INTRODUCTION xi 



be a miraculous secretion from heaven — was con- 

 fided to her descendants. 



^ Apart, however, from the old dim tales of 

 ancient mytholbgy; 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 



