On February 22, 2019, news broke out that the world’s largest bee had been rediscovered on a little-explored Indonesian island after decades lost to science. The single female, as long as an adult’s thumb, was photographed and filmed and soon the images were making the rounds of the world’s media. Wallace’s giant bee became an instant star.

Both local and international media regularly feature news reports and features about insects such as the decline of insect numbers, invasions by alien insects, the mysterious disappearance of honey bees and eating insects as a solution to dwindling food resources, climate change and other environmental problems.

The 1972 three mill coin depicted a honey bee, giving bees a tangible cultural value.

Insects are also good conversation topics and most people readily share their knowledge and experiences about insects. Some talk about their love or fear of insects, while many express their concern about the disappearance of aesthetically pleasing or useful insects, especially butterflies and bees.

Elderly people tend to talk about the insects they used to see when they were young and which they do not see anymore. They look back with nostalgia at a time when there was still a lot of them in the countryside and most towns and villages were still surrounded by fields and open spaces.

Most children used to think that it was fun to play in nature and with nature. Many boys, unfortunately, liked to hit butterflies with a piece of cardboard or wood and place them in a can or box to then compete with their peers and see who managed to capture most butterflies. Meanwhile, ladybirds were placed in matchboxes and crickets were caught in the evening and kept at home for their singing.

In parts of Malta, boys used to catch hornets, pass a large needle through their eyes and attach them to a wine bottle cork cap to see them going around like a mule turning a mill stone. All the captured insects died within a short time but there were always more to play with.

Today, children rarely play with insects. They visit the countryside only occasionally and, when they do, it is usually on organised trips or with their parents. They hardly ever see any of the insects that their grandparents were familiar with and when they do see them, they probably do not even recognise them. Curious children who show an interest in insects are often told that insects and other small animals are dirty, dangerous or endangered and are warned not to touch them. 

Traditional Maltese hives (qolol). These started to be replaced by modern hives in the 1950s, changing the way beekeepers interact with their bees.

Insects play an important role in human life

Fun has been replaced by fear; the media has been at the forefront of this fearmongering. Since the 1950s, hundreds of horror films have been produced in which insects terrorise humanity and endanger the existence of civilisation which can be saved only by science and technology.

The fearmongering is being abetted by mainstream media, which comes up with horror stories of insect-borne diseases and alien insects and pests that threaten our health, food and well-being.

For the past 10 years or so, some Maltese news portals, sometimes encouraged by naturalists/pest-controllers, have come up with the most frightening stories about dangerous alien insects that are invading the Maltese islands. These include the red palm weevil, the Asian tiger mosquito and the Oriental hornet. These sensational news features and articles are changing insects into veritable enemies. The Health Department has even advised those living in the Maltese islands that to avoid contact with the Asian tiger they should stay inside with all doors and windows closed.

Insects play an important role in human life; much larger than one would expect from creatures of such diminutive proportions. They play different roles in different societies and at different times they can elicit love, fear or disgust.

In the past, crickets were often caught and placed in small cages or in less sophisticated containers by children who kept them for their singing.

The lack of research about the relationships between humans and non-human animals is not restricted to the Maltese islands. It is relatively recently that attention started to be given to interactions between humans and non-human animals. One area of research, ethnozoology, attempts to illuminate in an ecologically revealing fashion human interactions with and relations to their environment. The discipline uses the methods used in both social and biological sciences.

Maltese butterfly and moths stamps

Human-insect studies belong to the field of ethno-entomology which in itself is a branch of ethnozoology. This field of study is concerned with humankind’s use of insects in medicine, as food, poison and aphrodisiac, in divination, recreation, myths or sayings as well as about constructions, classifications and experiences of nature.

It is also about the knowledge of insects, specifically focussing on their perceived relationship as causes or vectors of diseases (human, non-human animal, plant pests), on the biology and emic toxicity of insects and on collection techniques all of which give rise to, or are the result of, emotions and feelings which have inspired and provoked particular behaviour in humans.

In many societies these emotions and feeling are the result of encounters of non-insect arthropods including spiders, snails, ticks, worms and scorpions, which are often classified as insects and, as a result, many ethno-entomologists include these species in their studies.

In the 1980s, Charles Hogue introduced the term ‘cultural entomology’, and brought about the study of the influence of insects and other terrestrial arthropods in literature, language, music, the arts, interpretive history, religion and recreation. He separated cultural entomology from ethno-entomology, which according to him is solely concerned with insect-human interactions in so-called primitive societies.

Cultural anthropologists usually restrict their studies to ‘advanced’ industrialised and literate societies, maintaining that human-insect relations of so-called ‘primitive’ or ‘non-civilised’ societies are the domain of ethno-entomology. This is an artificial division, as it implies an ethnocentric we/they bias built upon assumptions of fundamental differences between ‘primitive’ and ‘civilised’ classification and thought. In the Maltese islands, human-insect relations do not conform to any one division.

Human/insect relations in Malta were researched for a doctoral thesis by the author. The research disclosed in this publication was funded through the Malta Government Scholarship Scheme which made it possible for the research to be carried and to place it within a local and global context through extensive research and data collecting.

A beekeeper