Wedding Wings (part 2): How the Honey Bee got its sting
It all began at the wedding of Hera and Zeus, and Zeus decided to make a competition out of the joyous event. Zeus told all of creation that “Whoever could devise the best and most original wedding dish could ask any favour of him”. Naturally, there was chaos at the announcement of this and everyone got creating. With all of the finest and delicious of delicacies brought before them, the winner of the competition was a seemingly shy and modest creature named ‘Melissa’.
Melissas chosen delicacy was a small amount of a sweet, glossy and smooth invention, the key ingredient of which was the nectar deep within the bed of flowers. This new, and rather time consuming creation, was named ‘honey’. Now as this was such a lengthy process for one such small, fragile and defenceless creature, it took weeks to simply make a mere tea spoons worth. And as this delicacy was so prominent in smell and so sweet in taste, all the near by animals would come in and eat all of her hard work!
As this was such a pressing issue for Melissa, upon the asking for the wish she would ask to be granted, she explained this dilemma to the mighty Zeus. Caught up in her annoyance and frustration she requested that she be gifted a weapon for which she would be able to defend herself from the greedy and rude animals that couldn’t resist the temptation of her delicious honey. Melissa even went so far as to request that this weapon would kill anyone it struck.
Zeus, however, saw such a request as an insult. How could someone so dramatic as to request a deadly sting for mere honey! Who was she to think she had created something so magnificent? As a response, Zeus refused her request and shooed her aside. But he had made a Godly promise, and Melissa wasn’t going to let him go back on that promise so she persisted. This however angered the mighty Zeus, someone so high (the highest in fact) shouldn’t be shown up by such a petty and insignificant creature. So, as a way of teaching a lesson (and showing his male dominance) he decided to grant her wish of the fatal and painful sting, but with a catch.
Zeus granted Melissa the sting, but the only death it would bring would be to herself and her kind, not to the opponent. So the only time a honeybee can use its sting is as a last resort, a suicide weapon. It is probably to most cruel and ironic joke played to any of the animals. If a honeybee were to try and free itself after piercing a predator, its barb like sting would stay lodged within the opponent, and at the mere act of freedom, the honeybee would tug out its own insides.
Now the question one might be asking is; why is this called “Wedding Wings”? Why not “Wedding Sting”? Well, you smart and quizzical cookies, it is because in science the name for ‘honeybee’ is ‘Hymenoptera’, which in Greek means ‘Wedding Wings’.
Well, history, myth and science all in one. This story was brought to you through the knowledge of the mystical and ever knowing Stephen Fry and his wonderful book “Mythos”.
- Millie Rowley
- Leaves of the Laurel Tree
