At 2 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, a white truck rolled up to Iskashitaa’s headquarters carrying twenty-one gallons of the finest, purest mesquite flower honey in Tucson.
Mona Chambers and Emily Watkins DeJong are honeybee researchers and Mona’s company, “See the Bees,” is an educational outreach program which facilitated this honey donation. Both women are crazy about bees: they keep a bee smoker (a device to calm excited bees) in their truck at all times and Mona’s arms are covered with intricate tattoos of her favorite buzzing bug. As we unloaded boxes filled with the pale yellow honey in glass mason jars, Mona enthusiastically informed me: “It’s raw—which means it’s never been heated—organic, local, no sugar added, and made from bees pollinating mesquite flowers. All this means that it’s less liquid than honey you see at the store because it retains a crystalline structure. I want everyone to know that solid honey is normal!” She laughed.
Mona Chambers and Emily Watkins DeJong showing off the work of the bees as well as their work in educating through outreach.
After the truck had been unloaded and the boxes of honey stacked, I looked at Valerie, Iskashitaa’s program manager, and asked, “What in the world is Iskashitaa going to do with all this honey?”
To understand Valerie’s answer to this question, it helps to take a whirl back through the history of honey.
Before there were humans, there was honey. In fact, a researcher named Alyssa Crittenen hypothesizes that honey was a major contributor to the development of the large, energy-hungry brains of early humans. In addition to being easy to eat, wild honey “contains traces of bee larvae, adding fat, protein, vitamins and minerals,” reports Smithsonian Magazine. This makes it an especially nutritious source, not only of glucose for energy, but also of key nutrients for survival.
Historically, honey is well-documented. An ancient Egyptian poem from 3,000 years ago describes the adventure of an Egyptian royal who flees to Canaan, described as “great in its honey.” The Bible, Buddhist texts, and the Vedas, the founding scripture of Hinduism, are just a few examples of ancient documents that mention honey.
Furthermore, honey pops up in cultures across the globe. In Tanzania, the Hadza are one of the few remaining hunting and gathering societies. In a study from the Journal of Human Evolution, researchers found that “honey accounts for a substantial proportion of the...Hadza diet.” The piece explains how the Hadza acquire “seven different types of honey” through a variety of ways, including climbing baobab trees and relying on honey-hunting birds to lead them to beehives.
In Uganda, honey is widely available, according to Richard Otim, an Iskashitaa regular and Ugandan native. In an email, he explained that “honey has replaced sugar in many homes, [since] most people can’t afford sugar.” He described how people use the common “brown honey:” in tea, as “jam in the bread,” or “to prevent [children] from getting cough that’s (sic) what our old people tell us.”
Honey is all over the world, but it is important to recognize that its quality and accessibility vary greatly. As Mona Chambers put it: “There are bees all over the world and people across the globe use honey in different ways. But it has been, and still is, a luxury item. Whether you have honey or not, and whether you can afford it...is a different matter.”
In the US, for example, a shocking seventy-five percent of the honey sold in grocery stores cannot be classified as honey, according to Food Safety News. Extensive testing revealed that an overwhelming majority of products labeled “honey” had been heated and forced through tiny filters, a process that removes pollen and makes it impossible to determine the source of the honey, or even if it’s honey at all. This “pasteurized honey” is sold at a much lower cost and lacks the anti-inflammatory, antioxidant-rich properties of raw, unfiltered honey.
The Chambers’ honey is, therefore, a rare treat: pure honey, with a known origin—the fragrant yellow mesquite flowers that bloom across the desert in the spring.
So what will Iskashitaa be doing with the twenty-one gallons of honey?
Deliberately reaching out to refugee families in Iskashitaa’s network of harvesters, Valerie gave out the first of many jars several days after receiving the donation. When she gave it to Richard, from Uganda, she captured his reaction on film, since he’d never before eaten white, raw honey. They’re both laughing with joy as he opens the jar. Carefully, he dips a spoon in and places it in his mouth. For an instant, he pauses, eyes closed, savoring the taste of the sweet melting sugar.
Then, his mouth breaks into an enormous smile, and he exclaims, with a twinkle in his eye: “Mmmm...tastes like bees!”
Sources:
Hathaway, Bill. “Hadza Foragers Say Hungry Honeyguides Lead Them to More Honey.” YaleNews, 11 Sept. 2014, news.yale.edu/2014/09/11/hadza-foragers-say-hungry-honeyguides-lead-them-more-honey
“How Did Honey Evolve in Our Diet?” How Did Honey Evolve in Our Diet? - DailyHistory.org, dailyhistory.org/How_Did_Honey_Evolve_in_our_Diet%3F
Marlowe, Frank W., et al. “Honey, Hadza, Hunter-Gatherers, and Human Evolution.” Journal of Human Evolution, Academic Press, 17 Apr. 2014, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248414000815
Schneider, Andrew. “Tests Show Most Store Honey Isn't Honey.” Food Safety News, 7 Nov. 2011, www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/11/tests-show-most-store-honey-isnt-honey/
“The Tale of Sinuhe.” Metmuseum.org, www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/591471.
Wayman, Erin. “Humans, the Honey Hunters.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 19 Dec. 2011, www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/humans-the-honey-hunters-9760262/
This publication made possible by the Arizona Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities.