This is what people used to think bees were lmao.

  • triangle [none/use name]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    "Animals and plants come into being in earth and in liquid because there is water in earth, and air in water, and in all air is vital heat so that in a sense all things are full of soul. Therefore living things form quickly whenever this air and vital heat are enclosed in anything. When they are so enclosed, the corporeal liquids being heated, there arises as it were a frothy bubble." Aristotle.

    Aristotle said some animals just get spontaneously generated so nobody else questioned it until the Rennaisance and Redi proved flies don't just form spontaneously from rotten meat. I can get some people thinking stuff just spontaneously generated, like, trees growing don't actually absorb much soil from seedling to tree (most of the tree is made from CO2) so I guess they figured it just made sense.

    • happybadger [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      You'd think for such an important idea, not just conceptually but practically since the beekeepers would need to reproduce colonies, someone would test that centuries before the renaissance. They had sealed boxes and they could otherwise scoop maggots into a fresh hive to make their apiary more productive. Real emperor has no clothes energy.

      • triangle [none/use name]
        ·
        3 years ago

        The people doing the writing and the people doing the beekeeping probably didn't talk much, lol. You ever read some of the medieval travel guides? Apparently these guys lived in Ethiopia and Asia.

        Although, there were monks and monastaries that made mead from fermented honey so maybe there are some written accounts that have a more empirical first-hand knowledge basis.

        • happybadger [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Hereford_Mappa_Mundi_Detail_Africa-eyes-on-shoulders.jpg

          feels good man