The Nile honey bee - The bee of ancient Egypt in modern times

Ancient Egypt is known to us today largely through incredible engineering and architectual works left behind by a series of mysterious royal lineages. The remains of temples, burial tombs and their contents and extensive hieroglyphic writings have provided archeaologists and anthropologists with fertile sources of information. Many of the cultural connections between the ancient peoples and the present day inhabitants of Egypt have been severed, as old ways and technologies have been replaced. However, we have a shining exception to this trend: rustic beekeeping using the Egyptian honey bee, Apis mellifera lamarckii. In a few areas of Egypt, perhaps most notably around the town of Assiut about 400 km upriver from Cairo on the Nile, this native honey bee subspecies (race) is still managed in mud-tube hives much as it was in the times of the pharoahs.