R, and horse-chestnut trees [4]. Its colour varies from green to brown and reddish, depending on its botanical supply. Honeybees happen to be observed collecting the protectiveresins of flower and leaf buds with PubMed ID:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21173620 their mandibles after which carrying them towards the hive on their hind legs. Lots of authors have described the collection and delivery of propolis [4?]. A colony of bees collects from 150 to 200 g of propolis in a single year; however, some races gather significantly less than that [4]. Foraging for propolis is only recognized together with the Western honeybee or European honeybee (Apis mellifera) [1], which can be a species of bee universally managed by beekeepers. This species has many subspecies or regional varieties, for instance the Italian bee (Apis mellifera ligustica), European dark bee (Apis mellifera mellifera), and the Carniolan honey bee (Apis mellifera carnica) [9]. Interestingly, tropical honeybees (Apis cerana, Apis florae, and Apis dorsata) and African Apis mellifera make no use of propolis [10].two. The History of HoneybeesThe history of bees and their merchandise could be traced back to c. 13,000 BC. A certain level of knowledge is attested by depictions in the bee and of hive beekeeping found2 for the duration of excavations. Rock paintings also offer several of the earliest evidence of gathering honey from wild colonies. At some point humans started to domesticate wild bees in hives created from hollow logs, wooden containers, pottery vessels, and woven straw baskets. Despite the fact that no written descriptions of bees and beekeeping are recognized from ancient Egypt, archaeological excavations attest that honeybees have been kept there and that the principle centre of beekeeping was reduce Egypt with its substantial irrigated lands full of flowering plants. From c. 3100 BC the honeybee was utilized as a hieroglyph in the topographical symbol of Ancient Egypt [11]. Given that earliest occasions the gods have been associated with the bee and one of many pharaohs’ titles was “Bee King” [12]. Temples kept bees in an effort to satisfy the want of the gods for honey and for the production of medicines and ointments. Based on da Silva Veiga, honey was identified to the priests and it was Tyrphostin SU 1498 price employed within the embalming process at the same time as for conservation purposes [13]. The proof for such usage is; having said that, scant and anecdotal. One example is, Ernest Budge in his book The Mummy presents an unsupported tale of Abd el-Latif about treasure hunters who located a sealed jar containing honey, and immediately after consuming portion of it they discovered that additionally, it contained the physique of a compact youngster [14]. A technique of high-status apiculture existed in ancient Greece. By far the most ancient personality, associated to apiculture, presented in historical documents, is Aristaios, son of god Apollo and nymph Cyrene. Regarded as the father of apiculture he is among the list of most enigmatic figures of ancient Greek religion. The muses taught him amongst other skills the art of beekeeping then Aristaios passed his know-how on to the mortals. In Knossos archaeologists discovered hives, smoking pots, honey extractors, along with other beekeeping paraphernalia [15]. Also many written records survived. Aristotle’s Historia animalium (History of Animals) is divided into ten books. The book IV discusses animals devoid of blood and within the book V, Chapter XVIII, Aristotle makes several outstanding observations about bees [16]. Roman writer Virgil writes about “Heaven’s present, the honey in the skies” [17], and lots of other Latin writers like Pliny the Elder [18], Rutilius Palladius [19], and Marcus.