Bees Eat M&Ms, Make Multi-Colored Honey
Via: Andreas/Flickr
The BBC is reporting that there are bees in France that are literally puking rainbows into their honey combs. Apparently the bees found their way into the M&M factory's refuse and gorged on multi-colored sugary dyes. Sure, that's news but the bigger story that the lamestream media is missing is that the beekeepers are refusing to sell the green and blue colored honey.
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Their stance is that the unusual colors of the "enhanced" honey is unsuitable for retail. This seems incredibly shortsighted and begging for some decent marketing spin. Consider what they really have on their hands: Organic Honey Naturally Infused With M&Ms. If that doesn't fly off the shelves at Trader Joe's, we don't know what will.
So what's going on here?
Apparently the bees in question are located close to biogas plant that processes waste from a nearby Mars candy factory. The refuse from Mars was kept in giant crates outside of the plant while it awaited disposal. The bees, probably driven by unfavorable weather conditions, found their way to the sugary and colorful M&M leavings and dug in. Later, when they returned to their hive they emptied the contents of their honey stomach and that's how the beekeepers ended up with chromatic honey.
Of course this brings to mind a story from a couple months ago. One in which an intrepid photographer realized they could turn a particular kind of ant into the biological equivalent of Christmas lights.
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