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Nerty Birdy

The Mellified Man and Other Spooky(ish) Stories

If you read the blurb at the end of the first Tunnelers of Love installment advertising this very special Halloween feature, you might have noticed that I have since updated the title.

It was originally slated for publication as “The Mellified Man and Other Spooky Stories.” As you can see, I’ve added the (slightly deflating) modifier “ish” to the descriptor “spooky.”

I’m just going to level with you guys: there aren’t a lot of scary stories about bees out there.

I mean, sure, there are the news reports from the killer bee panic of the 70s—which we’ll talk about in a future post—and there are beekeepers who manufacture “haunted honey”—collected from hives that have built their homes in above-ground mausoleums—but the fact of the matter is that in most cultures, bees are considered harbingers of luck, abundance, and good tidings. A fine topic for a post, but not the vibe I was looking to bring to the most haunted holiday on the U.S. calendar.

After some deep digging of my own, I managed to excavate a few tales with which to terrify or at least entertain you. They may not keep you up at night, but hopefully they’ll come in handy next time you end up at bar trivia.

We’re going to start with the most macabre tale from tonight’s selection. I’ll warn you  now: it requires some discussion of corpses and the treatment—and eventual consumption—thereof. If that sort of thing isn’t your jam, I encourage you to scroll on to the last section, which is the least grisly of our stories on this hallowed eve.

The Mellified Man

(Imagine that sub-heading in a drippy, pulp horror font. You know the type.)

There are no existing photos of a Mellified Man for reasons that will become imminently clear and I couldn’t find a free stock image of a mummy I liked, so I’m offering this honey-inspired texture instead. Image courtesy FLY:D on Unsplash.

Honey has been known for its medicinal properties since time immemorial. The earliest written reference to honey on record—a Sumerian tablet circa 2100-2000 BC—mentions its use as a drug and an ointment, and it’s been used in modern medicine to treat everything from minor cuts to third-degree burns to staph infections.

As a low moisture, high sugar substance with a generally high level of acidity, honey can have tremendous antibacterial properties, depending on its source. This makes it not only excellent for keeping wounds clean but can make for a highly effective preservative. The ancient Greeks reportedly used honey to embalm their dead, and it’s rumored that Alexander the Great was laid to rest in a golden sarcophagus filled with honey after his sudden passing in Babylon in 323 BC, to keep his body preserved for public presentation as he was transported for burial to Memphis—being the capital of an ancient Egyptian territory, not the modern musical mecca in Tennessee.

According to the Bencao Gangmu (known as the Compendium of Materia Medica in English), a 16th century medical text compiled by Chinese physician Li Shizhen over 27 years of study, these two properties of healing and embalming converged in the Arabian practice of creating a Mellified Man.

Described by some sources as a “human mummy confection”—which is also, incidentally, the name of my new punk band—the Mellified Man was purportedly created via a ritual wherein a man nearing the end of his life would martyr himself before death by switching to a diet of entirely honey. He would even go so far as to routinely bathe himself in honey rather than keeping to the traditional methods. As the honey entered his system over the course of several months, the man’s sweat and excreta would all slowly become honey.

At this point in the so-called “mellification” process, the subject would die and be sealed in a stone coffin filled with honey to macerate—that is, to soften over time by being submerged in liquid—for a hundred years. After which, the seals would be broken and the confection therein used to treat wounds and fractures when taken internally in small doses.

While a fascinating, if grisly, prospect, you don’t have to worry about your doctor prescribing you candied human flesh anytime soon. This is one of those tales so tall it’s more than likely apocryphal.

Biochemists and historians Lu Gwei-djen and Joseph Needham contend in volume 5, part 2 of the 27-book series Science and Civilization in China that Li Shizhen—or his source, as the story came second-hand—likely conflated some Arabian burial practices with those of Burmese monks, who were known to preserve the bodies of abbots and high monks in honey, and incorrectly applied the Buddhist ideal of self-sacrifice for others to the Western notion of a drug made from imperishable human flesh. Shizhen himself made note in the Bencao Gangmu that the story was more than likely not true, but felt it merited inclusion nonetheless.

All I know is that while the Mellified Man is far from the only instance of medicinal cannibalism in global history, it’s certainly one of the sweetest.

Liv Moore from iZombie goes “full Romero” whenever she experiences a physical or emotional shock. Honestly, girl? Same. GIF courtesy Tenor.

What you may not know is that zombies appear in the invertebrate world, too, with one major difference from their humanoid counterparts: they’re real.

Zombie bees aren’t created by unearthly magics or viral pathogens, as is the case in most popular zombie media, but by a parasitic fly called Apocephalus borealis. A. borealis is a species of “phorid fly”—sometimes called “scuttle flies” due to their habit of running across a surface to escape danger rather than taking to wing—native to North America. Phorid flies are considered minute or small, measuring between 0.5-6mm (1/64-1/4in).

A phorid fly on top of grains of sugar, for size comparison.

While most phorid flies are known to be specialist parasitoids of ants, several tropical species parasitize stingless bees. A. borealis in particular historically parasitizes bumblebees—which are hypothesized to be its native host—and occasionally paper wasps, the assumption being that larger hosts make for greater probability that a higher number of larvae will develop, but recent studies conducted by a team of Bay Area-based researchers discovered that A. borealis has shifted hosts to include honey bees.

Honey bees are significantly smaller than their counterparts in the genus Bombus, meaning they offer less resources for the invasive larvae to feed on, but some regions in North America boast a significantly higher population of honey bees than bumblebees. In want of sufficient bumblebees, A. borealis can hedge its reproductive bets by parasitizing a higher volume of honey bees.

This is an alarming development for a number of reasons, not least of which is the parasitazion itself. (If you’re the squeamish type, this would be another moment in which you’ll want to scroll down to the next tale of terror.)

When an A. borealis female identifies a suitable host, she aggressively hunts it down and uses her ovipostor to spear into the host’s abdominal cavity—or hemocoel—where she lays her eggs. After the eggs hatch, juvenile larvae begin feeding on the flight muscles in the thorax as well as the hemolymph—the blood equivalent in most invertebrates, which occupies the hemocoel. Larvae mature over the course of about a week, upon which they typically emerge from the dead host from the junction between the head and thorax; an act that can result in post-mortem decapitation in rare instances.

While infected, honey bees exhibit peculiar behavior. They can often be found walking in circles, or losing the ability to stand entirely. This mechanical dysfunction could simply be due to the pressure the growing larvae exert on the organs and nervous system, but studies suggest that A. borealis manipulates the behvaior of its hosts the same way some species of phorid fly manipulate the behavior of parasitized fire ants.

Around and around and around we go. GIF courtesy Tenor.

Parasitized honey bees also tend to be active at unusual times—during cold or inclement weather—and have been observed abandoning their hives in the evening and aggregating around electric light sources. The latter is a behavior undocumented in large numbers of honey bees until recently, which suggests that A. borealis is an emerging threat to the honey bee rather than one that has simply gone overlooked until now.

It’s possible that some of this behavior is intentional, with the infected honey bees removing themselves from the hive altruistically in the interest of containing the spread of “disease,” or else being kicked out by their compatriots to the same end. It has also been suggested, in studies focusing on bumblebees parasitized by conopid flies, that the bees may be exposing themselves to cold temperatures as a defense mechanism to inhibit the chances of successful development of the parasitic larvae.

As if the physical infestation weren’t enough, A. borealis have also proven to be vectors for deformed wing virus—an RNA virus, often abbreviated DWV, which occurs most commonly in honey bees and causes severe developmental deformities—and Nosema ceranae—a small, unicellular parasite which mainly affects the Asian honey bee, Apis cerana—making it a major threat to the already struggling honey bee as well as dwindling wild bumblebee populations.

Researchers are so concerned about the emergence of A. borealis as a honey bee parasite, that the San Francisco State University Department of Biology,  the San Francisco State University Center for Computing for Life Sciences, and the Natural History Museum of LA County have come together to sponsor a citizen science project encouraging everyday humans like you and me to report when and where we come across honey bees exhibiting some of the behaviors detailed above so that we can better map the spread of A. borealis across the US.

The project is called ZomBee Watch, and if you’re an aspiring biologist, a pollinator enthusiast like myself, or just a lover of the great outdoors—as well as our country’s agricultural infrastructure—I highly recommend checking it out.

Go and tell it to the bee hive.

Bees have loomed large in religion and folklore for many centuries, appearing across the mythologies of many cultures. They feature in creation myths and often accompany—or in some cases, such as with the Egyptian sun god Ra, spring directly from—a deity and are considered to be imbued with magic, while their honey is depicted as a divine gift. Likewise, many gods and other holy beings have been shown to transform themselves into bees, or to engage their services for assistance with various tasks.

The ancient Aegeans believed that bees served as messengers between the worlds of the living and the dead, as did the Celts and other cultures besides. It’s possible that the English tradition of “telling the bees” may have evolved from a loose interpretation of this belief, though the actual origin has never been determined.

“By the Bees” by Curt Liebich, 1896. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Telling the bees is generally considered a mourning practice, whereupon any hives on a property must be informed of any significant deaths in the family or sometimes the greater community. It involves draping each hive in black cloth or leaving some other black token, knocking once on each one to ensure the speaker had the bees’ attention, and sharing the identity of the deceased while offering assurances that the bees will continue to be well looked after, often in the form of a song or rhyme. If the bees begin to buzz after they were informed, it’s considered a good omen. On occasion, the bees are also invited to attend the funeral of the departed.

Some regional traditions of telling the bees also include “ricking,” a ritualistic practice that requires the eldest son of the bereaved family to shift the hives slightly to the right, or turn them so their entrances faces the family home—particularly if the deceased is being waked therein—to indicate that there has been a change.

If one fails to tell the bees, it’s believed that the hives will either become angry and abscond or else grow sick and die.

While telling the bees was most common in the 19th century and has largely faded from practice since, some modern beekeepers still abide by this tradition. After the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, Royal Beekeeper John Chapple told the bees at both Buckingham Palace and Clarence House.

It’s not all doom and gloom when it comes to telling the bees, of course. Some practitioners believe the bees should be informed of any major change, including weddings, and would leave a slice of wedding cake for the hive in celebration. Regional variations on this telling include draping hives in scarlet cloth, or having the newlywed couple introduce themselves to the bees to ensure luck in their marriage.

There doesn’t appear to be a telling tradition specifically tied to Halloween, but a friendly offering to your local pollinators—whether in the form of seeding regionally appropriate wildflowers or introducing a bee watering station to your garden—never goes amiss.

Have a safe and happy Halloween! I’ll see y’all next week for Tunnelers of Love: the Most Boring Bee in America.

*I promise I thought of this subheading before I came across the similarly titled article published to Cantech Letter in 2016 during the course of my research. I probably should have changed it anyway, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up.