ˈbee-ˌbread
Forms: 1 béa-, béo-, b{iacu}-bread, 2 bei-; 7– bee-bread.
[f. bee + bread: cf. MHG. bîe brôt, G. bienen brot. The modern word is probably a new combination, not historically related to the OE., which had also a different sense.]
† 1. orig. In OE. as in the other Teutonic languages: Honey-comb with the honey in it. Obs.
| c 825 Vesp. Psalter cxviii. 103 Hu swoete..ofer huniᵹ & biabread. a 1000 Boeth. Metr. xii. 17 Þynceþ..huniᵹes b{iacu}-bread healfe þ{yacu} swetre. c 1000 Ags. Gosp. Luke xxiv. 42 Dǽl ᵹebrǽddes fisces and béobréad [Hatton bei-brad]. |
2. Pollen, or a compound of honey and pollen, consumed by the nurse-bees.
| 1657 S. Purchas Pol. Flying Ins. i. xv. 95 [Bees] gather as often Bee-bread as honey. 1750 Phil. Trans. XLVI. 538 A Bee loading the Farina, Bee-Bread, or crude Wax, upon its Legs. 1815 R. Huish Treat. Bees xi. (1817) 147 The crude wax, which is called..in English Bee-bread. 1816 Kirby & Sp. Entomol. xi. (1828) I. 376 Little or no honey is collected until an ample store of bee-bread has been laid up for food. 1868 Wood Homes without H. xxiii. 436 Bee⁓bread..is a compound of honey and the pollen of flowers. |
| fig. 1870 Lowell Among my Bks. Ser. i. (1873) 66 He had..been feeding on the bee-bread of Shakespeare. |
3. Applied locally to certain plants yielding nectar: viz. the White Clover, and Borage. (Britten and Holland.)