It was not until the eighteenth century that the subject of this book, the pollination services of bees, began to be understood and valued. Nevertheless, the association between man and bees has been long and close, and dates from at least 2400 BC. Beekeeping with the Western honey bee, Apis mellifera, was a well-developed craft in ancient Egypt during the fi fth dynasty of the Old Kingdom. When Christopher Columbus and his companions landed in Cuba in 1492, the local inhabitants greeted them with gifts of honey from a local native stingless honey bee, Melipona beecheii, which was, and still is, managed in log hives by native.
