Apart, however, from the old dim tales of ancient mythology, where there is a romance to account for all beginnings of the world and everything upon it, any attempt to trace back the art of bee-keeping to its earliest inception cannot fail to bring us to the conclusion that it is inevitably and literally the oldest craft under the sun. Thousands of years before the Great Pyramid was built, bee-keeping must have been an established and traditional occupation of man. It must have been common knowledge, stamped with the authority of the ages, that a beehive, besides its toiling multitudes, contained a single large ruling bee, divine examplar of royalty; for how else would the bee have been chosen to represent a King in the Egyptian hieroglyphic symbols? But it is not only within the limit of historical times, however remote, that evidences of bee-culture, or at least of man’s use of honey and wax in his daily life, are to be found or inferred. So far back as the Bronze Age it is certain that wax was used in casting ornaments and weapons. A model of the implement was first made in some material that would perish under heat. This was imbedded in clay, and the model burnt out, after which the mould thus formed was filled with the molten metal. These models, no doubt, were in many cases carved out of wood; but it is certain that another and more ductile material was often used. Bronze ornaments have been found with thumb-marks upon them, obviously chance impressions on the original model faithfully reproduced. And the substance of these models could hardly have been anything else than beeswax.