Bees and Man Humanity has held the honey bee in adoring reverence, both as a divine being in and of itself, and as a messenger of the gods. All continents that have evolved with bees in their landscapes have aroused awe among human populations, serving as models for the progress of civilizations, as personal representatives of power and symbols of nobility. The activity of the honey bee has provided nourishment to the inhabitants of the Earth, directly or indirectly. Bee products have been used in many different ways, from ritual offerings to forms of market exchange. Honey bees have helped reduce pain and suffering with the medicinal properties of their alchemical secretions and aided us in our artistic endeavors, all while appeasing our sweet tooth. Long before homo sapiens appeared on Earth, honey bees were busy pollinating flowering trees and other plants as they honed their honey art. Numerous examples of primitive artwork in widely dispersed locations describe the relationship between bees and our ancestors. Around 13,500 BC, the earliest known documentation of humanity's relationship with bees appears in a detailed rendering of our ancestors' foraging activities, in what will become known as a "honey hunt," on the walls of a cave at Altamira, in northern Spain. (Crane 37) Hunting for honey involved searching wild hives and boldly and often painfully plundering the contents therein. The very nature of the honey bee demands respect. Their sting serves as an immediate reminder should the hunter become too complacent. Honey hunting was usually done by men and was often used as a rite of passage. Our ancestors developed ingenious ways to detect the......middle of paper......bears) The U.S. Department of Agriculture lists the amount of honey produced by large beekeepers, not including the honey production of hobbyists, from 175,904,000 pounds worth $281,974,000.00 ("USDA National Agricultural Statistics Services")Works Cited Crane, Eva. The world history of beekeeping and honey hunting. 1st. New York, NY: Routledge, 1999. 37. Print.L., Stephen, Stephen Buchmann, and Banning Repplier. Letters from the Hive: An Intimate Story of Bees, Honey, and Humanity. 1st. New York, NY: Bantam, 2006. Print.Ransome, Hilda. The sacred bee in antiquity and folklore. 1st. Mineola, NY: Dover Pubns, 2004. 58. Print., Roger. “The Value of Honey Bees as Pollinators of U.S. Crops in 2000.” March 2000: n. page Network. April 17, 2011.United States of America. USDA National Agricultural Statistics Services. , Press.