To Make a Beeline Is to Take a Direct Route

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Elena. I’m calling from Mount Holly, North Carolina, near Charlotte.

Hi, Elena. Welcome to the program.

Thank you. My friend and I were riding in the car and she said the phrase, “That’s why we’re making a beeline to your house.” And we kind of stopped and we’re from the South. So we have a lot of phrases that no one really knows the origin of. And so we were wondering and we started talking about it, just wondering, you know, because if you think of a bee, sometimes you don’t necessarily think about a straight line, but that’s usually the context that that phrase is used in. So we were just interested in where the origin of that phrase came from.

So you’re right. You know, if you think about when you see bees out among the flowers, they take their time, you know, kind of wandering around and moseying from one blossom to the other, right?

Right, exactly.

It’s not like they’re flying in a straight line. The thing is, once their little honey stomachs get full of nectar that they’re collecting, they go racing back to the hive to drop it off, and then they come back for more. And that return trip to the hive is what’s called a beeline because it is pretty much straight back to the hive.

And what’s really cool is that some people still engage in the old practice of what’s called beelining or bee hunting. And that’s when you lure a bee in a box that has an old honeycomb and some sweetened substance like watered down honey or something like that. And the bees will come and they’ll drink it. And then when they’re full of this sweet substance, then you let it crawl out and watch it fly away. And you can follow its path straight back to its hive. And people find hives of feral bees that way. And it used to be a lot more common.

And in fact, Henry David Thoreau hung out with bee hunters. And in his journal of 1852, he describes what happens after a bee takes its fill of this sticky substance. He writes, “He rises up about 10 feet and then begins to circle rapidly round and round with a hum, sometimes a circle 20 feet in diameter before he’s decided which way to steer, and then suddenly shoots off in a beeline to his hive.” And, of course, what’s hilarious about that is that he’s referring to the worker bees as male, and the worker bees are not male. They’re female. But anyway, isn’t that cool?

That is super cool, yeah.

Well, you know, we should all go bee lining sometime. It’s a hobby for a lot of people. You don’t collect the bees usually because they’re, you know, feral colonies and they’re doing fine on their own. But, you know, it’s sort of like the bee version of geocaching. I just think it would be a blast.

Yeah, sounds like fun.

A good reason to get outside.

Yeah.

Right?

That’s super interesting. I never even heard of that.

Elena, thank you so much for your call. We really appreciate it.

Thank you very much. You guys have a great day.

Bye-bye.

Yeah, thank you.

Bye.

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