I have come across conflicting information about honey and its history. Some say that the Egyptians were the first beekeepers, but ancient honeycombs have been found in the Middle East, in what is Northern Israel today, dating back 3000 years. I believe honey was known and collected all over the then known world. I have come across much to do with honey and the Greeks more then any other civilization of the time. So I will stick to the Greek story of honey.
Melissa, the word for bee in Greek, has a long history in mythology and legend. There are several versions of the story surrounding the mythological character, Melissa. Melissa was a mountain nymph who came to care for the baby Zeus hiding him from his father Cronus who was intent on devouring his progeny. Melissa fed Zeus goat’s milk and honey giving him a taste of it. Cronus then turned Melissa into an earthworm but when Zeus came to rule from Mount Olympus he took pity on her and turned her into a bee.
In addition to the above myth there is also this one which tells us of an elderly priestess of the Goddess Demeter, named Melissa, initiated into her mysteries by the goddess herself. When Melissa’s neighbours tried to make her reveal the secrets of her initiation, she remained silent. In anger, the women tore her to pieces, but Demeter sent a plague upon them causing bees to be born from Melissa’s dead body. From the Greek philosopher Porphyry (233 – 304 AD), scholars have also learned that Melissa was the name of the moon goddess Artemis who took suffering away from mothers giving birth. The goddess was connected to the idea of periodic regeneration.
There are other Greek myths on the origin of the bee involving the god Apollo. This legend was told by Virgil (born 70BC) the Roman writer, but like the Greeks, he believed that bees were born form dead corpses.
Putting aside all the myths and the argument of who first harvested honey, we know this; the Greeks were the first to create apiculture, as we know it today, on a commercial scale. There are very valid reasons for this; Greece has long periods of sunshine and abrupt changes in landscape, this makes the flora so rich that we now know of the 7,500 different species of plants growing there, 850 are exclusively found in Greece.
This explains why Thyme honey does not exist anywhere else and many argue – and I’m one of them – Greek honey is the best in the world. Thyme honey is my personal favourite; other varieties of honey in Greece come from the pine tree, flowers, aromatic plants, herbs and other native plants.
Honey is mentioned by Homer in The Iliad and The Odyssey, the Deipnosophists by Athenaeus, and in philosophical texts by Plato, Aristotle, Democritus to mention just a few.
The father of medicine, Hippocrates (460 – 370 BC), emphasises the nutritional and pharmaceutical purposes something we all aspire to today in modern medicine.
During the time of Pericles (499 – 429 BC), and the beginning of the Golden Age of Greece, ancient Attica was an area of approximately 65 square kilometres (40 square miles) and recorded 20 thousand hives. For those of us who have been to Athens, picture the hills around Athens very green with vegetation and not bare as they are today.
Today there are 25,000 beekeepers in Greece and about 1.3 million hives. Production is fairly limited despite this huge amount of beehives but very stable from year to year. Beekeepers move their hives from place to place from slope to slope, field to field in order to reap the rewards of the season and provide fodder for their hives. The season begins in March and ends in November. In May when orange trees bloom the hives are taken to feed off the flowers. July is the season for thyme honey; September for pine; May and September for heather, which blossoms twice.
Every year approximately 12,000 tons of honey is produced. The vast majority of production is pine honey, fir and oak honey. These types of honey do not crystallise and have nutritional value due to their high content in trace elements. Flower honeys are classified such as the famous thyme honey, the full aroma of the orange blossom honey, heather honey, chestnut honey, the rich in antibacterial attributes cotton honey and several types of flower honey collected by aromatic plants of the Greek country side, like wild oregano, wild lavender, salvia, and many more.
Honey is widely used in cooking both in savoury and sweets. Myth tells us that Ambrosia the food and drink of the gods was made of honey. In cooking, honey adds flavour in a way that other sugars cannot, therefore honey to this day plays a major role in the Greek culinary experience.