The relationship between humans and honey bees (genus Apis) spans centuries (Crane 1983). Honey bees consist of between 10 and 12 extant species predominantly located in Asia (Ruttner 1988). Fossil evidence suggests that honey bees originated during the Oligocene, between 30 and 20 million years ago (Engel 1998; Kotthoff et al. 2013). A. mellifera, referred to as the European honey bee, is the most well-known and intensively managed bee. A. mellifera is native to Africa, Asia, and Europe, but because of human-mediated dispersal, is now found on all continents except Antarctica.
Humans have most likely been foraging for honey since the dawn of their evolution. The earliest evidence of honey hunting – the process of destructively acquiring honey from wild colonies – was depicted in cave paintings found in Northern Spain (likely between 30,000 and 9000 BC) (Crane 1983). Evidence of honey hunting was also documented in cave painting found in Eastern Spain, dated between 8000 and 2000 BC....
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Dogantzis, K.A., Harpur, B.A., Zayed, A. (2020). Honey Bee: Management. In: Smith, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30018-0_2198
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