drop, the choicest of waters" (trans. Stephens). While there were Greek texts that discussed beekeeping such as those of Nicander and Aristomachus, they have been lost. Aristotle gives us information about bees in his Historia Animalium, but little about beekeeping. Aristotle did make some important correct observations about bees and we can see these resound in the later Greek and Latin tradition. He is more interested in the nature of bees themselves than beekeeping and, notoriously, provides the misidentification of the queen bee as a male "king bee" and the spontaneous generation of the bugonia ritual.

While we don't have as much written evidence from ancient Greece as we might expect, we do have a plethora of archaeological evidence because of the ubiquitous use of terracotta hives. It appears that these hives would also make use of extension hoops that could be added to the front of the hive thus allowing for easier extraction of the newest combs. These are found in many places in the Greek world, especially in Attica. Jones (see bibliography below) reports that two hives placed together were used as a makeshift coffin for young boy in Marathon. In addition to hives, terra cotta smokers have been discovered as well. In the illustration to the right, the identification of 5,6, and 7 as hives has been challenged by Crane, who believes they were water clocks instead. If they are hives, they would be more portable than the large cylindrical terracotta hives and would be similar to more modern hives.

We have more written evidence from Rome about beekeeping, but less material culture. Early Roman authors seem to have derived much of their information about apiculture from a Carthaginian agronomist named Mago. After Carthage was conquered (Carthago delenda est!) in 146 BCE, the Roman Senate ordered his work on agriculture to be translated from Punic to Latin. It seems to have been exhaustive and later authors clearly benefited from it. Varro's Res Rusticae, Vergil's Georgics, and Columella's De Re Rustica all discuss bees, their habits, the sort of habitat and flora that they prefer, and other fun facts.

The Georgics humanizes or even "Romanizes" the bees, but also shows how they differ from humankind. While they have jobs much like everyday Romans (Vergil remarks on the elder bees acting as "town surveyors" (179) and others are guards or soldiers), their shared, almost communist, society and their ability to reproduce without sex marks them as unique among living creatures. Vergil even utilizes bees to speak about the "divine mind" that infuses all living creatures and imbues them with transcendent souls, as Wilkinson translates, "There is no room for death: alive they fly / To join the stars and mount aloft to Heaven" (226-7). However, when discussing pests and problems of the hive, Vergil mentions how hives sometimes completely die off. The solution, a ritual called the bugonia, involves killing a young bullock and waiting for bees to spontaneously be produced. While we know this will not lead to bees, only maggots and flies, the ritual is endorsed by a long aition (etiology) and a short epic tale involving the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Earlier examples of this myth actually featured Orpheus as successful in his attempt to bring Eurydice back to the world of the living. Vergil's novel twist, the glance back that dooms Eurydice to a second death, points to the forgivable mistakes that riddle our lives, perhaps especially those that derive from love. Orpheus, the paradigmatic poet, must resonate with Vergil's own role and one realizes how he has minimized the connections between poetry and honey throughout the book. This final tale, memorable and poignant, colors what came before and teaches the reader about the relationship between art, loss, and rebirth. While Aristaeus may understand how to regain his bees, the reader remembers the head of Orpheus thrice repeating "Eurydice" as his life ebbs away.

Click here for a meditative video of a beehive.

Click here for more information about ancient apiculture, beehives, and Georgics 4.

Cilliers, L and F.P. Retief (2008) "Bees, Honey and Health in Antiquity" Akroterion 53: 7-19

This paper argues that honey was primarily gathered because of supposed health benefits (and not simply as a sweetener). The authors mine the medical papyri of Egypt to show how honey was prescribed as a medicine for anything from intestinal worms to contraception. Likewise, in Greece honey appears in many topical treatments of wounds as well as internal medicine. Mixtures such as hydromel (honey and water), oxymel (honey and vinegar), and mead are found in the Hippocratic Corpus. The authors sometimes veer from their stated aim as when they remark upon Aristotles' investigations or the fact that in Hellenistic Egypt various temples owned apiaries. A particular remedy for blindness features "honey, crocodile dung, hyena bile and vitriolic copper (p. 12, yikes!). This article often simply lists Roman authors who wrote about bees and summarizes their work, without necessarily tying their summaries into the supposed health benefits of honey. Their section on "Bees and honey today" is clear, concise, and informative.

Crane, Eva (1999) The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting. London and New York: Routledge.

This book is your one stop for everything you ever wanted to know about beekeeping, but were afraid to ask. Crane provides an exhaustive treatment of honey-storing insects (in addition to bees, certain wasps and ants) from around the world at various different eras. It moves from wild honey collection to the use of man-made hives (traditional and moveable-frame). Additional sections on the history of bee products such as honey and wax and "Bees in the Human Mind" reflect on the larger importance of bees. The sections dealing with antiquity are informative, although I felt like Crane could have done more with Vergil's Georgics. While no extant Roman hives have been found, it is interesting to see how modern scholars have misidentified vessels used for fattening dormice (yum yum?) as beehives (p. 208). Crane is exhaustive in her coverage of honey in religious rites as well as various recipes.

Crane, Gregory (1987) "Bees without Honey, and Callimachean Taste" AJP 108: 399-403.

This short note offers a reconsideration of a reading of a couple lines of the Greek poet Callimachus. Because of comparable information from Aristotle (that bees love pure water and dew), the priestess of Demeter, once believed to be called "Bees" but to be maidens, were probably bees. Where Callimachus truly innovates, however, is in the idea that the bees are bringing water and not honey. It is the purity of the water that matters and, in this metapoetic passage, the purity of Callimachus' poetry is what is emphasized, as opposed to its sweetness. Crane provides a lengthy and useful catalogue of Greek sources that mention connections between honey, bees, and poetry.

Jones, John Ellis (1976) "Hives and Honey of Hymettus: Beekeeping in Ancient Greece" Archaeology 29: 80-91

Jones' piece shows archaeological analysis in action. Having dug earlier in his career at Vari (in the foothills of Mt. Hymettus), his team had discovered a type of coarse terracotta pot that seemed to them to be peculiar. The inside of the pots were combed on a certain area and there were extension "rings" that were similarly made and combed. Looking at parallels from the previous 30 years and especially from the area, Jones determined these were ancient beehives. Once he struck upon this idea, he found modern parallels in places like Cyprus and Paros. Chemical analysis revealed the presence of beeswax on the combed sherds. While most of the pottery at Vari was fragmentary, whole examples were then found in 1971 as part of a burial for a young boy: "It is likely that the boy who was buried in the pots was the child of a local peasant family; his kinsfolk either buried him in old discarded hives or else sacrificed two of their working hives to give him the best coffin which they could afford" (91).

Kritsky, Gene (2017) "Beekeeping from Antiquity Through the Middle Ages" The Annual Review of Entomology 62: 249-64.

This article covers some of the same ground as Crane, but in a shorter and more digestible fashion. Horizontal ceramic hives are found throughout the Mediterranean and the author writes how some of these hives were "repurposed as coffins for young children" (p. 251), drawing upon a burial in Attica. It is surprising to me that we have not found hives like this in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Other hives made of wicker or wood were employed and could even be moved to maximize yield - Pliny describes how hives were moved by boat to better sites. Kritsky shows how beeswax and honey were major commodities in the Middle Ages and humorously points out that hives were sometimes used as weapons in siege warfare, being thrown over the walls to torment defenders. He also gives a nice summary of illuminated manuscripts that show bees and beekeeping. Kritsky also offers limited coverage of ancient beekeeping in Asia and Mesoamerica.