Perfect Mothers and Stunted Workers

Using honey bees (Apis mellifera) as a case study, this essay argues that animals and humans co-created gendered interpretations of sex differences and reproductive behaviour in the history of science. The typical narrative about gender in science says that humans have pushed our ideas about gender onto nonhuman nature. Rather than fight anthropocentrism, however, these explanations privilege humans as active historical agents and frame animals as passive. The science of honey bee sex differences demonstrates that gender has not only shaped bee science, but has also been shaped by it. Beekeeping manuals, scientific research, and even popular literature reveal that beekeepers and entomologists internalized honey bee gender while they attempted to describe and justify it.