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By: Stephen Bishop
A long time ago, the Spartan king Menelaus married the most beautiful woman in all the land, Helen. She was the envy of everyone’s eye (especially those one-eyed cyclopes over in Sicily), and especially of the two-eyed, two-timing Paris, a Trojan prince who was absolutely smitten with Helen’s beauty despite the fact that he was already married to a nice little nymph named Oenone. Paris kidnapped Helen, which had deleterious effects on the neighborly relations between Troy and Sparta. The two city-states went to war. For ten years, the Spartans banged their heads against the wall, literally and figuratively, trying to figure out a way to penetrate the Trojan ramparts.
“Ten years, and we haven’t even made a dent — those walls are a tough nut to crack,” Menelaus said to his buddy Odysseus, the cleverest man in the land.
“Eureka!” said Odysseus.
“That’s it!”
“What’s it?”
“A nut!”
The nut that Odysseus referred to was the almond, also known colloquially as the Greek nut because it was so widely cultivated in the Grecian hills. Every year, migratory beekeepers from all across the Mediterranean carted in skeps of honey bees to pollinate the almond blossoms. They got paid per skep and, in good years, could make more drachma from pollination than from honey production.
“We’ll build them a giant wooden nut as a gift and sign of goodwill — and secretly fill it with…” said Odysseus.
“Warriors!” said Menelaus
“No, bees!” said Odysseus. “Bees from our meanest hives!”
“Bees?!”
“Yes! We’ll build a secret trapdoor in the giant nut that will release and drop the skeps into the city square, causing general pandemonium and widespread panic. The citizenry of Troy will open the city gates to flee, at which point a squad of our strongest and bravest beekeepers will storm the city and rescue your fair maiden, Helen.”
“On second thought, are you sure a giant wooden horse filled with warriors wouldn’t be a better idea?”
“No — a giant wooden nut filled with bees!” assured Odysseus.
Odysseus commissioned the creation of a giant wooden nut to be stuffed with skeps. The Trojans gladly accepted the gift, and soon thereafter Odysseus’s plan was carried out to perfection. The beekeepers stormed Troy, armed with smokers and skep tools. The bravest of the beekeepers, a young man named Stephen Bishop, fought his way through the Trojans and rescued Helen, who, swooning in his arms, promptly fell in love with the dashing young beekeeper. He pleaded with her to resist folly, to return to her forlorn king, but being the most beautiful woman in the world, she was persuasive.
“Take me away — and we’ll live in the Grecian hills with your bees! I never liked Menelaus much anyway,” said Helen.
“Good enough for me,” said Stephen.
“Then kiss me!” she implored.
“Sure thing,” he said. Lifting his beekeeping veil with his left hand, Stephen held the swooning Helen with his right arm, stooped over, and planted a passionate kiss on her lips.
And so the rest is history. The scoundrel Paris fled, and King Menelaus found he really had a lot in common with Paris’s ex, Oenone, and renounced his pursuit of Helen. Odysseus became known as the mastermind behind one of the greatest subterfuges in military history: The Trojan Nut. And the dashing young beekeeper married the most beautiful woman in the land. They lived happily ever after in the Grecian hills.
Moral: It doesn’t hurt to write your own history.
For more historically inaccurate beekeeping hijinks, follow Stephen’s newsletter at misfitfarmer.substack.com
