Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
• One of the most common drinks in India in the first millennium AD was a special
ceremonial brew made from sugar, ghi (clarified butter), curds, herbs, and honey. It
was given to guests, to suitors about to ask a young woman for her hand in marriage,
and to women who were five months pregnant. It was also used to moisten the lips
of a newly born first son. The name for this drink was
madhuparka
. The first two
syllables of
madhuparka
mean “honey”; the Sanskrit word
madhu
and the Chinese
word
myit
are related to the words
mit
of the Indo-Europeans (Aryans),
medhu
of the
Slavs, and
mead
of the English-speaking.
RUSSIA
• Russian author Leo Tolstoy was a beekeeper and uses beekeeping as a metaphor in
his novel
War and Peace
. In it he describes the evacuated city of Moscow by saying,
“It was deserted as a dying, queenless hive is deserted.” His wife, Sonja, later wrote
inherdiariesofTolstoy,“Theapiaryhasbecomethecenterofhisworldforhimnow,
and everyone has to be interested in Bees!”
FRANCE
• When Napoleon Bonaparte declared himself emperor of France in 1804, he refused
toallowthepopetocrownhimandinsteadplacedthecrownonhisownhead.Napo-
leon's coronation robe was decorated with embroidered bees, a symbol, taken from
Merovingian kings of the past, of “a republic with a chief, with a sting but producing
honey.”ThereisevenspeculationthattheFrenchfleur-de-lisoriginatedasthegraph-
ic outline of a bee (taken from the emblem of Childéric, a Merovingian king).
Louis XII (1462-1515) used a beehive as part of his coat of arms, “but the
NationalConventionrejectedthisemblemfortheRepublic,'becausebeesdohave
a queen.'” The bee was a symbol for the French between 1804 to 1814 in the First
Empire, during the Cent-Jours (1815), and also in Napoleon III's rule during the
Second Empire (1852-1870).
B
EESWAX AND
H
ONEY IN
H
ISTORY
• The ancient Egyptians used beeswax to paint their sarcophaguses. The beeswax was
heated and mixed with pigments and then applied with a paintbrush to the surface of
the coffins. The beeswax created a waterproof color that protected the surface of the
stone.
• The Persians embalmed the dead with wax.
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