17th century Dutch beekeeper and all-round genius JAN SWAMMERDAM was responsible for a great leap forward in our understanding of honeybees. Using this early microscope he produced incredible drawings such as the one on the right, showing the complex structures that make up the bee’s mouthparts.

In the name of science, he had a go at eating some honeybee larvae. His verdict: raw – “very disagreeable”, tasting of “rusty bacon”; and boiled – “they have a somewhat more agreeable taste, but if one continues chewing them, the former taste prevails again.” (If any of our members are tempted to recreate this experiment, we would love to share the experience in a future newsletter.)

Swammerdam lived through a period known as the Dutch Golden Age, rubbing shoulders with the likes of the artist Rembrandt, the mathematician and astronomer Christiaan Huygens, and the philosopher Baruch de Spinoza.

If you are interested in finding out more about Swammerdam, go to janswammerdam.org from where these pictures were sourced.