Trouble with Honeybees

摘要

When European settlers arrived on the shores of North America in the seventeenth century and discovered to their dismay that there were no honeybees here, they set about importing them. Never mind that more than 3,500 species of native bees were buzzing about, energetically pollinating the native plants and the few crops—including squash and beans—grown by the people the setders called Indians. Those bees do not produce useful amounts of wax or honey. Only honeybees do that, and without them the settlers lacked good-quality wax with which to make candles to light their dark days and darker nights and had to make do with myrtle wax or tallow from beef or deer. Without honeybees, they also lacked the major ingredient of mead, an alcoholic drink made from fermented honey and water. And last of all, they had no honey to sweeten their food.