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How Bees Work · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the two thousand twelve Toyota Camry.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
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  Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
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  Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and you put us together,
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  Speaker 1: give us a little nextar let us um collect pollen
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  Speaker 1: with the hair on our bodies. And you have stuff
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  Speaker 1: you should not be a lot of pollen, you know. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: honeymaking fools. Yeah, you would be best at is Ronny Williams.
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  Speaker 1: Oh man, that guy's scary. Yes, you would be a
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  Speaker 1: honeymaking fool. How you doing well, sir? How are you?
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  Speaker 1: I'm pretty good. It's a little early, uh it is,
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  Speaker 1: it is, but you're feeling good. Yeah, man, I love
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  Speaker 1: recording in the mornings. Yeah, been up since six am
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  Speaker 1: reading about bees. Yeah. Well this is ah I can amazine.
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  Speaker 1: You could. You could have gotten up at four or
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  Speaker 1: five because it's like the most extensive article in the
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  Speaker 1: universe is how bees work. It's Tracy Wilson joint and
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  Speaker 1: so it's thorough and exhaustive and exhausting. But it's a
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  Speaker 1: good one. Dude. I love bees. Yeah, I hate bees.
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  Speaker 1: Do you really why? Because they sting, they hurt, they
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  Speaker 1: make me get up at six am. You only they're
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  Speaker 1: fascinating creatures. Uh yeah, de Meal like them. Okay, well
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  Speaker 1: you got to talk about him anyway. How about Um.
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  Speaker 1: I don't really have much of a an intro, which
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  Speaker 1: is probably for the best because this is a really
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  Speaker 1: long episode. There's a lot of facts, Yeah, there are
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  Speaker 1: in parts and things. Let's talk bees, man, how long
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  Speaker 1: have they been around? Bees have been around for a
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  Speaker 1: gazillion years. Uh, they've been around for a long time.
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  Speaker 1: Ancient Egyptians um in fact, that there were sort of
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  Speaker 1: magical creatures that the sun got rock cried down upon
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  Speaker 1: the earth. Yeah, which is fanciful, and that's where bees
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  Speaker 1: came from. But that's not where they came from. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: The San people think that we came from bees of
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  Speaker 1: the Kalahari. The San people. Yeah, yeah, they have this
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  Speaker 1: creation myth that a bee was carrying a mannis across
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  Speaker 1: the desert, got tired, died. Before it died, it laid
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  Speaker 1: some eggs in the mantis, and then that became the
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  Speaker 1: first human and that's where we came from. Not buy
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  Speaker 1: that really? Sure? Why not? Uh? A lot of people
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  Speaker 1: used to think that um, including beekeepers that they reproduced
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  Speaker 1: spontaneously they didn't like have intercourse to do so. And
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  Speaker 1: this was true until the mid six hundreds when a
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  Speaker 1: very cool dude named jam swimmer Dam examined bees under
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  Speaker 1: a microscope and saw a little reproductive parts. Yeah, we
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  Speaker 1: got all wrong, he went, and I'm Jams swimmer Dam.
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  Speaker 1: That's a pretty great name. It's a great name. That's
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  Speaker 1: a good at that. Uh. Is that what he was?
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  Speaker 1: It's gotta be, you think swimmer Dam Jam swimmers am
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  Speaker 1: probably so. Uh. And there are like twenty species of bees,
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  Speaker 1: but we're going to concentrate mainly on honey bees mostly
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  Speaker 1: a little bit of what are the other ones? Not
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  Speaker 1: the bumble bees, but well we'll talk a little bit
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  Speaker 1: about bumble bees too. Yeah, pretty much those two. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: but mostly honey bees. They're the most studied. I think
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  Speaker 1: they're the most fascinating. But social and nons and I
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  Speaker 1: don't want to say anti social solitary solitary bees and
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  Speaker 1: anti socials may be a way to describe it. But
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  Speaker 1: those are two two categories that we're going to dive into. YEA, So,
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  Speaker 1: surprisingly bees go back even further than the ancient Egyptians,
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  Speaker 1: The oldest bee fossil that they found is about a
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  Speaker 1: hundred million years old, and they think that at some
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  Speaker 1: point around then during the Cretaceous period, bees diverged from wasps,
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  Speaker 1: not necessarily from washp. It doesn't mean that um bees
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  Speaker 1: evolved from wasp but then possibly they shared it a
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  Speaker 1: common wasp like ancestor I but that was creepy man,
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  Speaker 1: And I'll bet it was like eight ft long too. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And this is about the same time too, not coincidentally,
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  Speaker 1: when flowering plants started doing their thing. Before this, if
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  Speaker 1: you wanted to, you know, do the the tree thing,
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  Speaker 1: you had to plant thing, you had to do like
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  Speaker 1: what conifers do, dropping your cones and counting on the
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  Speaker 1: wind and nature to do your work, which may or
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  Speaker 1: may not work. But thankfully bees came along and they said, hey,
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  Speaker 1: you know what, we can help take your pollen, Mr flower. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So so bees and flowering plants angiosperms coevals, and that
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  Speaker 1: was a big step for bees. They're kind of like
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  Speaker 1: the uh sweet philosophy majors of the wasp family. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: They just went off and became herbivores, whereas their wasps,
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  Speaker 1: their wasp relatives are wasp cousins were carnivores, and not
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  Speaker 1: only carnivores, carnivores that used ovipositors to you lay their
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  Speaker 1: eggs in other animals. Yeah, that's gross, it is and
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  Speaker 1: it's very aggressive. Um. But as we said, bees became herbivores.
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  Speaker 1: They just go around to flowers. All they want is
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  Speaker 1: to be left alone, collect pollen and nectar and then uh,
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  Speaker 1: you know, pollinate flowers along the way. And they're very
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  Speaker 1: happy with their lives like that. They they're into the
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  Speaker 1: pan flute and birkin stocks. Do you think these are
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  Speaker 1: like hippies a little bit? Yeah, you've never been attacked
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  Speaker 1: by a dozen hippies, actually more than a dozen. I
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  Speaker 1: was stung a dozen times. Is that what I told
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  Speaker 1: that story before in the Colony Collapse podcast when I
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  Speaker 1: was tagged in the head and face twelve times. Oh yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that brings about one of my worst days, very painful. Um.
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  Speaker 1: So let's talk about parts. The bees body is pretty remarkable. Um.
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  Speaker 1: It's kind of exoskeleton made of chiten kitan, movable plates
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  Speaker 1: of this kitan. Yeah, it's almost like a suit of armor.
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  Speaker 1: It sounds like, Yeah, that's pretty neat. Uh, they've got,
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  Speaker 1: like we said, a lot of hairs all over their body,
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  Speaker 1: a little fuzzies that they collect. The pollen help regulate
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  Speaker 1: body tempt keep it cool or warm, depending on what's
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  Speaker 1: going on. And uh, like a lot of insects, they have,
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  Speaker 1: they're divided into little sections the head, the thorax, and
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  Speaker 1: the abdomen in this case, and the brain is in
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  Speaker 1: the head. And it's not a big brain, no, but
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  Speaker 1: it's pretty awesome. Well yeah, because it's specialized. So bee
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  Speaker 1: brain has about nine and fifty thousand neurons. It seems
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  Speaker 1: like a lot for a small insect. It does a
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  Speaker 1: small brain, right, Um, but apparently it's not. And uh,
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  Speaker 1: the reason why we know it's not because just based
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  Speaker 1: on the number of neurons, bees should be incredibly stupid
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  Speaker 1: and very simple animals, and they're not. The reason why
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  Speaker 1: is because the neurons in a bee's head are extremely specialized,
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  Speaker 1: and rather than being recruited by some like executive function
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  Speaker 1: like we have in our frontal lobes, their neurons kind
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  Speaker 1: of act on their own and communicate with other neurons
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  Speaker 1: to carry out a very specific activity. Right. So this
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  Speaker 1: division of labor in the brain allows these to do
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  Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that it would require a bigger
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  Speaker 1: brain to to do normally. It's pretty ingenious. Yes, that's right.
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  Speaker 1: These are pretty smart when they figured out how to
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  Speaker 1: do this to themselves. Uh. They have a couple of
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  Speaker 1: a century into the uh five eyes. Three of them
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  Speaker 1: are simple, a silly, and then two compound eyes and
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  Speaker 1: they have lots of repeating parts called omata I think,
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  Speaker 1: And they can actually see polarized light. They specialize in
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  Speaker 1: patterns and humans can't do that obviously because we would
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  Speaker 1: be like, just try the predator. Maybe that what that
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  Speaker 1: looks like? That's thermal imaging. Oh yeah, that's right, it's
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  Speaker 1: normal polarized to be. Um, you more polarized glasses, like
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  Speaker 1: your your polarized sunglasses. Remember this for I got the ravans. Yeah,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: instead of ravan, it said polar that's what you get
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  Speaker 1: for eight bucks. It's cvs. Is they worked? Do you
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  Speaker 1: have them forever? Yeah? Until they broke. So that's how
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  Speaker 1: you saw polarized light. Bees don't even need sunglasses from cvs.
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  Speaker 1: They just see it naturally. And the reason this is
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  Speaker 1: important is because um, as we'll see later on, they
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  Speaker 1: used the sun to navigate and being able to see
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  Speaker 1: polarized light. That means they can see clear through crop
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  Speaker 1: clouds when it's overcast and know where the sun is.
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  Speaker 1: That's right, very important. Uh, Like a lot of insects,
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  Speaker 1: I've got the little mouth parts. You know, we've talked
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  Speaker 1: about mouth parts. I think in uh please maybe flies, flies,
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  Speaker 1: flies and fleas. Uh. They have the jaws or the
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  Speaker 1: paired mandibles, the tongue with the colossa, and then the
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  Speaker 1: lips which are the labor room and the maxilla, and
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  Speaker 1: they support the probiscus, which I think most people know
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  Speaker 1: is the the pollen sniffing device and collecting. Yeah, well
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  Speaker 1: what I mean sniff, I mean sniff it up in there. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's like an r varts trunk pretty much, but in
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  Speaker 1: instead of huffing ants, that huffs nectar. That's right. You've
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  Speaker 1: got two pair of wings, you got three pair of legs.
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  Speaker 1: The wings are actually part of the skeleton, which is
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  Speaker 1: kind of cool. And and so if you're a little
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  Speaker 1: boy that's tearing wings off of a bee, you're actually
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  Speaker 1: breaking its skeleton. You need to spanking, You needed to
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  Speaker 1: get stung. Oh yeah, that's how you learned that lesson
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  Speaker 1: poetic justice exactly. And Uh. They the row of books
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  Speaker 1: called the hamuli connect the wings, so they are just
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  Speaker 1: beating together in synchronicity, but they don't connect all the time.
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  Speaker 1: They're not fused together. The wings are separate front four
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  Speaker 1: wings and rear wings are separate. And then when they
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  Speaker 1: really want to get going and flying, they hooked together
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  Speaker 1: using the hamuli. And that's to fly though, right, to
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  Speaker 1: really take off. Oh Like, they have different speeds of
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  Speaker 1: flying and they connect or disconnect depending on that. Tracy
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  Speaker 1: skipped that part so much for thora. Uh. And then
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  Speaker 1: you got the legs, which um, starting from the body
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  Speaker 1: working out, you have the coxa, the tric canter, the femur,
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  Speaker 1: the tibia, and the tarxas a k a hip, thiah
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  Speaker 1: and put and that's the body for the most part. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: but the legs are also kind of specialized. They're almost
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  Speaker 1: like a Swiss army legs. It's pretty cool. They've got
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  Speaker 1: different kinds of hair. You've got brush hair, comb hair,
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  Speaker 1: depending on the kind of pollen you're collecting, and then
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  Speaker 1: basket like hairs that hold pollen. You've got a pad
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  Speaker 1: and a claw so you can like grab things. You
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  Speaker 1: can strangle other bees if you want. Um, and this
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  Speaker 1: is kind of cool. There's a small groove in the arm,
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  Speaker 1: in the leg for scraping pollen from the antenna. And
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  Speaker 1: then lastly there's a press on the bottom for packing
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  Speaker 1: pollen into things. That's pretty neat if you ask me,
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  Speaker 1: that is pretty neat. Swiss army leg. Don't you call
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  Speaker 1: the what I call it very nice? Should put a
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  Speaker 1: pattern on that. So yeah, so chuck. When you you know,
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  Speaker 1: when you accidentally squish a bee and you look down
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  Speaker 1: at it and it's guts are everywhere, it's not red.
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  Speaker 1: The blood isn't red. And actually it doesn't necessarily have
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  Speaker 1: what we would call blood. It's called hemo lymph and
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  Speaker 1: it it has oxygen just suspended in it. It doesn't
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  Speaker 1: have red blood cells, which is why be blood hemolymph
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  Speaker 1: is clear. Yeah, you don't see a lot of insects
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  Speaker 1: with red blood, do you? Only only Americans red blooded insects.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, we can't overlook the stinger um that is,
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  Speaker 1: uh where the bees abdomen is, and it's an appendage
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  Speaker 1: and like we said before, it's a egg depositor, an ovipositor,
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  Speaker 1: and then the lancets will sting you and deliver venom.
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  Speaker 1: From the poison sac in a venom gland. And once again,
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  Speaker 1: these wasp like ancestors, they think that's where the bees
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  Speaker 1: got the venom, and it's just a leftover trait from that,
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  Speaker 1: even though they didn't go on to lay their eggs
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  Speaker 1: in meat. Right, That's which is why the wasps evolved
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  Speaker 1: venom to subdue their prey while they were laying eggs
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  Speaker 1: and eating them and all that stuff. And bees, like
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  Speaker 1: you said, had it left over, but they just have
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  Speaker 1: it for defense. Yeah, and I guess it was obviously
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  Speaker 1: a trait worthy of keeping. And uh like, if I
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  Speaker 1: had a stinger and could inject people venom, I'd keep
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  Speaker 1: it around, use it on occasion. You'd be like, come on, evolution,
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  Speaker 1: just let me have it. There are stingless bees though, um,
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  Speaker 1: quite a few species, and they don't have stingers at all. No,
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  Speaker 1: and they were very handy among the Maya until very
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  Speaker 1: recently for beekeeping because you just stick your hand in
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  Speaker 1: there and be like, I'm taking your honey, and what
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  Speaker 1: are you gonna do? Nothing, that's great because you're a
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  Speaker 1: stingless bee. They couldn't even bite or anything. No, they
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  Speaker 1: just stand idly by. That's their thing. Um, so check.
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  Speaker 1: There's a lot of there's a lot of stuff that
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  Speaker 1: a bee produces there, like pubescent children. They just produce
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  Speaker 1: all these different things with all these different glands all
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  Speaker 1: the time. They're secreting stuff all the time. But it's
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  Speaker 1: very useful stuff, that's right. Uh, and then chuck. You
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  Speaker 1: know how when you get stung sometimes you hear or
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  Speaker 1: you've heard a bee will die after it stings you. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I think most people think that all bees die when
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  Speaker 1: they sting you. True. No, it depends on the type
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  Speaker 1: of stinger they have. Honey Bees, for the most part,
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  Speaker 1: except for the queen honey bee have barbed stingers, and
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  Speaker 1: if a bee has a barbed stinger, it is gonna
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  Speaker 1: stick in you. If you're a mammal, a bee can
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  Speaker 1: sting other insects with a barbed stinger and live after
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  Speaker 1: singing repeatedly. If it stings in the mammal, we have
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  Speaker 1: this um fat, meaty flesh that the barbed stinger hooks into,
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  Speaker 1: and when the bee flies away, it leaves its stinger
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  Speaker 1: and it's abdomen and guts stuck in you and so
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  Speaker 1: it dies, which is why if you have a barbed stinger,
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  Speaker 1: you can only sting once, but some bees do have
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  Speaker 1: smooth stingers and and sting mammals as often as they like.
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  Speaker 1: I wonder how often that how long that takes for
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  Speaker 1: the be to die, because you know they're stinging and
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  Speaker 1: they fly away. I wonder if it's like a few
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  Speaker 1: minutes or a couple of hours, or if they just
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  Speaker 1: like I would think, pretty quick quietly and bleed out
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  Speaker 1: or but I mean, how long does it take a
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  Speaker 1: bee to bleed out? I don't know, probably not hemolymph out.
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  Speaker 1: But I know when I've been stung, I see him
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  Speaker 1: fly away, and they look like they're doing all right
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  Speaker 1: to me, And right when you turn around, they just go.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: I guess I'm gonna trail the next bee that stings,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: follow it. You're gonna check it. You gonna check it,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: all right. So you want to talk about some juices
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: and stuff, some venom, Yeah, we should talk about venom.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Remember the difference between venomous organism and a poisonous organism
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  Speaker 1: is venom is produced in the body poisons outside, right,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: that's right, uh, And a be's venom uh basically destroyed cells.
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  Speaker 1: Like it's pretty hardcore stuff. It's a good thing. It's
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: in small quantities probably, I can imagine if it was
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: larger quantities could be pretty destructive. But they have peptids
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: and enzymes break through the fat linings of the cell,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: destroy the mass cells. Uh, and that releases histamine. This
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: is where we get into like whether or not you're allergic.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: You could be in big trouble. Yeah, because histamine that's
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: part of your immune response, which is a good thing.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: You know, you want that, right, And histamines open the
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: blood vessels so that you can get your antibodies, your immunes,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: your immune cells to this site much more quickly. But
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: if you have a b allergy, your immune system is
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: too large, it's too big a response. Your blood vessels
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: dilate so much that you lose blood pressure and fall
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: over um, which is called anaphylactic shock. That's right, and
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: that can kill people dead. And if you are allergic
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  Speaker 1: to bees, you uh almost in the likelihood have an
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: epinephrine shot with you because it's dangerous stuff and that
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: will constrict the blood vessels and save your life hopefully, right,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: if you get it in time. I imagine it depends
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: on the person. Fingers crossed fingers crossed um. So, like
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: we said, there's twenty thousand, approximately twenty species under the
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: super family Appodia or a Podia. How do you say that.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Let's go with a Podia. And depending on the bee,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have a different kind of nest. But they
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: are similar, you know, in a lot of cases. So
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: we'll break it down into honey bees and bumble bees
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: for the nesting purposes and for social those are they're
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: both social. That's right kind of bees they are. So, uh,
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  Speaker 1: you've got um among honey bees. You have a perennial nest.
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  Speaker 1: She is always around. It's kind of cool. They build
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  Speaker 1: the same nest and for life. Yeah, I love that, uh,
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  Speaker 1: and for generations um. And they build it by secreting
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  Speaker 1: um stuff out of their glands because bees are like
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  Speaker 1: the pubescent children human children of the of the insect world.
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  Speaker 1: They're always secreting stuff out of their glands. But they
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  Speaker 1: make good use of it and one of the things
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  Speaker 1: that they use it for is wax to build nests. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And these are all ladies, by the way, It's a
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: very important point. Yeah, these are all little women workers.
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  Speaker 1: And the reason why is because male bees for the
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  Speaker 1: most part, are around to fornicate and that's about it.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, they don't even have a lot of the
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: parts that you need to be a real bee, but
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  Speaker 1: to collect pollen or anything like that. They're there to
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: reproduce and that's it. Yeah. In fact, they will even
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  Speaker 1: get kicked out of the hive if things get a
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  Speaker 1: little too crowded and food is scarce or winners coming.
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  Speaker 1: The women will say, all right, it's time for you
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  Speaker 1: guys to leave. You know, you can't stay here, that's right.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: I wonder what they do. They probably say, I'm in
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: this thing you if you don't get out of here,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: no owner. What the males do, though, they go off
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: and die. They die, They form their own little like
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: boys club. I have the impression that male bees are
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: kind of too oh fish to think of that kind
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: of thing dummies. Yeah. But so if you see a
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: bee collecting pollen, yeah, in almost every species, that's a
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: female bee. If you see a bee stinging you or
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: feel a beasting in you, that's a female because the
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: stingers an ovipositor, which makes it a female parts right. Um.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: But as we were saying, the nests that are built
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: and maintained and uh stocked um are all done by
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: females with the honeybee. That's right, and it's perennial. Yes,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: and uh, in that little nest, if the queen bee is,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: the queen bee will be delivering a queen substance. It's
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: a pheromone. And if it did, another secretion, another secretion.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: If and if the little lady be start getting less
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: and less of this, they'll say, you know what, we
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: need to split up and make a new queen and
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: a new hive. And let's just go ahead and start
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: this process now. And let's pick a new queen and
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: start feeding her royal jelly. Another secretion and um, raise
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: her right right on this royal jelly. So with the
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: about half of the workers and the old queen take
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: off and found a new um hive. I guess there's
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: too much pressure on the new queens. So yeah, like
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: we got this place built for you, you just grow
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: up and take care of it. And that's what happens.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: The new queen grows up and and the hive basically
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: divides like a cell into pretty pretty cool yeah um
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: solitary or not solidier bumblebees found they found annual um
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: nests and basically that idea too though diggs every year
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: it's not getting attached to something. Yeah. Um, so they
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: in the In the fall, the queen mates, spends the
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: winter underground. In the spring, she lays some eggs that
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: turn out to surprisingly mostly be females, if not all females,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: and they help her build a nest. In the summer,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: she lays some more eggs. Those hatch into males. Those
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: males fly off, and all of the male bumblebees. Somehow
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: scientists haven't figured out how they do it. They figure
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: they get a uh, they say, hey, we're all gonna
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: be over here to mate this Friday. We'll see you
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: guys there. Then all the queens from all the individual
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: nests for miles around come over and everybody copulates, and
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: then they leave the scrunchy on the door. Yeah. And
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: then that's that ye, And that's the cycle starts a
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: new the female lays eggs or goes back underground for
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: the winter. That's right. And these are the social bees,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Like we said, um, However, less than fift of bees
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: are social, even though they're the ones we usually think of.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: More as far as like hives and nests and things.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: My favorite are the solitary bees. Why because they're doing
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: their own thing. My my really favorite reason why. It's
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: because the different ways they make their home. Yeah. I
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: just think it's really cool. Yeah. So, like social bees
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: are are known from the type of hives they have,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: that's kind of how they divided. But yeah, the way
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: that they make their homes. For solitary bees, that's yeah,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: that's a good definition. And solitary bees they'll get together
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: on occasion if they need to, like band together for
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: defense or something, but they generally do their own thing. Um.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: So some of the different ways that these guys can
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: make homes, like carpenter bees, which are my favorites. Um
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: they bore holes in wood and unpainted like raw wood,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: and they usually are like the spitting image of a bumblebee.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: But if you see a bumble bee going into a
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: hole in like your door jam, that's a carpenter bee.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: I like carpenter bees. I think it's cool. And they
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: get the little tool belt. Yeah, they always have a
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: pencil behind their ear. Yeah, And they're always late and
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: the job is never done on time, and they'll tell
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: you straight this is gonna cost two or three times
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: when I originally estimated exactly. I just think it's cool
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: that they can actually bore into the wood like that.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: It's amazing. And they're always like perfectly little round holes too,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: I know. Like what's surprising is they use their eyes
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: to bore a little laser shoot out of them. Wow.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: I don't think I knew that. Tracy skipped that too.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: There are the plaster or bees. Um, they dig little
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: holes and tunnels and line them with another secretion. That's
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: sort of like blaster makes sense. The leaf cutters, what
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: do they do? They use those uh those um grasping claws, remember,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: and then they bite leaves apart with their their mouths
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: and line their nests with them because they like to
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: be nice and comfy. Mason bees. Used to be a
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: mason bee yeah yeah, um, and I would secrete something
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: from my jaws that basically was like mortar and put
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: sand and pebbles together and make a nest. It's a
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: strong nest. This is like basically the three pigs of
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: the bee. We're going from, like we're going from leaves
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: to wood yeah, wooden sand yeah. Nice. The carter b
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: that's they like furry wooly parts of plants. And that's
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: basically they're like the Bob Guccioni bees. Yeah, they wear
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: silk robes and stuff like that. Uh. And then my
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: favorite thing is when uh Tracy points out a few
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: species actually will like check out an empty snail shell
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: and say, that looks like a very nice little apartment.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna move in there. And you want to
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: move in, Let's just divide it up with more secretions
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: and you take that half will make it a duplex. Yeah,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: that is really cool. Or others will go into an
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: old ant hill or termite hill or wasp nest and
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: be like hello, and if they hear back hello, Hello, Hello,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: they'll they'll say, well, this is where I'm gonna lay
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: my eggs. It's already built. Yeah. And the cuckoo bee,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: these guys are dumb. They go they're parasitic bee, not
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: in that they eat other bees, but that they um,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: they lay their eggs in other bees nests and just
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: say cyanara and they rely on their pollen. It just
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: it's like, I feel like they're dumb. They're like they
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: can't figure it out on their own, so they just
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: kind of sneak in there in the dead of night
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: even do their thing. Sweat bees, remember those little guys
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: very aptly named. They are after you're that. I thought
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: that was sort of a wive style. It's not. No,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: they're sweat bees, that's right. The orculd be is another
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: good example of coevolution. Um. They think that the or
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: could be with its extremely long probe. Probiscus um basically
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: evolved to get the nectar out of orchids, which keeps
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: its nectar very deep in the flower blossom. Evolution scaring
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: in the face. Uh the scariest bee? Josh? Is there
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: such thing as a killer bee? Uh? No, that's kind
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: of a media hype. I mean, any bee, especially if
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: you had a bee allergy, could kill you. Um. But
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: what are killer bees? So back in the fifties seven
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: in Brazil, some apiarists, some beekeepers, imported some African honey
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: bees and they got loose, and they went and made
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: it with the European honey bees that were already in
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: the area. And what you had was Africanized honey bees,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: which are virtually identical to European honey bees, but they
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: are far more aggressive, especially if they think you're messing
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: with their hive. And you know, like Africans and Europeans
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: mating that makes them aggressive. That's just interesting how you
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: combine those two and all of a sudden they're just
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: piste off. But then at some point the media got
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: ahold of it as they started to approach from Brazil
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: upward toward America. Yeah, we have some here right in
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: the States. Yeah, they made it to Texas, Florida, I believe,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: maybe in Georgia, California, Arizona. I bet there's some in
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: South Georgia, and um they the media went crazy over
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: killer bees. That seems like a seventies thing. I sort
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: of remember that. I thought it was eighties. Was there
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: was there a movie or something? Oh, I'm sure, swarmy movie.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: I think there had to be, or there should be,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: um so reproduction, the fun sexy stuff. This is actually
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: really fun, I think because bees can live up to
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: five years some of them. Honey bee. Just I think
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: that's the queen. Just the queen. Okay, that makes sense
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: because I didn't get because it's Tracy also said that
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: some of them don't even lift through the winter. I
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: guess it just depends, right, That's why I think it
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: was the queen that she was referring to. Up to
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: five years. Yeah, for an insect. I mean she's well
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: taken care of. She doesn't have to do a lot,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: that's right. The males, like we said, are the there
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: there too to deposit their male parts in, and unfortunately
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: they don't leave with their male parts. Yeah. Depending on
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: the species of bee, they may much like a stinging
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: a mammal, once they copulate. Does that work for bees? Copulation? Yeah? Um,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: they leave there, like you said, their man parts in
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: the female and die as a result. They feeling takes
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: it more than he leaves it was there, right, I
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: don't know, I just have a feeling. The female bees
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: just seemed like they they're the smart one. Yeah, exactly,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: like I have your you know what's it called? Your
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: um not a penis? No, it's not a penis. Their
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: endo fallus. I've got your ends and I'm not giving
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: it back exactly, and now you're dead. That's right. Um.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: So with funny beest specifically, I think the queen bee
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: is the only one that lays eggs. Is that correct? Um? No,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: the queen uh honey bees. Females will lay like a
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: few eggs during their lifetime, but the queen bee lays thousands. Okay,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: all right, so it is possible for a honey beat okay,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: but for the most part carrying on the hive that's
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: up to the queen, right, um. The and then once
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: an egg is laid, it goes through the same stages
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: that like a caterpillar. Well yeah, I never knew that either. So,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: like you lay an egg and it hatches into a larva,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: which looks like a little worm, a little sick, gross
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: white worm. Um. And it's fed by workers for a
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: couple of days, fed royal jelly, which you said they
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: secrete from their heads, right, yeah. Did I don't think
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: the regular bees get the royal jelly? Do they for
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: the first two days, for just two days? That if
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: you want to make a queen, you feed that be.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: You feed any female larva um royal jelly the whole
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: time until you're raising her, Yeah, until she spins a cocoon,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: so they get royal jelly. A couple of days they
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: they molt um. There, the workers seal off the honeycomb,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: which is an egg chamber in this case. Yeah, each
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: little one. Yeah, those like build a little door basically, yeah,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: and it's one per no more, that's right, no less, uh,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: And then the larva spins a cocoon and eventually emerges
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: as an adult. And I've heard tell that the first
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: thing a bee does when it's born is clean out
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: its egg chamber for the next bee. They're very busy
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: and tidy and like, yeah, they've got a lot of
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: stuff to do for sure. Uh. And here's the other
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: cool thing. Males will get a little bit larger cell.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: But the queen can actually decide whether or not to
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: have a male or a female. Yeah that's remarkable. Yeah,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: because a queen will collect sperm enough for her lifetime
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: and one shot, yeah, and one mating season because I
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: understand it. And then you know what I mean, Um,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: she'll dole it out depending on what kind of uh
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: bees the hive needs at any pointing. So what's the
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: what's the magic sauce thing? Uh? What how she does this? Um?
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: She stores all right? If she uses stored sperm to
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: fertilize the egg, then she had this female. If she
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: leaves egg unfertilized, then it's a male, right, So it's
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: up to her. And what's crazy is this? This? It
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: all depends on what kind of state the hives in,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Like do you need more workers to go gather more food, um,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: or do you need more males to reproduce? It's pretty cool. Yeah,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: how they strike that balance with that tiny little brain,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: I guess years of experience. How do they pick the
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: queen too? Do you know that? I don't know. Is
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: it just random? And then they start him on the
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: royal jelly and that just gets the process. That's the
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: impression that I have that as long as it's a
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: fertilized egg that will become a female. Yeah, then I
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: think you could feed any of those royal jelly. It's
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: probably one of the queen's daughters though, as opposed to
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: one of the few of the others. Don't you think, uh,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: keep that royal bloodline intact? Yeah, I would think. You know, yeah,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: that's just a guess. I bet somebody knows. I mean,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: what if what if they accidentally raised the cuckoo bees
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: egg as a queen cheese? What a colossal nightmare that
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: would be? Um? Okay, So the the little eggs hatch
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: and the little worker bees they have different jobs according
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: to their age, but they are going to be taking
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: care of the young at this point. Um, they're going
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: to be feeding them pollen or be bread, which is
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: pollen and nectar mixed together. It sounds delicious, actually it is.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: And there's you know a lot of people think that
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: bees are just only after nectar. No, they collect pollen
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: on purpose as well, and they use it to make
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: bee bread. That's right, and be bread does sound very delicious. Uh.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: And so as you get older, though, you're gonna have
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: different jobs. And um, at first you're a nurse, and then,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: like you said, once you get little older, you might
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: be a maide or a butler and clean on not butler,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: I guess it made and start cleaning out the other, uh,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: you know, the other empty cells. Even though you said
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: they're supposed to do it yourself, I guess they. You know,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: some are lazy, maybe some some other worker bee has
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: to come behind and take care of their business. They're like,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep my eye on you, exactly. And then
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: they also learned at that point out to forge for
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: food and make honey. And this is where things get
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: kind of fun. Those are and those are the oldest ones. Yeah,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: the oldest ones are the scouts and the ones that
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: forage or the oldest bees in the hive. The followers. Yeah, um,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: and to say, real quick to first chuck um that
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: that was social bee reproduction. UM. Solitary bee reproduction is
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: very sad. Sometimes in some species the mother lays an egg,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: seals up this um whatever cheese used as the nest
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: with a little bee bread, a little honey whatever, and
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: then takes off and dies and they never see their
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: little baby bee. That is said, and that sad. So uh.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Bees find their food in pretty remarkable ways. That can
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: smell like really really well, and like we said, they
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: can recognize color patterns and things, and they have their
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: solar compass, so this allows them to see where the
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: sun is. They also have an internal clock, so when
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: they go out the scout bees and find the food,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: they know, all the sun's right there, and I flew
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: three yards. Now I'm flying back and the sun is
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: right there. So they can actually use those together to
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: pinpoint or pinpoint for the others where the food is
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: because they're going I'm back to tell everyone, hey, and
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: they you know, let them taste like this is what
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: you're after. Taste a little bit of this and now
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: come with me. By way of this dance, they can
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: remember and judge and measure where they went, where the
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: food source was, but then they also can communicate it
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: like you sit through dancing. UM. And if food's really
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: close by, they'll just basically run up a vertical wall
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: of a honeycomb, which they call it the dance floor. UM,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: and we not just us. It's called the dance that's
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: what people who study bees call it. UM. And they
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: basically just run up or down in the direction of
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: the food source in relation to the sun, not in
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: relation to the hive. When they go out, they'll be like, Okay,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: the sun's over here, it's it's in this direction. That's
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. Yeah, that's called a round dance. And they
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: depend on their sense of smell because they don't get
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: super specific with the round dance. They're like, I'll get
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: you out there and then you'll know trust me exactly
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: because bees can smell from meters away, which is that's
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: a really far distance. How small bees are. UM. And
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: when the when the food is a little further away,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: they do the actual waggle dance and UM. Basically this
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: is running again in a in a line in the
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: direction of the food and then making these little um
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: circles in opposing directions at the end of the line.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: So it will run up and then go to the
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: left in the circle, and then run up and then
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: go to the right in the circle. Um, and that
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: tells everybody where the where the food is, and then
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: the quality of the food source, how tight the circle is,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: I think kind of says it's really really good, or
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: if it's a big loping circle, mamb like it's okay,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: we've had better. And then the bees also flapping its
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: wings at the same time, and all the bees that
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: have gathered around, like you said, um are called followers.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: They're the oldest ones in the hive, and they're taking
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: all this information in and a specific group of them
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: are going to be directly behind the bee while it's
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: doing this waggle dance wind, yeah, flapping its wings, and
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: that wind is going to tell them about how long
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: they need to travel for. And then all the bees
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: take off. When they get to about the right area,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: they go into like a search pattern until somebody finds it,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: and then they start making trips back and forth. Yep.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: I mean they're delivering a lot of information here, very
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: specific information. And um, they make about a dozen trips.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: Each bee can carry about half her weight in pollen
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: or nectar, which is amazing. And then um, when they
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: come back to unload the stuff, there's more communication going
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: on because the little unloaders that are back at the
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: hive will behave differently according to how much uh more
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: food they need. If they're like, come on, come on,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: give it, give it, give it, that means keep going,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: keep going. And then they're like, yeah, yeah, I guess
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: I'll take it since you brought it. But we're really
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: doing okay, They're like, all right, well, I'm not going
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: to get anymore if you're just not going to be
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: excited about it any longer, Let's just find some men
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: to have sex with, right, Or let's turn this next
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: there into honey, yes, just because for storage per this
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: honey has far less volume than nectar. It's basically concentrated nectar,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: so you can store more of it, right, that's right.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: So they transform nectar into honey in a in a
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: kind of a gross way. Um, they regurgitate it over
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: and over and over, which evaporates the water out of it.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: And um, they also flap their little wings to I
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: guess use air to do the same thing. And so
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: honey is a bunch of regurgitated be stuff. Because there's
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: it's the vomit. Yeah, I mean there's be stuff in
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: there as well. Yeah, it's not just nectar like they're
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: stuck in the moisture out, but they're also adding enzymes
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: and stuff their own from their body to make honey.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: It's not just dehydrated nectar. It's it's honey is a
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: different thing that's made by this stuff, but it has
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: some pretty amazing properties to it. Um. One of the
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: things that's added during this regurgitation process is called glucose
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: oxidase and UM. When it's fed too young to the young,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: it's broken down into glucosset, which gives them tons of
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: energy because there's a lot of sugar calories in in honey.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: But it's also broken down into um hydrogen peroxide, which
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: is one of the things that gives honey. It's anti
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: microbial antibacterial properties, and that's why humans have been using
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: it and eating it for thousands and thousands of years
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: to treat wounds. Occasionally, it can be good in a
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: pinch if you're a survivalist, especially an open wound. UM there. So,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: I mean you've heard that honey is um like it
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: keeps forever. Basically Obviously it doesn't keep for everybody will
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: keep a very long time. That's one of the big reasons.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: Another reason is that um it has a high asmotic
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: pressure and it's hygroscopic, which means it wicks moisture out
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: of the air around it, and since it has a
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: high asmotic pressure, it does it really strongly. So if
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: you're a little nice, um moisturized piece of bacteria UM
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: and you come in contact with honey, it's gonna suck
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: the moisture out of you and kill you. Antibacterial. Wow, Yeah,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: that's pretty amazing. If you come across a beehive in
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: the wintertime and they just seem like they're all in
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: there asleep, hibernating, not so, they're still pretty active. They
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: they will leave the hive to poop and pee because well,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: I guess they don't pee, but they leave the hive
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: to do their business because they don't want to go
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: in their little cell, which again, they're very tidy little creatures.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: They know not to like wallow in their own feces
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: not feces but bt uh. But they are still pretty
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: busy there because they have to keep warm. So they
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: and especially keep the queen warm, and so they tremble
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: just like humans kind of shiver just to increase the warmth.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: Then the summertime they will flap their wings to kind
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: of keep things climate controlled on the cooler side and
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: drip water on the honey comb. That's amazing. They are
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: pretty amazing creatures. If you and I still hate them, yeah,
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Oh we should also say, I'm real quick that while
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: the honey has a lot of antibacterial properties and anti
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: microbial properties, one particular bacteria that is impervious to honey's
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: defenses is um Clustridium baculinum AK boculi is um, the
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: bacteria that gives you a boculi is um um. And
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: since it's soil born, uh, it's very easy for sea
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: bachulnum to get into honey. It's in honey. Any honey
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: you eat is going to have it in there. It's
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: not in large enough measure to affect us, but it
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: could be life threatening to a baby, which is why
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: they always say, like, never give honey to a baby.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, ever, you know, I don't think we mentioned
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: either the honey. You know, you have different flavors of
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: honey that depends on what the bee has been Uh,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: what kind of flowers the bee's been hanging out. It's
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: like orange blossom, honey, it's clover is orange blossom and clover.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: So I never knew that either makes perfect sense. Bees.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: I thought it wasn't like an added flavor or something,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: you know, like whatever you know will make different flavors
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: of And it was like natural occurring. You're like, when
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: are they going to make bacon honey? Man A bit
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: that's good. Just cook some bacon, put some honey on it.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Um um. And you know we had we did a
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: podcast on colony collapse disorder, so I would encourage people
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: to go listen to that as well. It was a
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: good one in the archives. Um, have you got anything else?
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: I've got nothing else? Okay, bees. If you want to
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: learn more about bees, you should go check out this
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: very thorough um article on how stuff works dot com.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Can type in bees and it will bring it up
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: and you can learn even more, including about colony collapse
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: disorder and um be keeping as well. Yeah, maybe we
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: should be keeping one day. Okay, I don't mean a podcast,
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: I mean just started on the side business. Haven't we already?
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: Did you have like a smoker and everything? Uh? Yeah,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: TV will tell you I do. Um. Okay, so since
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: I said search bar, I think I did at how
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com and that means it's time for
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: of course listening mail. All right, Josh, I'm gonna call this,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: uh correction from a librarian. Remember we did our book
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: banning podcast. That's her correction. That's all she said, and
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: that is from Carly. Thank you, Carly. Hey, guys, love
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: your show. As a librarian, I was excited to hear
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: what you had to say about book banning. However, I'd
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: like to clear up a misconception about the role of
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: a librarian and banning books. You said, if a customer
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: patron approaches the librarian wants a book ban it is
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: up to the librarian to decide this is not. This
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: could not be further from the truth. In the cases,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: public libraries are run by boards of trustees, volunteers in
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: the community who set policies for the library. UH. These
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: community members are not librarians, and when someone wants a
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: book removed, they must fill out a form and submit
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: it to the board. Then the board reviews the material
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: in the objection the board of trustees. UH, it is
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: the board of trustees who decides whether or not to
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: remove the item. The board of trustees may consult with
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: others like librarians, UH review, sources, the community at large, etcetera.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: But it is not the librarian who decides whether to
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: ban the book. UM, I hope to hear this corrected.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: She says, it is unfortunate to hear one's profession and
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: misconstrued and an international public forum. So that is from Carly,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: and she says thanks, and keep up the good work
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: and Chuch, thanks Carly, appreciate that. Um. I think everybody
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: got that. It's pretty clear and concise. It is not
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: librarians in most cases who can carry out the banning.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: It sounds like she might have been yelled at by
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: somebody because of our podcast. Maybe well she just yelled
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: at us. UM, if you have a correction for us,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: we are always very much open to those who we
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: want to hear him so we can pass them along
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: because we like correcting ourselves and getting things right. You
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: you Should Know, and you can send us a good
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: old fashioned email at stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: how staff works dot com. H brought to you by
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: the two thousand twelve Toyota Camera