Honey is the world’s oldest sweetener and has been eaten for over 7,000 years. Sumerians first recorded use of honey was in the 25th century BC, who discovered that crushed bees (and bee larvae) mixed with water would ferment to produce a delicious drinkable form of honey.

Around 1000 BC, people began using pots made out of clay to collect honey. Beekeeping was starting to be practiced in Egypt, although it quickly spread throughout the Mediterranean region. Although bees are usually found living in hollow trees, they were often kept inside clay pots because the Egyptians recognized that this made harvesting honey far easier.

The Egyptian method of beekeeping involved cutting a single opening in the hive to allow bees and their honeycombs to be reached through a hollow tube or straw, which was used as a sort of “straw” by the harvesters. Sometimes this was also done with other types of hives such as those made out of baskets, pottery vessels (such as jugs), and pots.

The Ancient Greek name for this pottery was “ὕδωρ ἀπειλή,” meaning “water from the threat” because the bees in these pots died if not regularly removed and provided with a new home.

Bees have been kept in hives for many years. In Medieval Europe, peasants would commonly keep a hive or two of bees on their property, and the monastery of Saint Gall kept nearly 14,000 bees as early as 680 AD. Creating honey begins when a worker bee returns to the hive after a foraging trip. When the bee enters, other worker bees rush over and start licking its body.

This action alerts a “house bee” who responds by bringing a droplet of the recently harvested nectar back to the hive. As this house bee returns, other workers continue to lick it until it finally enters the pack; at that point, it releases the droplet of nectar onto its comb.

A few house bees then lick up this newly deposited drop of honey and pass it along to other worker bees in the hive. After being passed around from bee to bee, this single drop is broken down into enough droplets so that eventually, the nectar can be deposited into the honeycomb and then later brought to the honeycomb’s surface.

That way, when humans or other animals visit the hive, they will only find the delicious honeycomb they are seeking; any bits of nectar left on the comb’s surface will be eaten by worker bees. Honey is one of the purest and most natural sweeteners of all, and only honey harvested from the hive is purer.