What if the honey on your morning toast came not from flowers, but from rotting flesh? It sounds like a horror-movie premise, yet in the rainforests of Central and South America, there are bees that do exactly this. These so-called “vulture bees” forego flowers and feast on carrion, turning putrefying meat into an edible substance eerily akin to honey. The mere idea triggers an instinctive recoil — part fascination, part revulsion. Why do these carnivorous bees exist, and what does our reaction to them say about us? Exploring this bizarre phenomenon takes us on a journey through entomology’s stranger tales, evolutionary detours, and the depths of human disgust and body horror.
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In 1982, entomologist David Roubik was trekking through Panama when he noticed something unsettling: bees swarming a decaying animal carcass. Up to that point, bees were almost universally thought to be vegetarian, getting sugar from nectar and protein from pollen. Roubik had stumbled upon the first known “obligate necrophages” among bees – creatures that feed exclusively on dead flesh. These were later dubbed vulture bees, and scientists eventually identified three species (Trigona hypogea, T. necrophaga, and T. crassipes) that make their living as tiny flying scavengers.
Surprisingly, earlier hints of such behavior existed. European naturalists as far back as the 18th and 19th centuries had recorded bees nibbling at carcasses (notably in 1758 and 1827). In 1902, Italian entomologist Filippo Silvestri even gave Trigona hypogea its name after studying museum specimens. But it wasn’t until Roubik’s observations in the 1980s that science confirmed some bees had decisively switched from pollen to carrion. As one researcher quipped, these are “the only bees in the world that have evolved to use food sources not produced by plants,” a truly radical dietary shift.
Discovering bees that eat meat raises an obvious question: What do they do with it? Back at the hive, vulture bees don’t stash rotting steaks in honeycomb jars. Instead, they process the flesh into a kind of nutritious paste to feed their colony. Observations show that vulture bee foragers use their mandibles – evolved with an extra tooth for gnawing flesh – to shear off bits of meat. Lacking the “saddlebags” of hair that pollen-gathering bees have on their legs, they pack these meat morsels into much smaller leg baskets (earning the cheeky nickname “little chicken baskets” from one scientist). Upon returning home, the foragers deposit the meat into small wax pots within the nest and seal them up. There, safe from ants and contamination, the flesh cures for about two weeks. It’s a bit like the bees are pickling their carrion catch.
After this curing period, the meat turns into a protein-rich goo that the bees consume and especially feed to their larvae. Early reports described how the foragers partially digest the flesh and regurgitate it for other bees – an unsettling mirror to how honeybees regurgitate nectar to make honey. The end product is often likened to honey in appearance and texture, hence the lurid moniker “meat honey.” Inside a vulture bee nest, you’d see normal-looking waxy brood combs alongside odd pots of reddish paste and honey-like substance. It’s a hive straight out of a fever dream: gnarled wax pots filled with glistening, amber meat-jelly instead of golden honey.
Do vulture bees truly make honey from meat? The reality is a bit more nuanced. Researchers from the University of California–Riverside found that these bees still produce a sweet substance that we would recognize as honey – and it’s “reportedly still sweet and edible” to humans. This would mean the hive has two food streams: a honey for energy and a meat-derived feed for protein. Some entomologists argue that the “meat honey” is more properly a meat-based royal jelly, akin to the secretion bees normally make to feed their queens and babies. In other words, it’s bee barf – but a specialized blend from a carrion diet. And if you’re wondering how it tastes, you’re not alone. A flurry of internet reports (of dubious credibility) describe it as “intense, smoky, and salty”. In truth, no scientist is lining up to slather vulture bee honey on toast. One bee expert dryly noted that no one has dared to taste it (for good reason) and it “would most likely be harmful to humans”. The consensus: don’t eat the meat honey. The bees need it, and you probably don’t want it.
From a scientific perspective, vulture bees are bizarre – but they’re also a brilliant case of evolution coming full circle. Biologists often remind us that bees are basically vegetarian wasps. The ancestors of today’s honeybees and bumblebees were wasp-like insects millions of years ago that hunted other bugs for meat. Tens of millions of years back, some of those wasps started focusing on pollen and nectar instead, kicking off the lineage of bees and a co-evolution with flowering plants. In essence, a bee is a wasp that decided plants were easier prey. What makes vulture bees remarkable is that they “reverted” to meat-eating after eons of vegetarian life. Faced with intense competition for nectar in the tropical forests, a few species found a new niche by returning to the old ways of their wasp ancestors – scavenging protein from carrion.
This dietary about-face required some adaptations. For one, the vulture bees’ gut microbes changed drastically to handle a diet that would kill most insects. A recent microbiology study showed their intestines are loaded with acid-loving bacteria similar to those in actual vultures and hyenas. These microbes likely help neutralize the toxins and pathogens in rotting meat, essentially pickling the bees’ food in acid. “They get these pathogens… so they have all these Lactobacillus in there that will acidify the gut — literally pickle the pathogen,” explains biologist Jessica Maccaro.
But our curiosity isn’t purely in the biology that such creatures exist and how they evolved… it’s more about our visceral response to the knowledge that these animals, which challenge our perceptions, are out there. Consider the honeybee – a universally beloved insect, a symbol of sweetness and life, buzzing among blossoms. Mix that mental image with the stench of death, and you have a recipe for cognitive dissonance. Vulture bees violate a boundary in our minds. They take something pure (honey) and contaminate it with something abject (carrion). This mash-up taps into what horror writers and filmmakers call body horror – a genre of shock that comes from grotesque transformations and the blurring of natural boundaries. Classic body horror often involves humans grotesquely morphing with other organisms or their own flesh betraying them. In this case it’s nature delivering the jolt: an insect that’s supposed to sip daintily at flowers is guzzling putrid flesh and turning it into “honey.” It feels wrong. It looks wrong – as anyone who peers into a vulture bee hive can attest. (One startled observer said the inside of the hive looked like something from Alien or The Thing, referring to two horror films known for slimy creatures and gore.)
We experience a similar creepy-crawly feeling when watching David Cronenberg’s film The Fly, where a scientist (Jeff Goldblum) gradually turns into a man-fly hybrid that vomits digestive enzymes on his food. It’s horrifying because it subverts the familiar into the monstrous. Real vulture bees won’t dissolve your arm with acid, but the psychological effect is comparable in miniature. They trigger the same “yuck” reflex as maggots writhing in a wound or a spider with too many eyes – a deep-seated revulsion toward organisms that blur the line between life and decay. The term body horror often refers to fiction that makes us squirm by showcasing the human body distorted or infected. Yet here nature has its own body horror playing out: tiny innocuous bees behaving like ghouls, a sweet substance made from rot. It confronts us with the fact that the natural world isn’t all rainbows and roses; sometimes it’s dripping sinew and fermenting gore.
Interestingly, what we label “horrific” is business-as-usual to the bees. The vulture bees themselves are not monstrous mutants but rather ingenious survivors of evolution. The horror we feel is really a projection of our own evolutionary fears and cultural symbolism. Honey, in human culture, signifies purity and healing (think of how we use honey in medicine and ritual). So “meat honey” comes across as a perversion, a contamination of something we hold sacred. This strong reaction is a reminder that much of our horror is tied to the meaning we impose on things. Biologically, there’s no conflict – the bees separate their meat slurry from their honey stores and carry on with life.
It’s us that carry psychological baggage about death and decay.
Confronted with flesh-eating bees, it’s easy to fixate on the immediate, unsettling, factor. But there’s another way to respond: curiosity and even admiration. After the initial shudder, scientists like Roubik, Figueroa, and McFrederick leaned in closer. They wanted to know how and why nature produced this oddity, and what it could teach us. Such research has yielded insights into microbiology, ecology, and evolution – from understanding how gut bacteria enable dietary extremes to seeing how flexible and resourceful life can be in a pinch.
As one entomologist put it, “The weird things in the world are where a lot of interesting discoveries can be found… There’s a lot of insight there into the outcomes of natural selection.”
Our revulsion itself can become a subject of interest. Why do we find certain things revolting, and can that response be changed with knowledge? Psychologists suggest that learning about something can reduce disgust by making it more familiar and less threatening. By studying phenomena like vulture bees, we strip away the spooky unknown. We start to see the underlying logic and even beauty in it. The bees are no longer malicious creepies but fellow creatures following a clever strategy. In a strange way, understanding the biology can disarm the horror. It’s like turning on the lights in a dark room – the monsters shrink back into innocuous shadows of the furniture.
This doesn’t mean flesh-eating insects will ever be cute and cuddly to us. But perhaps they don’t need to be. We can appreciate them with a kind of respectful awe. After all, vulture bees perform a vital ecosystem service: they help dispose of carrion, just as burying beetles and maggots do, recycling nutrients back into the web of life. They also remind us that nature’s creativity often outstrips our imagination. Who could have dreamed up a meat-making honeybee? Yet it exists, regardless of our comfort level.
We often use horror stories to grapple with things we fear or don’t understand about biology – disease, decay, the fragility of our bodies. Real oddities like vulture bees serve a similar purpose outside the movie theater. They force us to face the fact that life isn’t always neat or pretty. But by facing it, we can expand our understanding and even our empathy for the weirder forms of life. The next time you feel a surge of disgust at some creepy-crawly or slimy organism, consider this: that reaction helped keep our ancestors alive, but it can also be an invitation to learn.
Rather than sealing these bees away in a mental box labeled “Nightmares,” scientists and enthusiasts have brought them into the light of study. And society, slowly, is coming around too – witness the viral interest online in “meat honey” and flesh-eating bees, equal parts horrified and intrigued. We’re beginning to talk about these things openly, even humorously, rather than simply screaming and squashing. In doing so, we take a bit of the power back from our fears.
At its heart, the story of carnivorous bees is oddly hopeful. It shows that humans can overcome initial fear and revulsion through understanding. What starts as a tale of horror can end as a tale of wonder. We can marvel at the ingenuity of evolution, appreciate the role of every creature (even the icky ones), and recognize a reflection of ourselves in the process – our fears, our fascinations, and our ability to grow past them. In the end, the existence of meat-eating, honey-making bees might help us grapple with our own concept of the natural order, making us just a little more comfortable with the wild world’s twisted, beautiful reality. And if we can learn to accept a bee that makes honey from the dead, maybe we can handle anything nature throws at us.