ROCK ART PAINTINGS OF HONEYBEE COMBS IN THE WESTERN CAPE - A SWEET SUBJECT:

 

African bee honeycombs. From Tribe, 2021, fig.1.

In my last column I reported on pictographs from Spain of people collecting honey from the nests of wild bees dated 7,500 – 8,000 years ago.

Pictograph identified as African bee honeycomb. From Tribe, 2021.

In a recent paper Geoff Tribe (2021) identified pictographs of pendant arches (like upside-down rainbows) as representations of honey combs in bee’s nests. These images are frequently represented in the western cape of South Africa. This identification is strengthened by a pictograph in red and white showing a swarm of bees as if leaving a crack in the rock. “In this painting it appears as if the bees are flying out of a crevice in the wall – very much as they would in the wild where many colonies make their nests within rock crevices. The large number of bees, especially concentrated at the lip of the crack and spreading outwards, indicates either an orientation flight or an absconding swarm.” (Tribe 2021)

African honeybee. Internet photograph, public domain.

People have been appropriating the honey from nests of wild bees literally forever. The practice probably predates humanity altogether as primates are known to also rob bee’s nests so this could probably be traced to before the origin of the hominid line. “Wild honeybee nests in southern Africa have been robbed for millennia by Bushmen (San) who were the original inhabitants of the sub-continent before the arrival of the Bantu tribes from the north and the European settlers from the south. Honey was possibly the only sweetness known to them which was obtained not only from honeybees but also from stingless Trigona bees. Bee brood was also a much relished source of food. Honeybee nests were marked some way and individually or tribally owned and were robbed at the appropriate season when the combs were full of honey. Being nomadic, the San travelled vast distances following the availability of food according to the seasonal cycle.” (Tribe 2021)

“There are many thousands of paintings on the walls of caves or rock overhangs in southern Africa which are thousands of years old, with some extending into the early colonial period. The San (Bushman) painters covered a wide variety of subject matter, the interpretation of some of them fill many scholarly books.” (Tribe 2021)

Closeup of pictograph identified as African bee honeycomb. From Tribe, 2021.

“One painting that occurs in many parts of southern Africa and which was initially thought to depict a necklace was subsequently shown to represent combs of honeybees. Necklaces were worn by the San and were made out of small pieces of ostrich egg shells in which a hole was drilled and then strung together with a piece of string. However, a Zululand commercial beekeeper, Robin Guy, on visiting the preponderance of paintings in the Natal Drakensberg identified these ‘necklaces’ as depicting hanging honeybee combs within a honeybee nest.” (Tribe 2021) This would seem to make a great deal of sense. Depicting necklaces without the wearer does not strike me a likely, honeycombs considerably more so.

Painting of bees leaving a crack in the rock. From Tribe, 2021, fig. 2a.

Closeup of painting of bees leaving a crack in the rock. From Tribe, 2021, fig. 2a.

Additionally, the creator of these images often use incorporation of natural features as mentioned above with the illustration of the bees flying out of a crack in the rock. In other cases “the artist has made use of the natural shape of the cave wall to incorporate the convex bump on which to paint the catenary combs. This give a more realistic three dimensional effect of what a real nest would look like if viewed from below. Similarly, honeybee nests are often found hanging under projecting rocks, and the artist has made use of the small projection from the cave wall under which to paint the combs – simulating what occurs in nature.” (Tribe 2021)

Much discussion goes into the meanings and motivations behind the production of rock art, and while a range of these meanings and motivations can be proposed for the depiction of honeycombs, I prefer to think of them as a product of the sheer joy of a mouthful of native honey, sweet and sticky, added to the diet of a hunter-gatherer.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Tribe, Geoff, 2021, Rock Paintings of Honeybee Combs in the Western Cape, Ujubee, http://ujubee.com/?p=372, accessed 7 January 2022.