Humans have admired and cultivated bees since ancient times. Louisa McKenzie shares some un-bee-lievable stories about bees, their history and their uncertain future.
An appreciation of bees
Words by Louisa McKenzie
- In pictures
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There are around 20,000 different species of bee globally, and 270 species in the UK. Some, like the common honeybee and the bumblebee, live in communities, but the majority are solitary. As this 19th-century print shows, not all bees have the familiar yellow-and-black stripes. The red-tailed or lapidary bumblebee (nos. 6 and 7) is black with a distinctive red ‘tail’. The gingery moss carder bee (no. 8) is one of three varieties of carder bumblebee, named for its favoured habitat in damp grassland or moorland.
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The honeybees we see buzzing around flowers (at speeds of up to 25km/hr) are worker bees, while a single queen bee remains in the hive, laying eggs. As well as honey, the bees produce wax from glands in their abdomens. Other bees then collect this wax and chew it with honey and pollen to create honeycomb. Honey is made from regurgitated nectar passed between worker bees mouth to mouth, to reduce its water levels. Once the water content drops to 18 per cent, the nectar becomes honey, which the worker bees push into the wax chambers of the honeycomb.
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There was a common belief in the ancient world that bees were generated spontaneously from the corpses of oxen. In his epic poem the ‘Georgics', the Roman poet Virgil relates the Ancient Greek myth of Aristaeus, whose bees all died from disease. He was advised to sacrifice four bulls and four heifers to the gods if he wanted to replace his bees. Nine days later, he returned to the site of the sacrifice, where, according to Virgil, Aristaeus found “bees buzzing and swarming from the broken flanks among the liquefied flesh of the cattle, and trailing along in vast clouds, and flowing together on a tree top”.
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Bees were not only significant in the ancient world. By the Middle Ages in Europe, they held importance in the Christian religion. Exultet rolls were liturgical texts that celebrated the events of the Easter story and Christ’s status as Light of the World. The text praised the bees for the role they played in producing the wax from which the Paschal candle, which was ceremonially lit during the Easter Vigil, was made. As a result, many of the rolls include illustrations of beekeeping practices. In southern Italy, illustrated rolls, like this 11th-century extract, were displayed to worshippers during the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday.
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As well as harvesting natural beehives from the trees, many methods for farming bees have been developed by different cultures. In North Africa, traditional clay hives are still used today. In China, Malaysia and Thailand, bees were encouraged to nest in hollowed-out logs. In northern Europe, bee boles built into stone walls were used to protect hives from extreme weather. This 18th-century print illustrating Aesop’s tale of the bear and the bees shows traditional woven baskets called skeps that were widely used across Europe. Modern beehives tend to be rectangular wooden structures containing rows of removable frames for the bees to build honeycombs.
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Honey has been valued historically not only as a sweet foodstuff, but also for its medicinal properties. This illustration from the 16th-century Chinese Materia medica text ‘Bencao pinhui jingyao’ refers to honey from the Sichuan region and notes that it is beneficial for many symptoms, including pain relief and gastrointestinal complaints such as constipation. Both honey and beeswax have antibacterial properties, and historically they have been used to treat burns and wounds, especially before the discovery of modern antibiotics.
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Honey was also used as a constituent in medical treatments. This Italian albarello jar contained Rhodomel simplex (simple honey of roses), which was used to treat throat and mouth ulcers. The recipe required equal amounts of juices of red roses and honey, heated together to form a liquid. The liquid was probably drunk or applied directly. Honey continues to be a common ingredient in cough and cold remedies.
Leprosy: wax therapy, The Leprosy Mission International. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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Beeswax was used on the skin in Ancient Egypt and remained a common ingredient in the apothecary’s arsenal. It is also a favourite ingredient in skin cosmetics because of its hydrating qualities. Wax makes an effective plaster, providing a protective layer over the wound and acting as a humectant, to keep the skin moist. As this picture shows, wax therapy is sometimes used to treat leprosy, although this tends to use paraffin wax, which has a lower melting point than beeswax. The combination of heat and wax improves the suppleness of the skin and prevents it from cracking, helping to maintain the mobility of the hand.
The British Bee Hive, 1867, George Cruikshank (1792-1878). Source: The British Museum. © The Trustees of the British Museum.
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In the Renaissance, bee colonies were seen as a model for both human society and the Catholic Church. For the Victorians, the busy bee was the symbol of hard work and a well-ordered hierarchical society. This print by caricaturist George Cruikshank, envisages Britain as a giant beehive, the cells of which house figures working at their various trades and professions. The lower levels of the hive contain jobs such as ostlers (who cared for horses at inns) and costermongers (who sold goods from barrows in the street). Nearer the top of the hive, professionals are categorised by their field, such as 'medical science' and 'Law and Equity'. The foundation of the hive is the Bank of England, the army, navy and merchant navy. Queen Victoria replaces the queen bee at the top of the hive, flanked by the royal family. Constitutional rights, such as trial by jury and the freedom of religion, are written into the fabric of the hive.
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Bees are essential for pollination, ensuring the transfer of pollen so that plants are fertilised and go on to develop fruit and seeds. They are responsible for pollinating as many as 80 per cent of flowering plants and 75 per cent of crops. Yet despite our appreciation of bees over the centuries, humans are now contributing to the decline of bee populations. Intensive farming techniques result in the loss of habitats for wild bees, such as hedgerows and trees, and the heavy use of chemical pesticides harms bees as well as unwanted pests. The Varroa destructor mite, shown here, has also decimated honeybee colonies by infesting commercial hives. These tiny pests need a honeybee host to survive, weakening and harming the bees and spreading diseases. Wider environmental factors such as climate change, spreading urbanisation and pollution are also contributing to the decline of bees worldwide.
About the author
Louisa McKenzie
Louisa McKenzie has a PhD in art history from the Warburg Institute. Her thesis, funded by a London Arts and Humanities Partnership (AHRC) Studentship, considered the economic and devotional lifecycles of wax ex-votos in Florence 1300–1500. She researches the art and material culture of late medieval and early Renaissance Florence.