The services of bees have been valued for millennia. In the early Middle Ages, they provided honey for sweetening, mead and beer, wax for candles, sealants, and much more. The only benefits never mentioned then are pollination services, the prime reason we celebrate them today.
So critical to the local economy, laws were enacted to protect bees in medieval Ireland. The Bechbretha set out rights for ownership and compensation.
This fragment of an English illuminated manuscript dates to about 1200 AD. It depicts bees as moral examples. They are hardworking and live peaceably with neighbors in a hierarchical society. Sermons were preached, praising their virtues in churches, though riddled with myths. The Big Bee was a king without a sting (more noble!) and his subjects were born in the carcasses of rotting oxen!
