“Honey Harvester”

Apiculture dates back thousands of years. We have evidence of the collection of wild honey from ten thousand years ago and actual beekeeping in Africa appears to date from nine thousand years ago. There is a cave painting in Spain dated to eight thousand years ago showing honey collecting, and the oldest-known honey in association with humans is from Georgia (the country) from about 5500 years ago. The ancient Egyptians domesticated bees at least as early as the Fifth Dynasty. The relationship between humans, at least in the Old World, and bees is a long-established one. And then there’s bees and ducks.

Donald Duck, Aquatic Sociopath, has a greenhouse. One bee comes in, takes about a thimbleful of nectar from one of his flowers, and walks off. The bee turns out to be collecting nectar to make honey in the radiator of an old car in Donald’s yard. The bee goes back to the greenhouse, at which point Donald sees it. He follows the bee in the hope of stealing its honey. The bee’s not okay with this. Battle between Donald and the bee ensues.

And, yes, there is only one bee. The bee is explicitly shown to be gathering nectar in what looks like acorn cups, and not large acorns either, and it has filled the radiator of an old jalopy all by itself. And this brings us to the fact that gathering honey doesn’t actually hurt bees, if you do it right. Even not-cartoon bees gather far more nectar and make far more honey than the average hive is going to need to feed itself. This is in part because there are a lot of non-human animals that go after honey in the wild, and the bees need to do that to ensure honey for themselves.

But also, of course, a single bee doesn’t work, and nectar isn’t honey. Honey is a processed food; it just happens to be a food humans eat that’s processed by a non-human animal. This single bee literally could not both gather enough nectar and turn it into actual honey. Leaving aside that the bee creates no comb, in order to produce honey bees actually take it into their “honey crops” and regurgitate it back out over and over again to reduce its water content. They then beat their wings over it and use their body heat to evaporate even more water. That’s just not something a single bee can do.

That said, of course Donald is still The Worst. Just because a single bee is just going to die in the real world, it doesn’t mean he isn’t fully depriving the bee of its winter food source. Responsible beekeeping involves taking only enough honey so that the hive can still overwinter living on what’s left. Donald fully drains the radiator. Every drop. That’s short-sighted; once again, Donald is only thinking of himself, and he doesn’t even consider that leaving most of it means the bee[s] will continue to produce more honey and he’ll have it long-term. Never trust people who don’t bother thinking of the future. Even if they’re ducks.