Two thousand and sixteen years seems like a vacuum of time to rummage the planet, but if you think that’s long, wait until you hear about the history of honey.

This precious, sweet, sticky fluid is nectar to the gods, (if you’re a Polytheist, of course). The Egyptians relished in honey for its spiritual-ness, nourishment and healing powers.

Honey is a natural, everlasting food, so long as it’s sealed, it doesn’t expire. Though it may change consistency by granulating or hardening, it’s still edible after thousands of years. Some tombs of the Pharaohs contained honey. The Egyptians would bury their Kings and Queens with pots of honey in their tombs to sweeten their plight into the afterlife.

To go back even further, long before the Egyptians, beholds a cave drawing in Spain. The Cuevas de la Araña is home to the first depiction uncovered, named The Honey Seeker, that dates back 8,000 years ago. The Honey Seeker is a cave drawing of a woman extracting from a bee hive. This beautiful depiction is well drawn and ensures future generations on the significance of bees and the history of honey.

Not only is honey sweet and delicate tasting, honey is a medicine. After the bee digests and regurgitates the nectar, the by-product chemically breaks down into, gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide. This new composition from nectar to honey is a very powerful combination. The gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide in honey make it very difficult for bacteria to grow and prosper. For this, honey is healing because it blocks any type of bacterial growth and contains hydrogen peroxide.

 Pollination

You can’t have honey without pollination. The first knight in the flower kingdom and the Earth’s most plentiful pollinator, the honey bee is heaven sent. Flowers botanically redesign themselves to attract pollinators such as honeybees.

Honey bees obey the Queen bee and provide a lush world filled with vegetation, fruit, honey, beeswax, bee pollen and flowers. Hypnotized by floral nectar, the honey bee lavishes the planet. Though the little buzzers can sting you, their objective is not to sting. There is no need to be afraid of the bee, humans are not flowers filled with nectar so a honey bee doesn’t want anything to do with a human.

A cornucopia of fruits, vegetables, herbs, legumes, grains and clovers depend on pollinators. The almond tree is 100% dependent on the honey bee for pollination. Other pollinators include; butterflies, moths, bats, beetles, flies, and hummingbirds.

Protect the Honey Bees and Other Pollinators

Mankind owes a lot to the history of honey and we should be mindful as we forage the planet.

All honey bees should be saved and treated with respect. If you have honey bees colonizing in or around your home, be sure to hire an ethical and sustainable bee remover. A good bee removal service will not use pesticides and will safely remove the bees with a prominent objective to release them to a beekeeper that will ensure their existence, or better yet, learn how to be a beekeeper. Best time to remove bees is during cooler climates so they don’t die due to the heat.

Don’t hire a bee removal service that does a quick, toxic fix of exterminating the honey bees with harmful pesticides. Unfortunately, there are bee removal services that still do this.

Also, be educated on the pesticides used around your home. Pesticides that include neonicotinoids, organophosphates, and pyrethroids are a big no because in recent studies, these chemicals have been linked to kill off bees. You can find the study in the Journal of Economic Entomology.

The good news is, there has been some progress in the Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) movement. People have stood up to stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s, demanding the ban of pesticides that contain the deadly chemicals. Hopefully enough voices will ensure change for a better environment.

The CCD doesn’t just start in your backyard and local Home Depot. It goes above and beyond to the genetically modified crops that are spraying with harmful pesticides. So we have a long way to go towards better environmental practices.

Honey Be Good

We must be thoughtful in our efforts to satisfy human needs and consumption. It’s paramount to think outside the box, not just for profit measures, but for sustainable benefits to humanity, wildlife and the environment. It’s our job as stewards of the land to keep the history of honey sacred.