A Mellified Redemption? Learning to Live with a Pest Through Spotted Lanternfly Honey

In this article, we use lanternfly honey as a prism to explore the economic and ecological entanglements of living with invasivity among the more-than-human world. As the spotted lanternfly (SLF) spreads across the United States, public messaging tends to frame it as an ecological nemesis that demands eradication and strict control measures. Yet the lanternfly’s excretions also can result in a bountiful production of spotted lanternfly honey, which has quickly arisen as a new commercially successful varietal for local beekeepers. By conducting interviews with beekeepers from the mid-Atlantic region and posting queries in online beekeeping forums, we explored the economic and ecological issues surrounding the honey and beekeepers’ relationality with spotted lanternflies. Broadly, we argue that beekeepers are learning to live with other species amid changing perceptions of insect invasivity, and suggest an openness to experimentation and changing aesthetics as features of a movement towards greater ecological reconciliation, even in uncertain and precarious ecological contexts.