Read the following post on CulturesGroup Substack:

Twelve years ago, bees lived in hives and made honey. That was the whole story—until I lay on the ground and watched wild honeybees vanish into a rock crevice. That encounter changed my life. Since then, I’ve tracked bees across parts of South Africa, from fynbos to the arid Karoo. I’ve documented solitary bee nests and wild honeybee colonies in abandoned aardvark burrows. I’ve seen resilience: aestivation through desert heat, migration in drought, the creation of microbial-rich, resin-lined ecosystems underground. I’ve also witnessed the cost of boxing bees—the flattening of their wild diversity into uniformity. Wild colonies, once rich in local adaptations, are reduced to pollination tools, to domesticated and managed assets under a homogenised system of beekeeping. This post is about unlearning. About watching bees on their terms, and seeing what they build when we don’t interfere. From brood cells sealed in petals, to grape juice fermented into shelf-stable fruit syrups, bees teach us preservation, protection, and patience. Let’s leave the honey to the bees, and learn to create sweetness in other ways.

#WildBees #SolitaryBees #Honeybees #Ecology #Fermentation #NaturalPreservation #BeeInspired #FruitHoney #Karoo #Cheong #AltSugars #FermentSouthAfrica #MicrobialEcology #PlantFermentation #Preservation #CulturesGroup #ChefKenFornataro #Domingueando #Unboxed #AltPollinators #BiodiversityFliesFree #EcologicalResilience

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Thomas D. Seeley via Literary Hub