History of Honey

The oldest records of our relationship with bees and their honey can be found in pre-historic cave paintings. One found at Cuevas de la Arana dated around 15,000 years old in Valencia, Spain shows a man climbing a cliff to collect honey from a wild bees nest. Egypt also has a wealth of hieroglyphic carvings and wall paintings depicting the importance of honey and its usage.

Long before the Roman invasion, Britain was described by the early druid bards as the Isle of Honey. Honey was much used for cooking in those pre-sugar days but most importantly for making the alcoholic mead drink, as an old English inn sign states " In this hive we are all alive, Good liquor makes us funny, If you be dry step in and try the value of our honey." This was the case in the drinking populations for hundreds of years, until hop beers were introduced by the flemish immigrants.

In ancient times it appears the honey bee Apis mellifera was non-exsistent in the Americas, although they had smaller stingless bees Apis trigonae & meliponae from which the native indians cultivated a thin style honey and acan "mexican mead". Montezuma the aztec ruler of Mexico was paid tributes in the form of large pottery jars filled with honey.

Honey hunters seeked out wild honey nests by following the forager bees by luring them with bait to observe their returning beeline to the nest. On some occasions they would use the services of birds with an inclination for raiding honey. Wild honey nests tend to be in the most unreachable of places such as high up in trees or on vertical cliffs and with minimal protection honey collection could be a hazardous pastime! This practice still continues in India, Nepal and other parts of the far east.

The first hives used by the ancient Greeks and Egyptians were made of pottery. The beekeepers of Rome used many kinds of hives such as log hives, woven wicker hives, earthenware hives but most interestingly transparent stone hives. Some of the above can still be found in use today especiallly in the more primitive areas of Africa, South America and the Far East where woven hives are covered in an outer layer of mud and dung.

In Europe straw skeps were the main type of hive from the middle ages onwards which probably evolved in Germany. The major drawback with the use of skeps was that the bees were generally killed to get the honey! They would also rot in damp weather conditions and for this reason were given "bee boles" which were holes in walls used mainly in Britain and Ireland. The advanced method of driving the bees from one skep to another was created by rhythmically thumping the tops of the skeps so as to save the bee colony to produce more honey in the following year.

Wooden hives with removable honey chambers started to appear in Europe in the mid 18th century and underwent a period of rapid development, but the real breakthrough came when Reverend L.L. Langstroth invented the movable frame hive in the USA in 1851. The concept was introduced to England in 1862 from where it spread into Western Europe. Virtually all of todays hives work on Langstroth's principles.

The photo below shows a bee population in one of our honeycense hives. Interestingly these hives are made from polystyrene, which is another recent development in bee hive construction. This material is being used due to its excellent insulation properties so as to provide a more stable environment regards temperature fluctuations. The expected result being healthy happy bees which in turn should produce a good overall honey yield.

History of Incense

Incense is possibly the most spiritual way we use plants across cultures. Almost every major world religion and many smaller tribal spiritualities light plant parts in worship to seek greater connection to the divine. Even outside of religious use many people light incense sticks in their home just for the sweet smell and the ability it has to transform a space. We may not remember why we started, but unconsciously we know on a deeper level the strength of this ritual.

The normal story of the history of incense is that it originated in Egyptian or Babylonian times. Arabia, home to frankincense and myrrh, became the main supply route to the rest of the world. India has long been thought of as the mecca of the fragrant incenses, as Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist spiritual practices were spread to other areas carrying Indian incense blends. It is also normally told that incense came to China through the spread of Buddhism from India, yet evidence exsists of incense use in China before this time (Hughes 2007).

Incense signifies elements of the spiritual realm, it is often used as a medicine in traditional healing systems worldwide and the humbling fact being it has been present in most human cultures from very far back in time, further back than recorded history can trace.

Scents have always been associated with sexual power and can be used as an effective aphrodisiac lure. Scents can be sensuous and powerful just look at the perfume industry today and all its accumulated wealth!

When we inhale we also smell. Our noses are equipped with small patches of olfactory membranes that supply the nerve endings to signal to our brains the sense of smell. We have hundreds of thousands of these olfactory nerve cells and each one has 6-12 cilia with receptors and is replaced every 28 days. Every odour molecule fits into a specific receptor cell which sends signals to the limbic lobe in the brain. This limbic lobe is associated with our deepest desires and impulses. Sexual and emotional impluses including fear, joy, anxiety, depression and anger. The limbic system also has direct control of the heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, stress levels, hormone balance and memory.

The sense of smell is the only one of our five senses to be connected directly to the brain, and the olfactory membranes are the only places in the body where the central nervous system comes into direct contact with the environment. Therefore you can see from a scientific point of view how the burning of incense can affect our mind & body.