In Which Bee Work Becomes Folk Lore

Have you seen this photo of a "heart" honeycomb shared somewhere on social media?

It's usually described as what happened when a beekeeper left the frame off and the bees went freestyle. Aw, cool, right? They made a heart.

Well, a folklorist named Steve Byrne saw it posted somewhere recently and remembered he'd seen it at an earlier point with a different attribution and smelled an urban legend in the making, so he decided to trace it back to its origin.

It's a story with some twists and turns, in keeping with the bees' waxwork, leaving Byrne with the following admonition:

And that, folks, is what we call Internet Folklore, where stories spread and change quicker than ever, and involve communities of people experiencing a simple yet heartwarming tale.

The thing to take away? On the internet, search behind what you see. Don't take things at face value. Don't let your "aww" gene get in the way of thinking, hmm, is this for real? Because there are people out there who seek to use such kindly human instincts in unkind ways.