Eating honey and reading

Hello Rabbi Michael,

Following the reading in this week’s Torah portion on the prohibition of eating insects, etc., I was reminded of a question that a Karaite soldier in the army asked me. He quoted the verse in our Torah portion that prohibits eating any four-legged insect:
“And every creeping thing that hath four feet, of all fowls, shall be an abomination unto you” (Leviticus 11:23),
And he argued that according to this, it is ostensibly permissible to eat a bee because it has six legs and not four.
He claims this explains the well-known question of why it is permissible to eat honey.
(Here is a link from Wikipedia that a bee does indeed have six legs:
https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%93%D7%91%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%AA_%D7%94%D7%93%D7%91%D7%A9 )

I consulted the Sages and the commentators, and his question only grew stronger, because I saw that indeed the Rabbi’s opinion in my book on this verse, which can be precisely deduced from the duplication of the verses in the parasha, is that indeed “if it has five, then it is pure” (exactly five and not six?!)
It is indeed clear to me that if there is a tradition that prohibits eating it throughout all generations, and in all the exiles there has been no dispute about it (as I believe), then it is indeed prohibited. The question is only how does this fit with the plain meaning of the verse, and what should we say to Epicurus (and to ourselves) about this?