The Honey Bee In North America
From Susan Benjamin’s Book “Sweet as Sin”
Perhaps one of the most surprising things the British brought to North America is the honey bee, which most people today consider a native. Before then, the detritus of honey bees, AKA honey, had been used from the Mideast to Asia, at funeral rites (some believed it warded off demons), at marriage rituals, as a love charm and an aphrodisiac. Just in case, the Egyptians mixed honey with lemon as a contraceptive, although I can’t vouch for its effectiveness.
Many early candies were also honey-based, such as the pasteli, the first brittle, consisting of honey with sesame seeds and, occasionally, lemon. This delightful treat, sold at True Treats, was likely the food Homer referred to in the Iliad as honey and sesame pie. Another honey-based original was nougat, a soft sweet honey mixture with nuts, typically almonds or walnuts, suspended inside, dating back to the Roman food writer Apicius in the first century CE. Its offspring, still available today, include the Torrone in Italy, which originated in the 15th century, the nougat of France, circa sixteenth century, and the Torró of Spain, which is roughly 500 years old.
The British brought honey bees to Jamestown around 1622. The Native Americans called the newcomer honey bees “the white man’s fly.” The bees migrated ahead of the white man: when tribes further out saw the swarms and heard the thunderous humming, they knew the white man would follow. Over the years, the bees swarmed further west, then stopped at the Rockies. To help them along, botanists including C. A. Shelton, carried them to California, traveling from the East Coast, across Panama, then over to the Pacific Ocean in 1852. The trip wasn’t easy for the bees or, I imagine, the travelers, and many died, but enough survived to eventually thrive.
Early on, the Colonists used honey as a stain remover for clothes, and, more to the point, a sweetener which was cheaper than sugar or molasses since they kept bees at home. They also used honey in a variety of sweets: brandied peaches, fruit butters, marmalades, gingerbread, among others, and as a flavoring.
Later, the honey bee was significant to the abolitionists’ “free produce movement.” As the name implies, this movement, primarily started by female Quakers in the early 1800s, promoted food and fabrics not made by enslaved workers. In 1830, the Quakers launched a Free Produce Association in Philadelphia and, soon after, women of the African American community formed the Colored Female Free Produce Society of Philadelphia.
Among other initiatives, the African American women encouraged “colored capitalists” to buy from Free Produce stores. An African American publication, Freedom’s Journal, carried an article indicating that every twenty-five people who used cane sugar found work for one slave. The women activists dispersed recipes that replaced cane sugar with free produce – frequently honey.
Honey could never be mass-produced, so it never took off to the degree of sugar beets and sugar cane. Its history as a new-comer to the nation is long-forgotten and much of today’s commercial honey is imported from China. Home beekeepers have created an interesting cottage industry, helping the immigrant bee, and its honey, survive.
