Bunny Trails
Episode 81: Queen Bee
Record Date: June 14, 2020
Air Date: June 17, 2020
Intro
Welcome to Bunny Trails, a whimsical adventure
of idioms and other turns of phrase.
I’m Shauna Harrison
And I’m Dan Pugh
Each week, we take an idiom, or other turn of
phrase, and try to tell the story from it’s entry into the English language, to
how it’s used today.
There is a lot of entomology in our etymology
this week as we look into the phrase “Queen Bee”.
But first, I have to say I cannot get that
Lordes song from 2013 out of my head. You know the one… super catchy and no
matter how much you want to hate it you just keep listening cause secretly you
love the beat. It’s called Royals, and the chorus goes:
And we'll never be royals
It don't run in our blood
That kind of lux just ain't
for us
We crave a different kind
of buzz
Let me be your ruler, you
can call me Queen B
And baby I'll rule (I'll
rule I'll rule I'll rule)
Let me live that fantasy
And since it is still stuck
in my head, I wanted each of you to have it, too. My treat. You’re welcome.
Meaning
In early use
frequently in extended metaphors.
But
before we jump into the figurative use of Queen Bee, let’s talk about the
literal use.
From Wikipedia…
The term queen
bee is typically used to refer to an adult, mated female (gyne) that lives in
a honey
bee colony or hive; she is
usually the mother of most, if not all, of the bees in the beehive.[1] Queens are developed from larvae selected by worker
bees and specially fed in order to become sexually mature. There is
normally only one adult, mated queen in a hive, in which case the bees will
usually follow and fiercely protect her.
The term "queen bee" can be more
generally applied to any dominant reproductive female in a colony of a eusocial bee species
other than honey bees. However, as in the Brazilian stingless bee Schwarziana
quadripunctata, a single nest may have multiple queens or
even dwarf queens, ready to replace a dominant queen in a case of sudden death.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_bee
But
something I find simultaneously interesting and disappointing, but not really
surprising once I think about it, is that we used to call it the King Bee.
Despite the fact that we knew it was a female for at least 500 years before we
switched to the term Queen Bee.
For
more on that, we’ll look at a Twitter thread by the entomologists who run the
Ask An Entomologist Twitter page under the handle @BugQuestions. This is from a
January 20, 2018 post.
https://twitter.com/BugQuestions/status/954743598460874752
Quote
What we now call 'queen' bees-the main female
reproductive honeybees-were erroneously called 'kings' for nearly 2,000 years.
Why? Let's explore the history of bees!
In the
remaining 30 some odd tweets, they take the reader on a fascinating journey!
They talk about
how humans have been beekeeping for at least 5,000+ years. And the naming of
much of the roles for bees was a product of the biases of the day.
Quote
“For instance, in a lot of societies it was very common
to call the 'workers' slaves because slavery was common at the time.”
Aristotle wrote
“The History of Animals” in 350 BCE and it was the accepted truth for much of
animal biology until the 1600s. From the Twitter thread...
Quote
“Aristotle didn't know what we
know about bees now...but it was widely accepted that the biggest bees in the
colony lead the hive somehow and were essential for reproduction and swarming.
...but we now know the queens are female. Why didn't Aristotle?”
Well, it’s because Aristotole was a massive male chauvinist. In his
work:
Politics (1254b13–14), Aristotle states "as regards the
sexes, the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler
and the female subject".
Back to the thread:
Quote
So, when he saw a society led almost entirely of
women...it actually makes a lot of sense as to why he saw the 'queen' bees as
male and called them kings. These ideas of women in his circle were so
ingrained that a female ruler literally wouldn't compute.
So the idea stuck because no one wanted to question Aristotle for a
long time.
Quote
“Beekeepers *knew* the queens
were female; they were observed laying eggs...but their exact role was
controversial outside of them. In fact, in most circles, it was commonly accepted that
the workers gathered the larvae which grew on plants. Again, this is from
Aristotle's work.”
So
how did we get from Aristotle to the facts? Well, back to the thread:
Quote
“The exact work which
popularized the (scientifically accurate) idea of the honeybee as a female-led
society was The Feminine Monarchy, by Charles Butler.”
Ask an Entymologist makes the case that Queen Elizabeth, who ruled
England during most of Charles Butler’s life probably influenced his work to
some extent. Queen Elizabeth ruled from 1558 until 1603, while Butler was born
in 1560 and published his work in 1609. And while there had been women rulers
in the past, most of those didn’t happen during a time where scientific
assumptions were being challenged.
The thread goes on to talk about proving the male worker bees mated
with the Queen Bee, which is truly an amazing read. We’ll retweet the thread on
our Twitter feed, @bunnytrailspod so you can read it for yourself.
But for us, the important part is the knowledge that the early
1600s is when we started to popularize the idea of a Queen Bee, instead of a
King Bee.
But
when did we see Queen Bee as a figurative phrase? Well that was in the
mid-1700s according to the OED.
1947
- The Practical Bee-master
Or, A Treatise, Wherein
the Management of Bees, Both in Common Hives, and in the Colony Way, Without
Killing Them for Their Honey, Is, Step by Step and on All Probable Occurances,
Better and More Particularly Directed, Than in Any Book Hitherto Published
By Robert Maxwell · 1747
The Doctor found a conveniency in
maintaining that this Soverign was a Female: He dedicated his Book to the
Queen, and told Her, The Queen Bee governs with Clemency and Sweetness, so doth
your Majesty, she is obeyed and defended, out of Choice and Inclination by her
Subjects, so is your Majesty, for all the thousands of your Brittannick Isreal
Esteem your Majesty’s Person as Sacred, and scarce such a Villain is among us,
who would not lose his Life in Defense of your Majesty: You see he has made a
proper Use of his Queen-Bee, and taken her Assistance to make out these fine
Compliments.
1780 Sophia
Lee · The chapter of accidents: a
comedy 6 He could not endure to see her flying about,
like the queen-bee with the whole hive at her heels.
1790 Tate
Wilkinson · Memoirs of his own life I. 105
When I went into the green-room, an universal laugh of contempt
ensued—Woffington, the queen bee of the hive, was there—I had disturbed and
offended her Majesty; and therefore all her faithful servants, bee-like, joined
to sting me.
1807 Robert
Southey · Letters from England, by Don
Manuel Alvarez Espriella.
II. xxx. 41 Wherever one of the queen bees
of fashion alights, a whole swarm follows her.
The Shasta courier. [volume], May 14, 1853
About The Shasta courier.
[volume] (Shasta, Calif.) 1852-1872
1874 Louise
Chandler Moulton · Some women's hearts
ii. 18 You must do something as well as
the rest, if you want your dinner. Kate is Queen bee, and she won't allow any
drones in the hive.
1913 Constitution
(Atlanta, Georgia) 15 June 4
f Skirving had the idea that Beryl was
the queen bee of all elocutionists.
1943 C. H. Ward-Jackson It's a Piece of Cake 50 The Queen Bee, the Director of the
Women's Auxiliary Air Force; or the senior W.A.A.F. officer on a station.
1956 N. Streatfeild Judith i. 44 Beatrice
became a queen bee in London's civil defence force.
Despite seeing it in print occasionally from
the mid 1700s to the late 1800s, it wasn’t until the early 1900s that I really
started seeing it in use in common vernacular as evidenced in the newspapers of
the time.
For example,
I saw several advertisements in American
newspapers in the early 1900s for Queen Bee Stove Company
From the American Machinist, Volume 34 - 1911
The Queen Bee Stove
Company, Joplln, Mo., has been
Incorporated with $50,000 capital to manufacture stoves
One more for the
definitions side…
From your favorite online,
made-up dictionary… Urban Dictionary.
Queen Bee
A girl who, usually in a
high school setting, is the "leader of the pack." she doesn't always have to be the prettiest, but
she is extremely confident, and because she thinks she's hot, others do too.
she knows all of the "important" gossip, and people emulate her style. if the queen bee wears something new and different, others will wear it
the next day. she always has the hottest boyfriend, and is at all the parties.
everyone always talks behind her back about how much they hate her, even though
everyone secretly wishes they were her friend.
the queen bee and her
friends all went to the halloween dance as nurses, and they came an hour
late to make an entrance.
.
A Quick Thank
You
This week’s episode is sponsored by our
Patrons. We want to give a special thanks to Pat Rowe, Victoria Monte, Charlie
Moore, and Mary Lopez for their long-time support of the show. Your support
makes Bunny Trails happen week after week. If the rest of you want to join them
in supporting the show you can find out more at patreon.com/bunnytrailspod.
Pop Culture and
Modern Examples
We’ve already mentioned the 2013 Lorde song
Royals.
But I also want to mention the 2012 song Queen
Bee by Rochell Diamante. It’s a fast paced, swinging pop song.
But you gotta be sweet if
you want my honey
Gotta beware if you want my
heart
Only a king deserves my
lovin
Uh oh oh, You know
Better believe that I'm
independent
Better behave when you say
my name
Cus I'm a queen when the
camera's flashin
Uh oh oh, you know oh
I'm a queen bee
Uh oh oh oh
Queen bee
Uh oh oh oh
Queen bee
Uh oh oh oh
You can call me honey but I
just might sting
There are a metric tonne of books with Queen
Bee in the title. Here are a couple that stood out.
2015:
Queen Bee: Roxanne Quimby, Burt's Bees, and Her Quest for a New National Park
2020 The Queen Bee and Me
From the highly acclaimed author of Caterpillar Summer
comes a heartfelt story about the sweetness and stings of middle-school
friendship.
Meg has always found comfort in her best friend Beatrix's
shadow. Self-assured Beatrix is the one who makes decisions, and the girls have
been a pair since kindergarten. But middle school has brought some changes in
Beatrix, especially when Meg tries to step outside her role as sidekick.
A special science elective is Meg's first step away, but
when she's paired with quirky new girl Hazel, Beatrix steps in to stake her
claim on Meg. Meg is taken aback at how mean Beatrix can be--and how difficult
it is to stand up to her friend. But as Meg gets to know Hazel while working on
their backyard beehive project, she starts to wonder: Is being Beatrix's friend
worth turning down the possibility of finding her own voice?
Terraria is a video game developed by Re-Logic. It was first released as a game
for Microsoft Windows in 2011 but has since expanded to several other
platforms. It is a 2D action-adventure, open-world sandbox / platformer game in which
the player controls a single character in a generated world.
In the game, Queen Bee is
described as, "The matriarch of the
jungle hives...".
Queen Bee is a pre-Hardmode boss. She is summoned by
breaking the Larva inside Bee Hives of the Underground Jungle, or by
using an Abeemination anywhere within
the Jungle. She is immune to the Confused debuff, and can inflict the Poisoned debuff.
Its Bestiary entry states: "This highly aggressive
monstrosity responds violently when her larva is disturbed; the honey-laden
hives are her home turf."
Wrap up...
I find the journey of the literal Queen Bee
term to be far more interesting than the figurative phrase. And I highly
recommend you check out the Twitter thread we mentioned early. I’ve retweeted
so you can check it out. There were at least another 20 posts that walk through
how scientist had to overcome bias to prove the Queen Bee mated with worker
bees to ensure reproduction of the entire hive. And the kinds of things this
term had to overcome just to allow our male-dominated science field recognize
that honey bees have a female led society are a fitting allegory for many of
the same kinds of bias and stereotyping we continue to fight in 2020. It’s
amazing how much both entomology and etymology can teach us about life.
Outro
Dan:
That’s about all the time we have for today.
If you enjoy the show, tell a friend about it. Podcasts can provide a welcome
and necessary respite to the stress of life and we’d love to help more people
unwind for half an hour.
Shauna:
Thanks for joining us. We’ll talk to you again
next week. And until then remember...
Words belong to their users.
No comments:
Post a Comment