What would be the… Repercussions… of making mead with my combee’s honey? And related question, can pokemon have mead.

To the first, nothing really. Combee honey is almost identical to actual honeybee honey; the only difference is that pokémon prefer the former due to its stronger scent. (Some people likewise prefer it, although honeybee honey is a little sweeter.) Thus, it’s perfectly safe to use combee honey for mead, provided the combee willingly gives it to you.

For your second question, no. Alcohol is actually poisonous to most species of pokémon. For the ones that can drink it without literally dying, it would still be unwise to give them alcohol. After all, would you really want something that’s capable of wielding the very elements of nature itself to do so drunk?

I recently caught a combee and her ability is honey gather, its creating an awful lot of honey though, I have more jars than I know what to do with, I don’t know if this is in your area of expertise but got any recipes I can use to help me and my pokemon use some of it? Also, is it okay to feed her honey back to her?

In reverse order, it is absolutely all right to feed a combee its own honey! The truth of the matter is honey is combee food, simply in a form that can be stored for long periods of time. (Some combee even store honey within their bodies during the winter.)

As for recipes … I fully admit that cooking is not at all my area of expertise. I’m actually (and unfortunately) quite useless in the kitchen. I can say, however, two things:

1. Tea with a couple teaspoons of honey alongside honey on toast is an absolutely divine breakfast.

2. Cooking is more Lanette’s expertise, so for the rest of this post, I’ll defer to her.

LH:
Honey is a really versatile ingredient, actually, and can be a decent substitute for granulated sugar in practically every dessert recipe. You just have to remember the four basic rules if you choose to do this:

1. For every cup of sugar your recipe calls for, only use a half cup of honey. (Maybe a little bit more, if you prefer something sweeter, with a more pronounced honey taste.)

2. On the subject of taste, add a quarter to a half teaspoon of baking soda. This will help cut the natural acidity of the honey and bring out the sweetness.

3. Remember that honey is, well, a liquid. So you need to reduce all of your other liquids (or add more flour) to balance it out and get the right consistency. This typically means for every cup of sugar the recipe calls for, reduce liquids by a quarter cup or, if it’s a recipe that doesn’t call for many liquid ingredients, add two tablespoons of flour.

4. Reduce your oven’s heat. Honey browns anything it’s put in, so cooking at a lower temperature will help keep the end product from browning too much.

Of course, these are all just hard rules for making baked desserts or breads. If you’re not baking a pastry or bread, then honey can be even more versatile. You can, for example, mix honey with a few spices and coat chicken with it for an excellent baked chicken. Likewise, a few tablespoons of honey on fresh fruit with cream can either be a great breakfast or a great recipe for a smoothie. Be creative and don’t be afraid to experiment.

If you’re interested, though, here’s one of my favorite recipes:

Leppa Berry Flaugnarde

Ingredients
* 3 large eggs
* ½ cup milk
* ¼ cup honey
* 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
* dash vanilla extract
* dash salt
* ½ cup flour
* 2 cups leppa berries (de-stemmed, washed, and dried)
* Cinnamon (optional)

Note: If you don’t have access to leppa berries, two or three large apples—peeled, cored, and cut into chunks—will also do. I would recommend something sweet but tart, such as honeycrisp.

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (about 162 degrees C). Grease a pie tin or a cast-iron skillet and set aside. (You can use either of these things, but I like how traditional a cast-iron skillet is.)

2. Whisk the eggs until they’re just foamy. Add in milk, honey, butter, vanilla, and salt, and mix until they’re incorporated. Gradually add flour until you’ve created a smooth batter.

3. Pour half the batter into your pie tin or skillet. Spread leppa berries (or apple chunks) across the batter, then carefully add the remaining batter without shifting the fruit around. Sprinkle cinnamon on top to taste.
Helpful tip: A ladle may help you add the remaining batter without going too quickly to disrupt your fruit.

4. Bake for 40 minutes or until the center is set.

Hello, I have a vespiqueen, and I’m curious about the tiny bees she uses when using the move heal order, defend order, and attack order, are they pokemon or a part of her?

Believe it or not, those are an actual, literal species of bee (as in, the animal) called the grub bee—so named because it was often misidentified as grubs thanks to how pale they are and how they tend to wriggle about within the vespiquen hive. Yes, these are actually perfectly ordinary animals. Why they react to poké balls as if they’re a part of their host vespiquen is actually a mystery that scientists are eager to solve, if only because that would mean fascinating things for Kingdom Animalia as a whole. (Can other animals enter poké balls if they form symbiotic relationships with pokémon? Can humans? I, for one, would love to know the answer to the latter especially. After all, who wouldn’t want to know what it’s like inside a poké ball?)

To put it in short, vespiquen forms a symbiotic relationship with grub bees. In exchange for serving as a living hive (and also protection from birds of both the pokémon and animal variety, as well as a food source to ensure that the grub bee never leaves), the grub bees defend vespiquen on command or use their royal jelly to heal her. Usually, this relationship will begin shortly after evolution, so if you’ve noticed your vespiquen flying low to the ground, you now likely know why: because she was attempting to attract a grub bee queen. Once she finds one, this relationship lasts essentially for life, with new queens replacing the old every year. So in a sense, if you train a vespiquen, you’re not simply training one pokémon but a whole hive, which is really quite remarkable.

Hey there Bill, I’ve been working with my Vespiquen for most of the day these days since I don’t have classes. I’ve gotten used to having Combees surrounding us, but I’m still confused as to why they follow me around and treat me similarly even when she’s in her ball. Can you help illuminate that?

Not to be disturbing, anonymous, but you’re likely covered with her pheromones. As such, the combee see you as, well, part of her or a valued member of her court, and thus, they treat you with the same respect as her. A few good showers and a load of laundry should fix the problem, should you wish to do so.