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"MEAD: THE DRINK OF THE GODS"
Mead was the most sought after drink in the Medieval Times. Today, it is most commonly known as "honey".
Stories of Mead date back to the Vedas (the sacred books of the Hindus 1500-200BCE) when Indra's eagle stole mead (madhu in Sanskrit, pronounced Made-Hu) from the heavens. In Greek Mythology, Zeus' eagle stole the mead. Greeks used honey to increase their strength and stamina. Finally, in the stories from the Vikings, Odin took the shape of a bird and also stole mead from the heavens.

Cleopatra, in Egypt took honey-milk baths to maintain her youthful appearance. It was also used as a form of payment in ancient times because it was so highly valued. In Greece, honey was offered to the Gods or to the dead spirits.
The Bible speaks of honey as well. It talks of the promised land, Canaan which was a "land flowing with milk and honey".
The collection of honey first began around 7000 BCE, and the art of Beekeeping, or Apiculture started around 700 BCE.
Eventually as the European population began to increase the population of the bees began to decrease. The demand for mead therefore increased, as the supply of honey decreased. Mead was very expensive and only the nobility could afford to use honey.
Today, according to the US Department of Agriculture, California has 400,000 honey producing colonies, the highest of all the states. New Jersey has 12,000 honey producing colonies. As a whole, the US has 2, 413 honey producing colonies.
THE HONEY BEE:
Apis Mellifera "Bee bringing Honey": The honeybee we know today. It is from the insect order HymenopteraThey are actually European honeybees. The Europeans introduced Europen honey bees to the United States in 1638. Bees make the honey as a form of food storage for the winter months. One bee, during its entire lifetime of 6 weeks, it makes only 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey, after which it dies of exhaustion.
There are a total of four species of honey bees in the world. These include:
1. The Little Honeybee (Apis florea), native to southeast Asia
2. The Eastern honeybee (Apis cerana) native to eastern Asia as far north as Korea and Japan
3. The Giant honeybee (Apis dorsata) native to southeast Asia
4. The Western honeybee (Apis mellifera) native to Europe, Africa, and western Asia.
The Killer Bees: These are a subspecies of the Apis mellifera bees (Apis mellifera scutellata). They were created by a reasearcher who was trying to produce a variant

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