Drunk Bees Blame Blossoms
learn about wild yeasts, how much alcohol a bee can hold and how to make your own wild yeast blossom cider
This mystery starts with an observation made in England over a century ago. The observation involves a lime tree, its blossoms, and the pollinators that it attracted. As the season wore on some of the bees seemed to partake of the nectar a little too long. So long in fact that the observer believed they were drunk, staggering around the blossoms before falling to the ground, unable to compose themselves enough to take flight home.
Now, we love bees here on the farm, which is named Mellonia after the goddess of pollination. We also feel a certain kinship with the bees since we learned that the blossoms are loaded with wild yeast—they collect the pollen and we collect the blossoms and make hard cider or vinegar with it. It didn’t take long to realize this practice could unlock unimaginable flavors. We wanted to share this and this time last year we came up with our first class - Flower Power: Foraging for Wild Yeast but more about it later. One of the students in that class sent Kirsten an interesting email that shared research on the yeasts in blossoms and their effect on pollinators by producing alcohol in-blossom.
The important part here is the bees and the humans are collecting different things, bees are collecting the pollen and nectar and the humans are ultimately interested in the yeasts in the blossom that naturally turn sugar into ethanol. (For our purposes a handful of flowers will due whereas the bees visit thousands.) But as I read the research cited and then followed additional links it became clear there is something really interesting going on in those beautiful and what had seemed innocent blossoms of springtime.
Wait, blossoms have alcohol?
I know, blossoms seem so innocent don't they? You have to remember that yeasts, who live to turn sugar into alcohol, are everywhere including blossoms with their sweet nectar to attract the pollinators. The longer the blossom is open with full nectar the longer the yeasts have to turn that sugar to alcohol. We’ve even read this is part of where the scent of the flowers comes from.
Blossoms to sparkling cider
When we wildcraft those blossoms we add them to pasteurized juice or a sugar mixture, which gives those yeasts a whole lot more to process, ramping up their numbers. As soon as they multiplied by many many factors that starter culture can be added to an even larger amount of fresh juice and the party just keeps going. It is really that simple. We have a simple recipe for you at the bottom to prove how easy it is.
How much alcohol can a bee drink?
That's the first thing I wanted to know when I came across the Guardian article I mentioned in the beginning. My assumption was a working bee wouldn't be a lightweight since their job, their only job, involved you know, drinking and driving of a sort. To answer this question let's look at the work of some scientists who got them drunk on purpose.
"Most animals have to be tricked into drinking alcohol but a honeybee will happily drink the equivalent of a human downing 10 liters of wine at one sitting. We can get them to drink pure ethanol, and I know of no organisms that drink pure ethanol — not even a college student" - Charles Abramson of Ohio State University, cited in the article Boozing Bees, September 26, 2000, in NewScientist.
What I found interesting in this short NewScientist piece was that a bee could down the equivalent of more than 13 bottles of wine at a time and presumably, still find its way home. At least some of them. They also mentioned something curious.
Our previous research has indicated that bees will choose to forage on an artificial flower containing 5 percent ethanol, rather than a flower containing only sucrose solution.
Not exactly like they are just happening upon those boozy blossoms is it? The thing that kept standing out for me in the first quote was that a honeybee will happily drink that much. Happily. It is not as if they are immune to the effects of ethanol, in fact, they seem to be just as susceptible to its negative effects as we are. So why?
Can you rehabilitate a drunk bee?
According to an article in Alcoholism Clinical Experimental Research probably not. In the study, they tested if ethanol-induced conditioned taste aversion (CTA) occurs in honey bees. I didn't know what CTA was and maybe you don't know either. For me it’s Hostess Apple fruit pies.
My grandmother kept a box of them up high on her refrigerator. One sunny day she left me reading in the dining room as she went out to tend to her rose bushes. I pulled a chair up and on my tippy toes was able to pull the box down, then with my young brain, I deduced the only way out of the mess was to eat the evidence, all three pies, and then throw away the box and wrappers. Grandma found me in the middle of the kitchen floor, barely into the last pie, sick. Nearly 50 years later and I am sure the smell of one would turn my stomach. Okay, this isn't technically CTA because the taste or odor is in fact the direct cause of something bad that I want desperately to avoid.
Conditioned Taste Aversion (CTA) learning is a specialized form of associative conditioning found across taxa that leads to avoidance of an initially neutral stimulus, such as taste or odor, that is associated with but is not the cause of, a detrimental health condition.
In the research, 640 honey bees (Apis mellifera) were happily foraging at an outdoor feeder just 30 meters from their apiary when a glass vial was plopped over them and they were dunked in an ice-water bath to stun them. The drenched and in my mind shivering bees were then strapped into metal harnesses and of course, duct tape was used. All kidnapping and torture scenes must include duct tape. (And what does a metal bee harness look like?) After the bees warmed up they were given a little sugar water and left, strapped in, until the morning and the experiment.
In the morning the fun began. The bees were divided up into groups and the general experiment is to associate a matrix of three different scents—cinnamon, lavender, or no scent— with a dose of 5 different ethanol levels, ranging from no alcohol to a whopping 20% or 40 proof shot. Everyone rests for 30 minutes, allowing the effects of the alcohol to fully sink in, then another round, this time with a puff of air scented the same as before or different, and round after round they go.
So did the honey bees associate the odor with the intoxicating levels and avoid them? Nope, just the opposite. If they got a high level of alcohol plus the lavender puff next time the lavender puff was administered to the antennae they became excited and were looking for the high ethanol juice. As the study wore on their abilities deteriorated, as you would expect after a morning of forced imbibing.
One surprising finding - the bees that received the cinnamon oil in the preconditioning had reduced effects (they were less drunk their systems faired better) of the alcohol as compared to the same levels of alcohol in the other bees. The paper mentioned this effect has been found in other vertebrates. A small vial of cinnamon oil next time you head to the bar?
The paper didn't mention what happened to the 640 bees post-experiment but I can only imagine them being dunked in another ice bath, harnesses removed and dumped on a pan in the sun to warm up, shake it off, and stagger back the 30 meters to the hive where those that make it will have one hell of a story to tell.
Recipe: 7 Steps to your own blossom cider
This step-by-step comes from our book The Big Book of Cidermaking, which has a lot more about both collecting yeasts and producing tasty ciders on your own. You can buy a copy from us or anywhere you buy your books. It is also covered in the Flower Power course I mentioned earlier. This recipe will get you to a tasty cider but what if you aren't a honey bee and not looking for alcohol? One word, vinegar!
We have a vinegar course that is going to be released next month, timed with the release of Kirsten's new book, Homebrewed Vinegar: How to ferment 43 Delicious Varieties. <link: > Don’t be fooled into thinking vinegar is just boring apple cider or white. The possibilities are limitless.
If you enjoy this recipe and want to dive into the world of truly wild fermentation we wanted to bundle something just for the ferment nerds. The How to Make Vinegar at Home class is on pre-order $119 and the Flower Power is $35. So we decided that if you purchase the vinegar course we will gift the Flower Power class for free. Just pre-order the vinegar course and reach out to me (christopher@fermentationschool.com) and let me know and I'll add the flower power course to your account and you will bee set...
By the way, this drunken bee story is only part 1. In the next post, we will learn how these yeasts in the blossoms have learned to survive post-blossom, through the summer, fall and winter until the blossoms are once again available. The hint: it has to do with tiny gut microbiomes and my favorite bug of them all. Okay already, on to the seven steps. Be well ferment nerds.
Sterilize a clean pint glass jar. We do this by submerging the jar and lid in boiling water for 10 minutes.
Cool the jar. Using tongs carefully retrieve the jar and lid and place on a clean towel or clean surface, open side up.
Add juice. It is important to give the yeasts in the blossoms the best chance possible so we want all microbes gone. Use either pasteurized juice that does not have preservatives or your own fresh juice that you have just pasteurized. Fill the jar 3/4 full.
Add blossoms. It’s important here to mention you need to use blossoms that are edible. Add the fresh petals to the juice. We have found 5 to 20 grams works pretty well.
Cover the jar. With an airlock or lid cover the jar.
Cultivate. It’s time to give the yeasts time to do their thing. Let the jar sit at room temperature. Stir or shake (if you have a solid lid) 3 times a day. After 2-3 days you should see small bubbles starting to form, then increasing. Burp it daily if you are using a solid lid.
Inoculate juice to make cider. When your starter is very active (it is okay to taste it if you like) it’s time to strain the liquid and use the entire amount to start the cider. At this point your starter is ready. Use it all immediately, or if you want to keep the starter going to use in future cider recipes, use only 1 cup of the strained starter liquid to start your cider. Add 1 cup juice to the remaining starter in the jar to feed the yeast population.
Poor bees! Pretty fascinating though!