A new study of bees in creative practices throughout the ages from ancient carvings and historic cave art to the big screen and across social media has revealed that we’ve always had a friend in bees. First author Kit Prendergast, from Curtin’s School of Molecular and Life Science, said that bees have long provided artistic inspirations with their hardworking spirit, sacrifice, and sweet contribution to humans. “Looking back at some of the early records of human representations in cave art dating back more than 8,000 years to art by the ancient Mayans of South America, we found that humans have had an enduring relationship with bees,” Prendergast said in a release. The researchers also found that positive images of bees in art may have been inspired by the sweetness of honey. “There are links between the sweet-tasting nutritious food that could have acted to condition positive responses in the brain, leading …