Memories of Stings and Sweetness: Honey as an Archive

Honey archives a specific landscape in time through a complex process. To produce honey, bees travel two to three kilometers from their hives, collecting nectar, pollen, and honeydew along the way. This gathering bears the traces of different flowers and plants, archiving the composition of a landscape at a specific moment in time – sometimes gone before it even reaches our palate. Tasting honey is thus akin to eating a sweet part of history. But honey is not always as sweet as one imagines, and certain memories associated with bees may be unsettling.