Since its foundation, Apidologie has steadily gained recognition as a journal that reports results from high-quality scientific research on the biology of bees, and this means Apidae in general, not only on its most prominent species, the Western honey bee, Apis mellifera. All started 50 years ago in a conversation between two eminent scientists, Jean Louveaux, director of one of INRA's bee research unit in Bures-sur-Yvette and editor of the French Annales de l'Abeille, and Friedrich Ruttner, director of the Bee Research Institute in Oberursel and editor of the German Zeitschrift für Bienenforschung, where they discussed the possibility of merging these two journals to create an international bee research journal. Here, we take Apidologie's 50th anniversary as an opportunity to provide our readers with background information on the journal's history, especially on the persons and their contributions along this journey.