Weavess eye vibes.
No
There’s a whole raft of things that are technically edible, that I want nowhere near my mouth. Add this to the list.
hard pass
So, we can kill the flowers then?
So, basically: Rotting flesh-eating zombie bees produce honey which few outside of a certain cultural milieu will ever find appetizing or acceptable? 😃
I hate you for posting this. Absolutely disgusting
I would not want the honey from Resident Evil anywhere near my breakfast.
This one probably needs a NSFW filter, for “I was eating” reasons 😅
NSFE
As vulture bee honey is derived from animal flesh, it is not suitable for vegetarians.
Phew that’s good to know! Nearly gourged myself on some corpse honey
Honey produced by vulture bees is a pleasant tasting and sweet smelling honey-like liquid.
It’s strange that it doesn’t taste like rotten flesh.
Because regular honey tastes just like pollen?
I read it tastes a bit more like cheese/butter.
Thank you, this comment made me feel unwell
Using their extra-toothed mandible, they will slice and chew the flesh off, coating the meat in their acid-rich saliva before consumption. The bee will transport the chewed carrion back to the colony where it’s regurgitated into wax pots, different from the honey pots.
Here, the meat will be mixed with honey and left to mature over a period of 14 days. During this curing time, it will become a paste-like substance that is rich in free amino acids and sugars. This paste is fed to their young, who need it to grow.
So basically a potted meat but with sugar instead of fat. Apparently they also keep normal honey that’s separate from the meat honey. Bees are so fucking cool.
I think I saw that in Dead Space
Was about to say, this is some resident evil type shit
was just about to say this looks like doom demon hives
Nature does depravity.
Humans: “Is it edible?”People learning about mushrooms: This one tastes like beef, this one killed bob instantly, and that one made me see god for 2 weeks
Have you ever thought about blue cheese？
“Let’s try drinking the milk from an animal”
“Oh, it’s kinda gross and solid ish now. Still tastes good though”
“Oh wait, it’s gone really mouldy. Let’s slap it on some chicken wings”
Animal cheese connoisseurs be like: Our food culture grew by one diarrhoea at a time.
While I would agree on the surface, it’s not really depravity. We’ve got to do away with rotting meat somehow. Hence why vultures are so important.
Still upvoted though.
I just wanted to use that word… The whole sentence is just a word game given that personifying environment into nature is common, but wrong.
Like is that at all surprising? Starvation was a leading cause of death through much of history and pre-history, of course folks start to eat and drink dubious things. Ever heard of folks sucking the eyes out of fish to get fresh water? That’s on the milder end of what our instincts will force us to do under the right circumstances.
"meat honey"
The vulture bee is sometimes said to produce a so-called “meat honey”, but this is a misnomer resulting from scientific uncertainty, due to historic confusion of multiple species, each with a slightly different method of processing.
In one detailed study of Trigona hypogea in Brazil, the vulture bees mixed sugary plant products with a proteinaceous paste from regurgitated meat, and let it mature to form a sweet substance that was used as food; however, the two resources were initially kept in separate “pots” in the colony, neither being true honey (i.e., not derived from nectar), but they were then mixed together.
In a different study of Trigona necrophaga in Panama, the bees gathered nectar and produced honey, and they also produced a glandular secretion, derived from carrion, partially metabolized, used as a protein source, and kept completely separate from the honey. In neither case were the bees mixing meat-based substances with floral-derived substances.
Vulture bees usually enter the carcass through the eyes. They will then root around inside gathering the meat suitable for their needs.
There needs to be metal band called Vulture Bees, this is too metal.
Not exactly what you meant, but the first thing that came to mind
https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Earth/The_Bees_Made_Honey_in_the_Lion’s_Skull/178274
On bed of mottled rocks Amid flowers cold as ice Pray the weak, the old, the poor And when the tiny one from Heaven comes Crawls inside the chosen skull And when the tiny one it summons the others To crawl inside the chosen skull They build their castles in the heads of kings Bring life to the empty halls They build their castles in the heads of kings And honey will flow once more Once more
Amorphis! Their lyricist does a great job adapting the Finnish spoken histories. ZERO idea if this is one of them, though it references the shores of Tuonela. I highly recommend the clean/acoustic version of My Kantele https://youtu.be/UufaC2TI7dg
Well that was certainly… Something.
In one detailed study of Trigona hypogea in Brazil, the vulture bees mixed sugary plant products with a proteinaceous paste from regurgitated meat, and let it mature to form a sweet substance that was used as food; however, the two resources were initially kept in separate “pots” in the colony, neither being true honey (i.e., not derived from nectar), but they were then mixed together.
So it’s not incorporated in the honey. They have a separate protein stache.
A protein stache would be part of a meat beard.
I’ll keep the typo up because of this <3
And both of these are great metal band names as well.
Fascinating. It’s worth mentioning that (normal) honey can be used to preserve meat, thanks to its antimicrobial and hydrophilic properties. I guess that’s what’s going on here too: they use a kind of nectar honey to keep the meat component from going off. That said, this kind of food preservation isn’t immune to botulism so do be careful if you try this.
Now I’m wondering when/how this behavior evolved. Did these guys come first, and honeybees figured out how to eat pollen as a protein source as an evolutionary step, the other way around, or separately at the same time from some parent species?
I just came into the comments to post that. Thank you!
My mudhoney cover band.
No it’s my Meat Puppets cover band
Every Good Boy Deserves Meat Honey
Superbuzz Meatmuff
Buzzing Barfmunchers
