Beekeeping is considered among the oldest activities of man. By looking at the various changes that have occurred in beekeeping over the many years, people can get a hint as to for how long the activity has been practiced. Bees have been a part of society for many years and it was much easier to keep bees many years ago as compared to how it is today.
In order to understand the importance of bees to the environment, we can look at the benefits of bees to many people all over the world for years gone by. Some Cave paintings and drawings in Spain and Africa are a good indicator that people in those areas kept bees 15,000 years ago. One of the main reasons why people kept bees is, of course, to get honey as a source of food from them. They used honey to sweeten their drinks and other foods and make wine and other anti-bacterial agents. Bees also produced wax, which was mainly used for making medicine, glue, candles and a traditional drink known as mead.
Bees were mainly located in forests and other sheltered parts of the land. To make the process of collecting honey and wax easier, people decided to build their own beehives in order to have the bees there when they needed them. Some of the oldest beehives can be traced back to Egypt, where they were created using wood planks that would make dark compartments for the bees to make honey.
The Ancient Greek and the Romans are other civilizations also referenced to have made beehives many years ago. Creating beehives because even more useful because this meant that the hives were not destroyed every time honey was collected.
An Italian who migrated into the US made the first documented portable hive. By reading a beekeeping book published in 1853, he understood the distance bees left on their natural honeycombs and hence drew his inspiration form there. This knowledge made it much easier for him to create hives that worked and it evolved into the modern hives commonly used today.
Another advantage is that the combs could be slid out of the hive for inspection or honey gathering then put right back without destroying them. That means that no other beehive or bee colony would be destroyed while gathering honey. Over the years, people came up with ways and discovered techniques to enable bees produce honey and affect the environment positively through pollination.
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