History of Beekeeping

Archaeological research shows that social bees have honey produced and stockpiled for 20 million years, even before the appearance of man on earth, that only occurred a few million years ago.

At first the man was promoting a real "hunt honey", having to browse and locate the swarms, often nesting in areas of difficult access and high risk for collectors. At that time, the ingested food was a mixture of honey, pollen, brood and wax because the man did not know how to separate the product from the comb. Swarms often died or fled, forcing the man to look for new nests every time you needed to remove the honey for consumption.

There are approximately 2400 years BC, the Egyptians began to put bees in clay pots. The removal of the honey was still very similar to the primitive "hunting", however, the swarms could be transported and placed near the house producer.

Although the Egyptians are considered the pioneers in raising bees, hive the word comes from the Greek, because the Greeks put their swarms with bell-shaped containers made ​​of woven straw thatched call.

At that time, the bees have assumed so much importance to the man who was considered sacred to many civilizations. With so many legends and cults have arisen about these insects. Over time, they also began to assume economic importance and to be considered a symbol of power for kings, queens, popes, cardinals, dukes, earls and princes, part of coats, scepters, crowns, coins, royal robes, between others.

In the Middle Ages, in some regions of Europe, the trees were government property, being forbidden to knock them down, because they could provide shelter to a swarm in the future. The swarms were recorded in the notary and left inheritance writing stealing bees was considered an unforgivable crime and can be punished by death.

During this period, many farmers could not endure having to kill their bees to collect honey and several studies were initiated in this direction. The use of horizontal vessels and larger than the producer of the arm length was one of the earliest attempts. In these hives, harvesting honey, the beekeeper fumed at the entrance of the box, making all the bees went to the bottom, including the queen, and then withdrew only combs the front, leaving a reserve for the bees.

Some years later, the idea of working with overlapping containers in which the beekeeper remove the top, leaving booking to the bees in the lower box. Although resolve the issue of the honey harvest, the producer had no access to the area without destroying it creates, which precluded a more rational use of swarms. To address this issue, the producers began to put horizontal bars on top of the containers, separated by a distance equal to the honeycomb built. Thus, the bees built the combs in these bars, facilitating the inspection, however, the sides of the combs were still attached to the walls of the hive.

In 1851, Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth Rev. found that propolis bees deposited in any space less than 4.7 mm and built combs in excess of 9.5 mm spaces. As between these two spaces Langstroth called "bee space," which is the smallest free space and inside the hive where the bees can pass two simultaneously. This simple discovery was a key to the development of rational beekeeping. Inspired by the beehive model used by Francis Huber, that held each honeycomb frames stuck in the side and moved them like the pages of a book, Langstroth decided to extend the top bars already used and close the frame on the sides and below, keeping the space bee between each part of the box, thus creating moving pictures that could be withdrawn from the top of the hives and moved laterally within the housing. The hive with moveable panels allowed the rational beekeeping, promoting the technological advancement of activity as we know it today.