Research On The Bee Industry In Tang Dynast

As a kind of important economic insects,bees have a long history of breeding in ancient China.As a supplementary part of ancient Chinese agriculture,the traditional apiculture's formation,development,social benefits and historical influence are worth studying.Based on the accumulation of previous generations' experience,favorable agricultural policy conditions,excellent agricultural technique foundation and suitable ecological environment,the family apiculture appeared in the Tang Dynasty,and the breeding technique had been further improved.Tang people paid attention to the location,manner of apiculture and the time of honey collection.They placed the beehive in a corridor under the eaves to avoid the impact of bad weather.In addition to the agricultural calendar of June and August,which was recorded in the agricultural book Sishizuanyao,a large number of poems and articles at that time indicated that there were activities to collect honey in spring,summer and autumn.To guarantee the quality of honey,Tang people got close to flowers,fruits and other high-quality honey-source plants consciously.When collecting honey,Tang people used shelter and smoking methods to avoid bee stings,and took a variety of medical measures to treat bee stings.Beekeeping became a family sideline for the tang people,and some people relied on it to earn great wealth.The record of time to collect honey in Sishizuanyao,is the earliest record of the introduction of beekeeping technique in the known ancient agricultural books,which show that the emerging apiculture has attracted the attention of researchers.According to the information of tribute in the historical materials of the Tang Dynasty,tabular statistical analysis can be obtained.In this period,the geographical distribution of bee products(mainly honey and beeswax)was concentrated in the south,especially in the Shaman Dao and Jiangnan Dao.This distribution may be due to the distribution of vegetation(honey-source plants).In terms of the internal composition of tribute bee products,beeswax and candles account for about 75%,while honey is 25 percent.It suggests that there may have been greater demand for beeswax in the upper class of the Tang Dynasty.In the trade of bee products,the Bohai produced a large amount of honey and imported to Japan,Foreign bee products mostly entered into China as tributaries.Important information on prices of bee products can be obtained by Dunhuang and Turfan documents.The unit price of honey is lower than that of sucrose,stone honey and other things which are also sweet.Bee products were widely used in medical treatment,diet and other daily life fields in the Tang Dynasty.Honey,beeswax,bee and Puhuang were listed as superior drugs in the medical books and monograph on materia medica in the Tang Dynasty.Beeswax therapy and bee venom therapy are unique treatment methods.Mijiu and honey refining are important methods of Chinese medicine processing.Honey,maltose and sucrose were the three major sources of sweetness for Tang people.In the Tang dynasty,Honey dessert included honey drink,glazed fruit,honey pastry and so on.In addition,honey and beeswax are also widely used in candle making,incense burning,sealing,communication,dyeing,beauty,laundry,casting,manufacturing-printing,veterinary drugs and other areas of daily life.On the basis of previous studies,the Tang people's biology understanding of bees was constantly deepened,and they had a further understanding of the toxicity,habits,classification,species,natural enemy and other information of bees.Of course,at that time,these were only vague understandings,scattered in the writings of people at that time,which had not yet formed a systematic view and should not be overestimated.In the Tang Dynasty,honey or honey dessert was a popular delicacy.In Buddhist and Taoist classics,honey was regarded as a treasure.It is both a delicacy for veneration and a magical medicine for alchemy.Honey was even mysterious,often appeared in Buddhist and Taoist myths and legends;In literary works,the meaning of bees image is constantly changing.Both the metaphor of body parts and the symbolic meaning in legendary novels reflect the value of this theme in the exploration of cultural history.