The earliest known record of keeping bees in hives and taking honey from them dates from 2400 BC in Egypt. But men were looking for honey long before that. Rock paintings in Spain dating from 15,000 to 10,000 BC show combs and honey-hunting ladders. Originally, honey was collected by smoking bees from their nests. Until the explosion of sugar production and consumption after 1700, honey was the only sweetener for most people but sweetness in those days was not at all a common characteristic of foods.
The current high consumption of sweets and soft beverages in many countries, especially in the West, is due to the growth of the sugar industry, and has little to do with honey. Far-Eastern countries and, to a certain extent, Middle-Eastern countries have a limited choice of cakes and desserts. In many Asian countries, very little sugar or honey is eaten. Japan is an exception since it has moved in a startling way toward a Western diet. On the contrary, Western countries are known for their long and exhaustive lists of cakes, cookies, puddings, jams, preserves and desserts.
In the past, honey was primarily appreciated for its medicinal properties. In ancient Egypt, honey was the most popular medicament of all. Moreover, in medieval times, honey was often used in medicines because its sweetness served to mask the unpalatable taste of nauseating ingredients. Interestingly, in early remedies, honey was used more frequently for external use than for internal use.
For centuries, because of its antibacterial properties, honey was used as a dressing for wounds and burns. Numerous empirical reports state that burns covered immediately with honey heal well, without infection, and also with less scarring than after most treatments. The use of honey for treating colds and coughs is well known. More than 200 tons of honey are purchased each year for use in commercial cough mixtures and throat pastilles. Many people feel that a hot lemon juice sweetened with honey helps them when they have a cold and a ticklish throat. A number of hay fever sufferers claim that their symptoms are reduced when they eat the cell cappings that are sliced off honey combs before the honey is extracted from them. This remedy is unlikely to work with everyone but, since it is harmless, it is worth giving it a try if one suffers from hay fever.
Honey contains many valuable nutrients but in such small amounts that it is unlikely that eating honey could correct trace element deficiencies or other such dietary problems. Honey is easily digested and is thus recommended for children, elderly people and invalids. Furthermore, many reports based on clinical trials, conclude that honey can be beneficial to heart patients, and can be of benefit after strokes and operations.
Honey keeps well. The shelf-life of honey is sometimes quoted commercially as two and a half years, but honey will not go bad as many other foods will; it can still be eaten after decades. Eva Crane, an expert on honey, says that she has tasted honey from different countries that had been stored for 25 years and none had suffered active spoilage but the fine flavors that characterize many of the honeys had gone. Strong honey flavors such as buckwheat and heather tend to survive longest. Incidentally some of the oldest honey in the world is kept in the Agricultural Museum in Egypt, where two pots from New Kingdom tombs (1400 BC) are still filled with honey.
The fact remains that honey, fresh from the hive, is at its peak of excellence. This is one of the reasons why beekeepers in every country believe that home-produced honey is best.
The southwestern area of the Kingdom is renowned for its abundance of trees and flowers. For centuries honey from the area, especially from the Al-Sawdah mountains, has been famous throughout the Arabian Peninsula. The most famous honeys from the Asir region are Al-Shawkah and Al-Mahrah honey. Al-Shawkah honey is characterized by its dark color and bitter taste. It is produced in the Sarawat Mountains where bees feed on the flowers of thorny trees hence the name of the honey, shawkah meaning thorn. Al-Mahrah honey has a whitish color and its distinctive flavor comes from the white flowers growing in the vicinity of Rijal Alma.
Other honeys that are widely available and easy to identify by aroma and flavor are acacia from Hungary and Romania, rosemary from the Mediterranean area, orange blossom from Spain and the USA, lime from Europe and North America, sweet chestnut in Europe and thyme from Greece.