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Beekeeping in ancient Egypt.

3K views 3 replies 4 participants last post by  Jim 134 
#1 · (Edited)
Beekeeping began in Egypt/North Africa around 9,000 years ago with domestication being depicted in hieroglyphs from about 4500 years ago source.


(Click pictures to link to articles)




After a side conversation in another thread I did some digging and found a picture of a wall of tube hives that might be similar to what was mentioned in the article. The ends of some tubes appear to be closed off with clay/mud with small openings, probably broken away to harvest.








(Click pictures to link to articles)


There is more about clay pot hives here. http://techdissected.com/alternative-tech/lets-explore-new-hive-tech-and-old-hive-designs/
 
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#2 · (Edited)
harvested from the back in and the colony was kept intact. From the fount brood comb was taken for splits, and selective queen breeding was done. They didn't get stacks of hives in the 500 colony range chasing swarms and doing destructive harvests.

rather then linking some dry research papers, here is Randy Oliver describing ancient Egyptian hive management
https://youtu.be/rw9XfkI17rQ?t=27s
 
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