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The honeybee’s contribution to humankind is worth it’s weight in gold, liquid gold. References to beekeeping have been found near Spain in archaic cave paintings, hieroglyphics in an Egyptian temple and at an Israeli archeological excavation, where an ancient apiary was uncovered, containing over 100 straw and clay hives. But it wasn’t until the early 1600s that European settlers introduced bees and beekeeping to the New England colonies.

The immigrant honeybee that makes the Americas it’s home is Apis mellifera, commonly called the European honeybee. Beekeeping, or apiculture, is...