Chapter 7:

Honeybee Larvae

 

Insect Info:

Another kind of larvae that provides a good source of nutrition is that of the honeybee. Aside from the production of honey, sucrose-rich nectar, beeswax, and pollen, bees in their larval state make an excellent food source in the wild.

Throughout North America, there are several species of honey bee, including the European honeybee and the more aggressive Africanized bee, which is a hybrid of an African subspecies and the European honeybee. Africanized bees are considerably larger than the European honeybee. Be wary when extracting larvae from Africanized bees, since they are more likely to swarm.

Locating a bee hive in the wild can be relatively easy and has been practiced by humans and animals for millennia. Most often, wild honeybee colonies are found in hollow trees. Colonies can be found in the back country, as well in suburbs and cities. If you’re living outdoors more permanently and plan to establish your own apiary, nests are best sought out in the early spring months when bees are still hungry after winter and are more susceptible to following scents. You can also locate colonies by tracking the route of a foraging worker bee. Once loaded with nectar, these bees fly back to the nest. However, this might involve a long wait in difficult terrain and a single honeybee might visit hundreds of flowers before returning home. A good way to resolve this is to attract bees with your own nectar source of 50% water and 50% sugar, after which you can track a bee back to its hive.

How To Eat:

Bee larvae are eaten in many different cultures as a delicious treat. In China, bees and larvae are ground and ingested as a remedy for a sore throat. In Japan, bee larvae, or Hachinoko, are boiled before eating. Adult bees are also edible, providing they are cooked first to neutralize the poison in their stingers. Note that male bees do not have stingers.

Bee Larvae are found in the honeycomb cells of a colony and are whitish grubs about the size of a fingernail. Initially, larvae are fed on royal jelly, which is a secretion produced by worker bees that is 67% water, 12.5 % crude protein, 11% simple sugars, as well as amino acids, fatty acids, B vitamins, and trace amounts of vitamin C. As well as honey, royal jelly is farmed from hives by humans and significant deposits can be found in queen larvae cells of the hive, where it is stockpiled. Royal jelly is perishable and must be kept cool to preserve it for storage (honey or beeswax can be added to the mixture to prolong shelf life).

This diet of royal jelly makes the larvae sweet and rich. Typically, larvae provide 250 calories per 3.5 ounce serving, as well as over 1/2 ounce of protein, over 1 ounce of carbohydrate, 1/4 ounce of fat, B vitamins, and minerals such as copper and manganese.

Larvae can be cooked or eaten raw. Being sweet in taste, they are especially good as a dessert. When fried in butter, the taste has been described as resembling bacon with a texture similar to mushroom.