BEES : Why Every Civilization That Ever Existed Loved Bees | The Connor Larsen Show #5

Bees good, wasps bad — that was genuinely all Connor knew going in. What he found was that every civilization in history, independently and without talking to each other has been obsessed with these little creatures. The Egyptians. The Romans. The Celts. The Mormons. Napoleon. DARPA. All of them are obsessed with bees and the fact that we aren't might be part of a larger problem. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, welcome back to the Connor Larson show, episode five, I think. Um, thanks for listening. I this has been really fun. I've been doing all these episodes uh every week, and every week I'm pleasantly surprised. People like it, people seem to be interested, people tell me cool stuff I didn't know. So uh if you're one of those people, thanks. I appreciate it. It's been a lot of fun. Um it's the end of April here. We are having a lot of fun. Me and my wife in the garden, we are we're out there. We finished the Yakasugi garden bag that I talked about in the episode a few ago, and that thing's awesome. That thing, that's like the first thing I've built where I'm like, I want to show people this. You know, I built a lot of stuff where I was kind of like, don't look too close. It's you know, I some guy who uh grew up using power tools is gonna look at me like that sucks. This is the first one where I'm like, go ahead, go ahead and look at it. I'm very pumped. And uh yeah, it was fun to have like a it's fun to have the podcast and all that, you know, the research, all that stuff. I'm fine. That's what I like about this. I'm just doing stuff I would do anyway. And then if I can turn it into stuff other people like and sort of engage with other people about it and build stuff, it's great. It's very fun. So yeah, I'm feeling uh feeling pretty grateful that people are into it. And then I'm just feeling pumped about springtime. I love springtime. We just had a big storm last night. It's uh it's tornado season, tornado time in Tennessee. That's the thing I never I never even knew for like the first the first seven, eight years I lived in Nashville. Uh, I didn't know we had tornadoes in April and May. I also lived in places where if a tornado hit it, I'd be like, great, great. I was trying to break this lease. This is a really big help. Thank you for and I had to throw out a bunch of stuff that I didn't know how to get to the dump. So I'm glad you scattered it across Gallatin Road. You know, that was a big help to me. But um, yeah, I used to belong to a gym, Gym Five out in East Nashville, the best, best gym ever. The saddest part of me um moving away from East Nashville was that. That I loved that gym. The coolest people, just like a one-off local gym, and they were just great. And they got hit by a tornado. And I remember everybody, I was out of town. Um, I was doing shows down in Sarasota, Florida with my buddy Dusty Slay. This was 2020. They got hit with it, and I remember all the gym people came out and they like rebuilt the gym and they had a bent, they had a bent barbell hanging. I think they probably still do, um, that got smashed by that tornado. But it was cool. It was like, you know, that gym was such a great, it was just like a local business thing. You know, it's all the things people say about local business you want where you're like, I like that guy. Adam's like a big, muscly dude who at first you're like, is this guy scary? And then he's like, you know, he's a nice guy, he rescues dogs and um is really good to all the staff. And I missed that place. It was a great place. But yeah, I didn't know it's tornado season, but it is. Like I got a guy like five or six houses down where he's like, Yeah, we had to rebuild our house from the tornado. But then part of me goes, There's no way it's gonna hit again. Right? Like it's almost like if your house gets hit by lightning, you're like, it's not gonna get hit again. Like, I kind of feel confident um that we'll never get hit. But it was a big crazy storm last night. We had a crazy, our neighbors got this giant tree, and big, big old branches keep snapping off of it. Same came off in the ice storm, some came off yesterday. And uh man, you start to realize like I don't know, you always think if something crazy happened to you, you would it would kind of be your fault. You'd be like, I shouldn't have been doing I might just be walking out there one day and then just a giant tree branch. I mean, that thing, it's like 10 feet, 10 feet long. I bet it's you know, I don't know how much it weighs, but it's it's a nightmare to move it. So I'm pretty sure if it fell on me, it would be bad news. Um but other than that, uh, we've had beautiful weather. I've been getting a lot of stuff done. I started uh I started ripping out. We got a big tree of heaven in the back, like a I don't know, it's not even one tree, it's like you know, 50. And it's just from it's a neglected old fence line no one's looked at in 10 years. And I I finally started ripping it out. I'll post a video about it. But I started, I just took a little big, you know, loppers and the chainsaw and just started cutting it down, and it feels great. It feels so fun to do. I mean, first of all, a chainsaw is just fun. I didn't grow up using chainsaws, and it feels good. I I like chainsaw. I got a little, a little tiny uh electric one. It's very lame. I love it though. It's uh someday I want to get like a big, you know, Scandinavian. This is like I live in Alaska and I need this uh chainsaw. But for now, my little yellow electric one, it's all good. I had a lot of fun. Um, so I've been doing that. And uh, oh yeah, today's episode, sorry, it took me forever. Uh it's about bees. We're talking about bees today. I love, I'm really going, you know, this everything is sort of connected in this. Uh, the further I go into the garden, the more I realize bees. Bees are important. Bees are where it's at. And so I wanted to, you know, I kind of had I had a sense that bees were important, right? That's people when you like somehow if you're alive, you know, bees good, wasps bad. That's all you know. I feel like that's all most people know. They go, bees good, wasps bad. And bees have that sort of PR where you're like, oh yeah, yeah, bees are like bees are great, but you no one really knows. It's hard to, you know, a lot of people are just saying it, and then you go, why? And they go, I don't know. I just I know I'm supposed to say that. Being being pro-bees is like a good, it's like being pro-butterfly. People are like vaguely aware that they're helpful and necessary for an environment, so they say, like, oh, I love it, but they don't actually know anything. And I I didn't know anything. I'm talking about me there. Um, so I was like, you know what? I'm gonna get into bees. I'm gonna learn about bees. And I'll be honest with you guys, I thought I was pretty cool. I thought I was like, no one's into bees. I'm gonna learn all about them. I'm gonna be a weird guy. And then I started learning about bees and I realized I might be the billionth guy to get into bees. Bees are bees, like people, humans, have been obsessed with bees since the beginning. I mean, it's crazy. That was the thing I really was blown away by in this episode. Bees are, uh, first of all, it's our oldest animal relationship, which, you know, sorry about that. Uh tough phrasing. It's our butt, I mean, even before dogs, people were domesticating and having uh having a dynamic with bees where they, you know, they took the honey, they used them, they're really they were important parts of um old societies. And then people have also been obsessed with bees. That's that's the thing I thought was so cool about this episode was you start to realize every culture has been kind of obsessed with bees, and they also it seems like people see what they want to see out of bees, right? The way we'll go through this in the episode, but the way different civilizations talk about bees, it says a lot more about them than it does the bees. You know what I mean? The bees are the same, they're not really changing, but every culture focuses on different parts of the bees, and I think they start to there's you know, it's like anything else where people will kind of you ever notice when people give you advice, you're like, it's just what they're doing right then. No one, everyone goes, the thing I'm doing right now is that's what's that's what is good advice. Because of course, that makes you know, no one thinks they're doing the wrong thing, or they would do something different. So it's sort of everyone's advice. Sometimes people give me advice and I go, Do I need to be here for this? Like, you ever have a buddy who I don't even I don't really drink much, but I had a few friends who like got sober, and then I'd hang out with them and they'd be like, You just gotta get sober. And I'd be like, I mean, I am kind of. I pretty I'm pretty close. I feel like this is you telling yourself, not me. Um but I get it, and it, you know, I do it too, I'm sure. And uh it was yeah, it was fun to see what different cultures thought about bees, and uh to to it's core like it's like a what are they the roarshark test? You know, you look at an inkplot and you're like, oh, that's my dad calling me fat or whatever. Like that, you know, you see whatever it says more about you than it does uh the actual inkplot. That's what bees seem to be for people. Um, but first of all, let's you know, let's talk about what bees, why do they matter, right? Because I knew vaguely bees are important, but I didn't really understand what they do. Bees uh are they are how they're how flowers pollinate, right? You get the bees are going, the bees are on their way, they want some nectar, and then the flower is like, hey, take when you when you get to get the nectar, take this pollen with you to the other flower. And the bees like, whatever, man, I'm just I just want the nectar, but fine. And that's how that's how they flower, right? That's how the flowers get the they get germinated, and that's how they get pollinated, and that's how they produce fruit, and that's how they produce seed. And they're so you gotta have bees. If you want to have flowers, you gotta have them. If you want to have fruit, uh nuts, coffee, almonds, all these things depend on bees, right? If they say it's like one third of every bite, so one third of all the food you eat depends on bees. And um, it's pretty amazing how how hard bees are working for all this stuff. That was the thing I they say they say uh a pound of honey is the result of bees flying 55,000 miles, which is around the globe twice. So that's how that's how much they're working. And every individual bee uh in their entire lifetime produces half a teaspoon of honey. It makes you feel bad when you're like in a hotel and you like miss the cut, you're like, well, that was like six bees life work. Um but yeah, so bees are doing that, they're making honey. Um they're also like crucial to almonds. I didn't realize this, but every year, like 900 truckloads of almonds or 900 truckloads of bees go out to California, pollinate all the almonds, and that's like a big way people make money off bees. Um not a lot of, I don't think there's a ton of money in bees. I think if you get into it, it's because you like bees, but it's still cool that you can. Um so yeah, there's this, and then I was uh doing a show last week in Knoxville. This is maybe like an omen to do this episode. I was doing a show in Knoxville and traffic was messed up, and we looked it up, and uh a guy had crashed a bee truck and then all the bees got out, and people were just like, Well, I don't know, I guess it's fine. You know, we're just gonna let the bees out. That's a tough call, I'm sure, though, if you're the truck driver. Or you're like, all right, I got in a wreck, and uh I don't think I'm gonna be able to return your uh one million bees. Um, but anyway, so the bees are important, that's what they do. Uh, and then they're also interesting, right? So you need them, that's cool. Uh if they died out, you know what's crazy? I would there's so there's been some bee stuff recently where like bees are kind of bees are doing worse than they've ever done, which is just, you know, I feel like that's most natural stuff because we just are living such a bizarre, you know, corporate agriculture and uh people using pesticides and all this stuff, you know, it trickles down to bees. And and I think we all realize like we're not doing an ideal job of taking care of uh the environment. And you know, so bees are a part of that. But uh yeah, it's just interesting to see like the so bees are doing not great, right? And you and if bees died out, you would still have food, right? All there's a lot of food that is wind pollinated, meaning the seeds spread via wind, right? Like uh wheat and barley and all this stuff. So if we if if we screw up hard enough and we lose the bees, we'll still have food, it'll just suck. Like that's the that which that makes me more nervous because that's like that's something I can see companies doing. I could see companies being like, we're sorry, we ruined all the bees, but now you can eat, you know, whatever, uh Walmart branded, you know, wheat paste or whatever. Like that. I mean, I don't it's probably not gonna happen in my lifetime, but it's still scary. Um but yeah, all the stuff you like fruit, coffee, nuts, uh, all that stuff, that's all you need bees for that. So it's important we have bees. Um they're also cool. That's why that's I think one of the reasons all the cultures got obsessed with them is bees are very cool. They have this crazy lifestyle. Uh, bees are, first of all, most people have never seen a male bee. That blew my mind. Most bees, most bees are women, which I don't. There's so many funny. Well, I was doing research for this episode. There were so many funny things about like bees are are you know basically girl bosses. They're bees are really, it's all women, they're just doing all the work. The dudes are there's the male bees are called drones, and they're like five percent of the bees, and most people never see one. I don't think I've ever seen one. Um, because they don't the bee you see in your yard is like is use almost always a forager bee. So bees have like jobs, they have different jobs throughout their life, and forager is the last one. So pretty much all the bees I'm seeing are like beat up end of their life bees, uh, which is crazy because you feel like you feel like you're seeing all the bees, but in in reality, you're probably not. Um so the male bees, their only job is to uh impregnate the queen, right? They're like they're like young men. They have what they only have one thing on their mind, and uh it's pretty funny. They don't really have any other skills. They're just trying there's so many parallels to like the way they talk about male bees. I'm like, that's that was pretty much me at 20, just a bumbling idiot who was like, I hope, I hope there's girls there. That was I was all I was really doing. Um and so the the male bees, they just kind of hang out and then they fly up in the sky and they find little areas that they deem are the right area for whatever reason, and they'll just wait. They'll just like see, they just wait if a queen comes by, and then queens, the queens will come and they will uh mate with some of the male bees, and then that's enough for them. They're like, just I tried it, I'm not that into it, and then they'll take that back and have uh they'll have eggs for the rest of their life. That's what bees queen bees, that's all they do, they just have eggs. They're not they're not really that queen-like. They're just kind of they're just like a mom who had a lot of kids and is like exhausted. Um so they it's the the queen bee. That's also funny, the queen bee is not it's not anything different. It's just the bee that gets fed different food. That's what I thought was so interesting. The the bees bees eat this thing called royal jelly, which is just like a protein-rich jelly, and every bee eats it for the first three days of their life, and then uh they stop feeding you that and they start feeding you whatever bee slop. This is like less good bee food. But then the bees they want to be queens, they feed them royal jelly for like six days, and that completely changes like genetically what turns on in the bee. So the bees that eat it for three days live for six weeks, the regular worker bees, female worker bees, and then the bees that eat it for six days become the queen, and they can live for five years, which is that's like a I don't know, it's an interesting idea that just the food you eat can be that different. You know what I mean? It's like that that just three more days of that food and they're a whole different animal almost. Um and then the uh the other, so there's the the male bees, I don't know what they're doing. This whole thing is very complicated, and I'm I'm still a dumb guy. So um the male bees are somehow involved, but they after they get the queen pregnant, they die, right? So when they have when they hook up with the queen, it rips off part of their body and they die. It rips off like their stinger, which is nuts. It's like such a funny. They're basically born, they fly up in the sky and like hope a girl comes by. And then if they successfully uh match with this queen, they die. That's their whole and then if they make it to like winter time, the the female bees are like, this guy's useless, and they get rid of them. They kick him out of the hive and they freeze to death. That's another thing, too, that was cool about this episode. Bees are like bees are ruthless. Bees make Walmart seem like a you know mom and pop restaurant. Like they're just whatever's best for the hive, they're doing it. They don't have any, they don't have any like uh, eh, you know, he's a good guy. We should let him. They're like, get him out of here. We're getting rid of that bee. Um, so they all the bees have jobs. That's something I didn't realize too. They go through like eight jobs in their life. They're they start out as uh they clean the hive, then they nurse the hive, then they build the hive. They make little beeswax, which is just I didn't realize beeswax is just like sweat almost. Like it just comes off the bees and then they make it into a building material. Um and then they then they go get food. Then they there's an undertaker job. Bees like when a bee dies, the bees are like, get him out of here, because he's you know bumming everybody out or whatever. And then they guard the hive. That's what that's one of the jobs, which I didn't know what that meant, but I there's this really cool thing bees do where if uh if like a hornet or like a predatory thing comes in the hive, the way they deal with it is it's called balling. They all fly around the hornet or whatever it is, and they just start vibrating, they just start shaking, and the heat of all that vibration like essentially uh cooks this thing to death. It they that's how they get rid of it, and that's also how they get rid of um like when a queen gets old, that's what they do. They go, hey, sorry, you got a tough retirement party, we're gonna ball you. And then they cook the queen. And also, that's like a big thing, too. They didn't the queen is like she's not really in that's what I mean by she's not really like queen-like, she's not calling the shots, she's like, she's basically the reproductive organ of the hive. Uh, and when she kind of drops off when her production isn't happening, the bees just get rid of her and they get a new queen. And it's like a brutal it was pretty interesting to read all the all the things they do that I think read to us is like ruthless or brutal. But for bees, they're just like, well, yeah, this is just, you know, that we're all doing our part. You think I want to be a you think I want to be an Undertaker? You think I want to be getting rid of these dead bees? No, we all gotta chip in. Um and when the bees uh yeah, when the bees are done with the queen, they just they ball her and then they get a new queen. Also, there was this gnarly thing I was reading. They're so like they have there are new queens coming out, and if they come out at the same time, they fight to the death because like there can only be one sort of thing. And then sometimes a queen will come out and they'll find like another queen that I guess is ready that they can tell it's gonna be a queen or something. I'm not I guess they get fed the jelly early on, and you can tell what's gonna be a queen. And the so the queen, the first queen that comes out will go around and like Game of Thrones stab the other queens, so there's just only one left. And it's they have like these crazy, really up close videos of it, and it's it's pretty wild because it seems it seems personal. It seems like they're really doing it. Um so yeah, they do all this stuff. The bees also are the only they're the only animals that can communicate symbolically, right? So like they have this thing called the waggle dance, which I've been working on. I'm trying to do it, I'm trying to figure it out. Um but no, the waggle dance is they go to they can communicate to other bees where food is, right? So they find food, then they land on like a leaf, and they walk, and sort of the so the relative how they walk left or right, you know, they they do like a figure eight, and how they do it tells the other bees like the angle, and it gets basically gives them the information of like, hey, the flowers are over here. And this guy in the 70s studied them for 20 years and then like proved that they're doing this. And uh he won the Nobel Prize, which I like, I love that you can win the Nobel Prize for like you can win it for like winning inventing dynamite, everybody knows that one, figuring out how bees dance, like what just all writing a writing a book if you're the president. Like, there's all sorts of it's just a very it's an award, it's hard to figure out how to win. You know what I mean? There's a lot of there's a lot of paths. Um so they do that. The bees can also, they can see, they can recognize faces for up to two days. And if you give them caffeine, they'll come back to it again and again and again. Um so it seems like bees are kind of I mean it sounds like bees are smarter than my dog. I'll say that. My dog, I mean he can if you point, he'll kind of be like, what? But that's he can't. I could never have him communicate, like, hey, where where did you see the Amazon guy? And then he walks in a figure eight and he's like, he was, he put the pack, he accidentally delivered it to your neighbor. Um so I pretty it was that was interesting to me that bees can do that. Uh and they they when they move the hive, that this was another cool thing. They move the hive. So like it's kind of a democracy. They sort they send out, they're gonna move the hive, right? They're like this neighborhood, it's gentrifying or whatever. They built a jumba juice, we gotta get out of here. So they uh they send out 300 bees to or however many, I don't know, it's not a set number, and then they all scout out stuff, and then they come back and they try, I don't know how they communicate like where they think the hive should move, and bees. When when bees suggest like a bad idea, the other bees will headbutt them. Which that's a very funny. I like that as a system for when people have bad ideas, you just headbutt them, they go, All right, I'll think it through next time. Um, but yeah, so I mean that's what's so cool about all this stuff was just realizing bees are you know, they're hyped for a reason. They're very cool, they're smart, they're uh an integral part of the the ecosystem we have. Um they also have all that cool nature stuff like you know, you a lot of times you'll find nature is like already done something better than I remember watching this thing recently and they were trying to make like planes fly quieter. So they just studied owls because owls fly relatively you know pretty much silently, and they were like, How are they doing this? And so a lot of the best ideas are already kind of in nature. Um, and that's where we get a lot of them, which was pretty cool. Um and they, yeah, it was it was I love that they apparently have like dopamine. Like they the bees, they when they like something, they come back to it again and again and again, and scientists think that it's sort of uh I don't know, sort of like a dopamine loop, like we're all doing. If bees had phones, they would they would be checking them. That's what I'm trying to say. That's a business I'd like to start. Phones for phones for bees. Uh and so okay, so that's bees are cool, they're useful. They're also like this was what I thought was interesting. I thought I was it was cool. I was like, oh, it's interesting. I like bees. I don't like bees anywhere near how people used to like bees. Bees have been forever just this reflection of society, right? So the first, like they found these like pyramid stuff uh drawings where emojis, pyramid emojis, and they they it was basically like they found in ancient uh Egyptian lore bees were the first tier of their sun god became a bee. Um the Romans thought bees were souls, all the the Celtic people, all these people thought bees were souls, um, which I like whenever whenever a thing shows up like independently across all these cultures, it's kind of fun. And they were they were also using bees for stuff. Like people thought people there was this cool story I read where they they had this honey that I guess they put like hallucinogens in and they left it on the side of the road because they were like, who can resist honey? And then this army that was coming to get them, Pompeii's army, uh had the they ate the honey. They were like, Great, free honey. Weird not to be suspicious of free. I will say that. If I was a soldier back then and all of a sudden there was just honey, I don't know, I assume in a jar, you'd be like, hmm, kind of an interesting thing for these people I'm trying to murder to do, but you know, southern hospitality or whatever. So they they drank the or they eat the honey, then they start freaking out, and then the other guys were like, now, and they massacred them, um, which was funny. There was also a lot of like uh people used to, you know, in medieval times when they were like sieging another city, they're trying to get them to surrender, they would sh catapult beehives into into the other city, which I think I saw Jackass do that. I'm pretty sure I think that's the only thing that Jackass and like medieval warlords um both did. But uh there was also a lot of cool stuff, like people are messing with bees, which is interesting, like making the the whole African killer bee thing. Apparently it was just one guy who was like, I want to see if I can make a killer bee, which like someone in his life should have been like, let's not. Um, but he did, and he had him in like a secure area. He was like, Is in my killer bee uh area. This is you know, I this is where I show off my to my friends, and then some dumb guy came by and was like, these one, and just let him out. And that's all so all the all the killer bees problem is just one just one guy being in, I guess two guys being dumb. Um, which that's a fun thing I keep finding out through this pod, is just like a lot of a lot of mistakes that are you know, country or world changing. It's just one guy being like this, and they're like, Oh, we can't now we can't ever can't ever go back to the way it was. Um they uh yeah, I also read this thing that I liked. The bees started making blue honey, and people were like, Is bees in France? And people were like, why are they doing that? And then they found out there was like an MM factory nearby, and they had gotten into whatever some their food source was diluted, so they started making blue honey, and then everyone was like, All right, well, we probably shouldn't, we probably shouldn't eat that. Um but I like the so going back to be, you know, people seeing what they want to see in bees. I thought this was like the most interesting thing to me. So like the the people they oh one last like fun fact. This maybe just made me laugh. There was this thing Virgil wrote, the ancient historian, and he there was like a this was the recipe for bees, which is a funny idea that you're like, here's how we make bees, because they're just bees are just out there, you don't have to make them. But they were like, if you want to make bees, this is what this is what they said. They said, get an ox, then uh beat it to death. And they said, but don't beat it to death in a way where it's like a mess. If you get if you get blood everywhere, it won't work. So you beat the beat the ox to death, then you um you like sew it up, you make sure nothing can get out, and then you wait like a month, and then there will be bees. And I love how much A, I don't think that works, and B, that seems like the craziest that's that seems like the worst trade ever, right? Like, I feel like you could get bees by going into the forest and finding a hive. I don't know enough to know if that's true, but that seems reasonable to me. You could get a hive, you can move it, you could hope the bees are okay with you. Beating an ox to death and then and then waiting a month while it rots, and then being like, are we getting bees? I I think that's a fun. A lot of the old stuff you read when I was doing the research for this is just a guy being wrong but confident. He's like, if you can just wait out the ox, if you can just deal, if you can deal with the smell, you'll have beautiful fresh bees as soon as it's over. Um but yeah, so there was uh people always had these like very intense relationships with bees too. There were a lot of people who um, like when I was talking about royal jelly earlier, in China, royal jelly is still a medicine, which I kind of get the thinking there, where they're like, okay, these bees eat it for three extra days and they live, you know, 50 times as long. I'm gonna try it. Um and there's uh in like Irish history and Appalachian history and English, there was all these you had to tell bees when the there were a lot of stories where people are kind of thinking you can tell they think bees are smart on some level and understand stuff because they would go when someone died, especially like a beekeeper, they would go tell the bees, right? So they would like go to the hive and like knock and be like, I hate to tell you, you would like mark as dead. And you know, it's kind of funny, but it's also kind of moving that that humans had this relationship with bees. They did it in 2022 when the queen and queen uh Elizabeth or whoever it was. Queen Elizabeth, you know what? I say they're Elizabeth of Victoria, and I I should know, but I also don't care. The queen, the whole queen thing, you gotta grow up England. That's crazy. Um, so the long you know, remember the queen that was real old who died recently? I can't believe I'm blanking on her name. Um Queen Elizabeth. That was it. It's Elizabeth, I'm confident. It's Elizabeth Victoria was like a century before, but they had to go tell there's like a royal beekeeper, which talk about a sweet, talk about a sweet job in 2022. Like royal beekeeper. First of all, AI is not taking your job. And second, just I assume it, I assume it pays well. It'd be kind of crazy if they didn't pay the royal beekeeper well. Um, but so he there was like a video I watched where he went and told the bees. He was like, uh, your queen's dead, you know, I'm sorry, but just stay here. Because a lot, that's the other thing, too. I think they they were saying they were telling the bees so the bees wouldn't leave because bees will migrate. They'll leave the I was reading these things of like beekeepers who were heartbroken because their bees left them, which is an interesting idea that like the bees could break up with you. You know, you wouldn't think that would that doesn't happen with like chickens. You never wake up and your chickens leave a note, like we just don't like it here. Um and people had these really intense relationships with bees. And yeah, so it going back to it being a roar shark test, it was interesting was um when you read about what each culture thought bees were doing, again, it's kind of about them, right? So the the uh the ancient Egyptians like we're talking about how the bees build these big hives and how that was um like a testament to their greatness. And it basically just sounded like the Egyptians were being like, see, these pyramids are not crazy, it's not insane for us to build huge uh triangles in the desert. And then the Romans were obsessed with the way that the queens would fight to the death and succeed each other, which again makes sense, right? Because the Romans are having all these different emperors and they're fighting, and there's the Eastern Roman Empire and the Western Roman Empire, and so they're kind of there's all these succession crises, so it's interesting to see them sort of again make it about themselves. Um the English people were very into bees. Uh, they actually want some guy found out, he's the guy who figured out that the top the bee, the queen is a girl. They thought until like the 1600s, they were like the the king bee. Um, which again, I think that makes sense to me, right? Because they they have a monarchy, they have a king and a queen, they're like, this is like I was talking about nature has a lot of the best ideas, and I think people I think when people see something in nature, they go, like, that's natural, that's right, therefore I feel better about doing it in my own life. So people look at bees, and then whatever they want to believe, what you know, have a monarchy or whatever, they go, Oh, see, they're doing it. You know, how how far off could we be? And then the founding fathers of America talked about the how the hive was this democracy, and they were all working together for the greater good, which you know, it's a very American idea. Um, so it's interesting to see uh people see what they want to see in bees. And then I was thinking about you know, my own relationship with bees and the the modern relationship with bees. And I think most people kind of don't care, they kind of don't know anything about bees. They don't they hope they go, I don't want to get stung. And we're like the first, we're the first uh civilization who's really not that into bees. Like we just it doesn't really matter to us. I think we're like the first time period where that's true, and I think it's probably a reflection of just we are living in this weird time where all these things that mattered to everybody before us are kind of falling away. It kind of kind of bummed me out in that way, right? Like, I think we're living through this time where community matters a lot less. It's we're like some of the first people to be as detached from our food as we are. Uh, you know, I was reading this thing or in the in this research, and they were talking about Thomas Jefferson spent a lot of his time trying to get like the wells on his property right, you know, because he was like, ah, the water is you know messed up again. And so he's you think about that, he's a powerful, famous guy, and he's dealing with like his own water sanitation. And we just live in this world where you just you turn a handle and then water comes out, and if it if it's bad, I mean people won't even drink tap water, they're like, ugh. So we're so detached from all the things other everybody who came before us had to care about, right? Like the community doesn't matter. You can kind of be you can kind of be solo, live on your phone. You don't have to grow your own food. That's that's pretty new. Most people grew a lot of their food. Um, you don't have to think about like the day-to-day, you know, sanitation and water and all these things. So it's it was I think it makes sense that most people don't care about bees because we're just not living lives where you're connected to the stuff that we've always been connected to. And I think it's bad for us. I don't think that's you know, to be clear, I think that's a mistake. But I I also make sense to me. When I lived in a duplex in East Nashville as like a young comedian, it didn't who cares what it was like outside. It just didn't have any bearing on my life. Um so it's it was interesting to see, yeah, we don't we don't really think about bees, and we're like one of the first cultures to not really I mean there's so many more examples. I don't want to bore you with all of them, but there was you know, Napoleon was obsessed with bees, the family that became some of the first popes, um, they were obsessed with bees. The symbol of Manchester in England is like the bees because they're like workers, worker bees, all that stuff. So it was, uh Yeah, it was it was I don't know, it just made me think about that a lot. It was just every culture has had this relationship with bees, they've seen themselves and and how they view the bees, and then we kind of don't care because we can afford not to, and and but I don't think it makes our life better. I think it, you know, I'm I'm living this, I'm really into the garden recently. I've had a bunch of like life changes since I got uh, you know, I got engaged, I got married, we moved out to a place where we have a yard, all sorts of stuff. And it's you know, your your circumstances sort of shape your life in a lot of ways. Um and I'm I'm happier this way. I I find that I'm really I like being connected to nature and the you know the weather matters to me more than just like, is my flight gonna get delayed? You know, stuff like that. So yeah, it was interesting to see. I don't know. I I kind of just went into this episode thinking that bees would just be like an interesting bug. And then I left being like, oh, it's you know, bees, I think say a lot more about us than we think. And we're we're living through a bad bee time. It's bees are um in like in 2022, I think 63% of bee commercial beehives collapse. There's a thing called like sudden collapse disorder or something, and it's it's all the stuff I was talking about where it's like, you know, people use pesticides and people have lawns, people have, you know, I'm they used to have like bees need flowers, they need places to nest, and if you just have this perfect manicured suburban lawn, I know that I'm very anti-lawn on this spot, and that's okay. I'm not trying to, you know, I kind of I'm split. If you have a beautiful lawn and you like mowing and all that stuff, I get it. I like mowing too, and it's I it there's something there's something fun about looking at like a I got a neighbor who stripes his lawn perfectly, and every time I'm like, damn, that guy's kind of cool. Uh but I also, you know, I'm I don't think I'm headed that way. I think I'm I'm actually like I'm kind of like the lawn as a cult. We should get out of the lawn, we should just plant wildflowers and perennials and stuff for, you know, just for the it just we there's an ecosystem. There's a whole system that functions and all these things play a role and it's it's pretty miraculous how uh connected it is. And yeah, I want to do I want to do what I can to help the bees. They say that you can help the bees. You just have if you have things blooming, you know, native perennials, um, native flowers, a lot of like a lot of flowers they make because they're beautiful don't actually benefit the bees because they don't pollinate, or I don't understand enough to know how they work, but I they just don't do what bees are depending on. Um they also say if you put like a bee bath, which is different than a bird bath, but a bee bath like you know, one to two inches of water, because you know they can't. Bees aren't good swimmers, they're not good at everything. And uh you let the bees have access to water, that helps, all that stuff. But it was yeah, it was just interesting to yeah, it made me think a lot about my own life in the in the arc it's taken, and that uh yeah, the the more I the more I live a life where I go, what's going on with the bees? And it feels like more traditional and makes more sense to me. Um, it just makes me feel good. I really like it. So yeah, I mean, I you know, there's so much more stuff about bees, and I'm not I'm not smart enough to tell you all of it, but I will say they're they're very interesting. If you want to take a deep dive, I mean YouTube's got great bee stuff. Um there's also the Nashville Beekeepers Association. I don't know what it is. I just found it in my research. I'm gonna try to go to an event and learn some stuff. They say that the state food of Tennessee is um sourwood honey with biscuits. And I don't think I've ever had sourwood honey. And I wanna I'm gonna go seek it out. I'm gonna go try to find it. I guess it's an East Tennessee honey that local bees make. That's another thing that was interesting. There's like Tennessee has 80 types of native bees. And the act, you know, honey bees are doing okay because there's there's money in them, right? There's like commercial honey bees, those ones that are going to California for the almonds. And those, everything where there's money behind it will always survive, right? But it's like the native bees that do different, you know, there's leafcutter bees, there's carpenter bees, there's mason bees, there's all these crazy bees. There's uh, there's uh, what are they called? Vulture bees. We don't have them here, but I guess in Africa, there's every crazy animal is in like Africa or Australia. Um there's these bees that eat meat and then create honey from it, which I I I kind of want to try. That seems it seems gnarly, but it also seems very sick. Um yeah. So they this I got a note here, the sourwood honey, it's there's one type of tree that they can, I guess, build their hives in. It's from one mountain range, and it's like three weeks is the harvest. And so I've never had that. I'm gonna try to find it. If you know where to find it in Tennessee, tell me. I'll go track it down. Um, but that just seems I love stuff like that. Again, it's just cool. It's cool to it's cool to not buy just the honey and I mean I love the bear jar. That's one of the great inventions of of marketing. But I'm gonna try to find uh try to find more honey and try to learn stuff about it. Um but yeah, so there we they had all this going back to the bees collapsing recently, there was like some mite called like the Varroa destructor mite. They always have funny varroa destructor, sounds like a wrestler, but so it was this mite and it was giving bees deformed wing uh disease, and then they would it would mess up the colonies. But they recently found some way to they feed a queen something and it then the queen, all her larva are like immune to the mites. I think they said they like, I think it's like a vaccine of some kind. They crush up the mites and they give it to the queen, and then from then on there uh, I don't know, I guess, say from the mite, which again it sounds like it might be it could be something that destroys all the all the bees. It might be one of those like we solved the problem, we ruined it, but it might be, it might work and be great. I don't know. I'm not I'm not informed enough to know, but um, I hope the bees are doing good. I hope that it, you know, I hope that was just a blip and they're gonna deal with the mite. And um yeah, it'll be great. But yeah, I really enjoyed this, man. I had a I had a ton of fun learning about the bees. I'm gonna see if I can. I don't know if I'm gonna go full on uh have a hive. That seems that seems like a lot. Uh but I would like to I would like to be like a bee ally, right? That's I would like to do something to help the bees. There was also just some fun stuff just before we get out of here. Um the the whole uh so the bees have like there's like a government branch that handles bees in Tennessee, and it's just one guy. It's just a guy named Mike Studer, and you can call him. His number 615-517-4451, and you're allowed to call him and I guess just ask any. I don't know what the bee government does. I didn't even know the government was involved with bees, but I go, all right, that's kind of fun. Um, but uh yeah, it was uh it was cool. Also, so there's just here's some fun facts in the industry because I thought they were interesting. Um, beekeeping during World War II, protected job. The government was like, we have to have beekeepers because they knew they were essential to food production. Uh the whole bee's knees thing, that's the what you know, and people say it's a bee's knee. I mean, not people you want to hang out with, but people will say it. Uh bees knees, it's from Flapper Slang, which is, I think I opened for a comedian named Flapper Slang once. Uh they it so like the the flappers in the 20s, they had all these fun phrases like bees knees. Here were the other ones that didn't didn't survive till now. Cats pajamas, I've still heard that. That's out. I mean, it's always like a freak saying it, but they say it. The gnat's elbows, never gonna work. Kippers knickers, never gonna work. The ducks nuts, that doesn't even that one it feels like they weren't even trying. They were just like uh ducks uh nuts. You're like, that doesn't even rhyme. You're not even whatever. Um so there's a then there were three, they were so I told you about the the crazy vulture bees, those are cool. There's also wallace giant bees, which they go, they nest in termite mounds, and I guess they like mess up the termites, kind of cool when they're beating up other animals. Um, it's like a two-inch bee, and then the African killer bees, you know about those, they're African and killer. Um but uh oh, and then there were orchid bees, which it said the males collect perfume all their lives. And then the female bees are like mean to them because of it, which I like again. If you make the bees human, some of these stories are uh very funny. But yeah, I mean, it was really cool. I really enjoyed this episode. I uh I'm having fun. All it's funny, like that this just makes me you learn about plants, and then you learn about bees, and then you learn. I'm curious what will come next, but I've had so much fun um learning all this stuff, and you know, this is stuff I used to do on my own, just kind of deep dive something, and having a way to structure it and turn it into a podcast has been great. So, yeah, thanks everybody who listened. A lot of you have listened to all the episodes and commented, and I really that's super nice and it means a lot. And uh yeah, I mean, if you want to do all the stuff, if you want to like and subscribe and comment, all that stuff is very helpful. I'm gonna keep doing this pod. I really enjoy it and hope that I can grow it into something cool. But um, yeah, thanks so much for listening. I will see you guys next week. And oh, if you're listening to this, this will come out after. I'll be in Dallas and Houston with my buddy Dusty this weekend. We're doing the Majestic Theater and somewhere else. And this will be in the past, but I hope the shows went well. I hope they were great. And if you were there, thanks. So, all right, everybody. Thanks very much. See you next week.