Honey collection by humans is an ancient activity.
Honey has been used since ancient times both as a food and as a medicine. Apiculture, the practice of beekeeping to produce honey, dates back to at least 700 BC. For many centuries, honey was regarded as sacred due to its wonderfully sweet properties as well as its rarity. It was used mainly in religious ceremonies to pay tribute to the gods, as well as to embalm the deceased. Honey was also used for a variety of medicinal and cosmetic purposes. For a long time in history, its use in cooking was reserved only for the wealthy since it was so expensive that only they could afford it.
In the Roman Empire, honey was possibly used instead of gold to pay taxes
In some parts of Greece, it was formerly the custom for a bride to dip her fingers in honey and make the sign of the cross before entering her new home. This was meant to ensure sweetness in her married life, especially in her relationship with her mother-in-law.
In the accounts of the Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh, one hundred pots of honey were equivalent in value to an ass or an ox. Ancient Egyptian and Middle-Eastern peoples also used honey for embalming the dead.
Scythians, and later the other Central Asian nomadic people, for many months drove a wagon with a deceased ruler around the country in their last rites mourning procession, carrying the body in a casket filled with honey
After his death in battle, the head of Vlad III Ţepeş (of later Dracula fame) was cut off and presented to the Ottoman Sultan, preserved in a jar of honey.
