INTRODUCTION xi 
be a miraculous secretion from heaven—was con- 
fided to her descendants. 
Apart, however, from the old dim tales of 
ancient mythology, where there is a romance to 
account for all beginnings of the world and every- 
thing upon it, any attempt to trace back the art 
of bee-keeping to its earliest inception cannot fail 
to bring us to the conclusion that it is inevitably 
and literally the oldest craft under the sun. 
Thousands of years before the Great Pyramid 
was built, bee-keeping must have been an estab- 
lished and traditional occupation of man. It must 
have been common knowledge, stamped with the 
authority of the ages, that a beehive, besides its 
toiling multitudes, contained a single large ruling 
bee, divine examplar of royalty; for how else 
would the bee have been chosen to represent a 
King in the Egyptian hieroglyphic symbols? But 
it is not only within the limit of historical times, 
however remote, that evidences of bee-culture, or 
at least of man’s use of honey and wax in his daily 
life, are to be found or inferred. So far back as 
the Bronze Age it is certain that wax was used in 
casting ornaments and weapons. A model of the 
implement was first made in some material that 
would perish under heat. This was imbedded in 
clay, and the model burnt out, after which the 
