WEBVTT - From the Vault: Tears of Re 0:00:05.960 --> 0:00:08.360 Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:08.400 --> 0:00:11.440 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:14.720 The vault is open and it beckons. That's right. In fact, 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.799 the vault is giving us bees this week, lots of 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:21.599 bees covered in bees. Yes, they're everywhere because we are 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:26.880 revisiting an episode that originally published March seventeenth, two thousand sixteen, 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:33.400 in which we chat with author entomologist Jean Kritsky, author 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:36.320 of a wonderful book titled The Tears of Ray. Yeah, 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:39.160 this episode was a lot of fun. Jean was great 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:42.440 to talk to, and I remember it fondly, as I 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:46.040 often do BE related topics, but especially be related topics 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:48.479 that can get into ancient mythology. Yeah, you have ancient 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:52.400 Egypt and honey bees. Uh, what's not to love? Author 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:59.280 in my eyes? All right, let's dive in. Welcome to 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:13.160 Stuff to Blow your Mind from housetup works dot com. 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:16.319 The god Ray wept, and the tears from his eyes 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:19.600 fell on the ground and turned into a bee. The 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:23.479 bee made his honeycomb and busied himself with the flowers 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:27.479 of every plant, and so wax was made and also 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:38.200 honey out of the Tears of Ray. H Hey, welcome 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:39.759 to stuff to blow your mind. My name is Robert 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.440 Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And that was a beautiful 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:46.080 little reading. Robert, what was that? That quote comes to 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:50.120 us from a nine translation of a three hundred b 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:55.520 CE bit of writing. It's it's essentially cursive hieroglyphs, which 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:59.880 is called the hieratic writing. And more specifically, this wonderful 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:04.360 uh little expert comes from a book titled The Tears 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:09.000 of Ray be Keeping an Ancient Egypt by Jean Kritzky. 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:10.760 And at the end of this episode we're going to 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:13.520 chat with the author just a little bit about some 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:15.640 of the material we're discussing here and about the book 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:18.600 The Tears of Ray. This was a very interesting book. 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:20.840 Robert and I both read it for this episode, and 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:24.880 it essentially it covers the relationship between the ancient Egyptians 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:31.679 and the honeybee, the complex economic, religious, and scientific relationship, 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:34.400 you might say, going back and forth between them. But 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:37.600 we should start, I guess with Ray, because that's the 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:40.360 focus of the poems segment you read at the beginning. 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:44.480 Who is Ray? Ray? You may be more familiar with 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:48.760 the name Raw are a uh, the sun god, the 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:52.359 creator god of the ancient Egyptians, as often depicted as 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:55.280 sort of like a bird's head, the head of a falcon, 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:58.680 but also a sun disc that travels across the sky 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:02.560 and then of as dusk it gets eaten and then 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:04.680 goes into the underworld. Well, actually I think those are 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:06.799 two different myths. Right, it goes into the underworld and 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:08.960 then comes back out. But there's another version where Ray 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:12.000 gets eaten and then gets re birthed. Yeah, and there's 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:14.120 a there's a lot of material about the like he 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:16.880 travels across the sky and a solar barge, and then 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:19.639 there's a different barge that travels through the underworld at night, 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:24.640 and and sometimes the additional gods on those barges. It's uh, 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:27.840 it's it's very complex. One of the things I definitely 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:30.560 did find out from this book is that these days, 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:33.440 if you want to be in line with the academic 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:37.680 Egyptology community, you say Ray, not Raw. Now. I I 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:41.280 got Raw from the movie Stargate, where Raw is the 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:44.680 bad guy who is essentially an alien version of an 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:49.000 Egyptian god. But but that that's not anymore, it's right. Yeah, 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:54.720 Plus most most Egyptologists dismiss uh Stargate as a reputable 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:58.200 source of real days. Yeah. I don't know why, but 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.040 but yeah, this this episode, I hopefully what we're gonna 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:05.160 do here is is we will will allow you to 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:08.720 leave the podcast with maybe a little more understanding and 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.960 respect for the kingdom of the bees and a little 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:15.480 more respect and understanding for the kingdom of ancient Egypt, 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:20.400 because there's a there's so much complexity in both and uh, 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:23.400 and it's fascinating to sort of look here at this 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:27.080 this kingdom within a kingdom and how they how they 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:29.920 were related to each other. Oh, the b kingdom within 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:33.680 the Egyptian yea, because because yeah, we have a monarch, uh, 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:39.400 monarchy within the honey bee hive, and then workers we 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:43.960 have a lot of workers toiling away involved in this industry. 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:47.760 And then uh, we have this we have ancient Egypt. 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:53.119 We have another monarchy with a very complex system of order. Uh, 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:55.520 A lot of industry going on, a lot of workers 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:58.719 toiling to make it all possible. And also sort of 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:02.719 a two ways cyber by addic symbiotic relationship. Yeah. Indeed, 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:05.760 but I guess we should start with the bee first, 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:09.839 because obviously the b pre dates ancient Egypt as a civilization, 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:13.360 probably not the land mass. So Robert, where do bees 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:16.640 come from? Well, I'm glad you asked, Joe. Let me 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:19.839 tell you about the bees. Uh, you'd have to travel 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:23.440 back about a hundred million maybe a hundred thirty million years, 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:26.440 depending on who you're talking to, all the way back 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:30.200 to the Cretaceous period. Okay, you'd find dinosaurs roam to 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:32.480 the earth. Yeah. Yeah, we're going away back here, and 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:35.720 you find a world rather different than the one we're 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:39.680 we encountered today. Uh, devoid of flowering plants and occupied 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:44.120 mostly by conifers, which depend on the wind to spread 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:47.719 their seats. Can you imagine that? I mean a world 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:51.800 where where reproduction depends entirely on the whims of the weather. 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:55.720 Like can you imagine if animals Because trees can't walk 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:59.359 around and find each other to mate, they're stuck in 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:02.599 place ease and bushes, you know, whatever you want. Plants 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:07.120 are not very mobile, so they essentially have to spray 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:11.440 their reproductive material into the air, just hoping it gets 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:14.800 somewhere worthwhile by chance. Yeah. Indeed, this is just an 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:17.760 earlier state, and there's just the the the evolution of 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:20.200 seed transfer. So there are no flowers and there's certainly 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:24.240 no pollination. Now there were There were no bees at 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:27.680 this point, but there were wasps. And these wasps were 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:32.240 also kind of different from the wasps that we encounter today. 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:35.720 They were hymenoptera, the order that wasts and bees are in. Yeah, 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:38.120 indeed they were, now they were, but they were carnivorous. 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:41.440 They preyed on spiders and other insects and many of 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:45.960 which in turn fed on vegetation. Uh so a lot. So, 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:48.120 so we have a traffic going on here all right. 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:50.640 Seeds are going into the air, the wasps are eating 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:53.279 the insects that live on the plants. But plant of 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.200 evolution eventually begins to make the most out of this 0:06:56.400 --> 0:07:00.279 constant insect traffic, using it like the wind and to 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:03.560 carry a genetic material from plant to plant, and this 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:06.280 results in the rise of angiosperms. These are plants that 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:09.640 depend on insects to spread genetic material and pollen from 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:14.400 male plant parts called anthers to female parts called stigmas. 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:17.520 This is one of those moments I often want to say, like, oh, 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:21.760 how smart that is. It's like as if somebody planned it. Now, 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.920 of course it wasn't These are just the the wonderful 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:29.560 ingenuities of evolution acting upon the environment. But uh, it's 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:31.680 fascinating how things like this come about. So you have 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:34.679 to imagine a system where these plants are pollinating by wind, 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:38.720 but they have this this sperm the pollination material I 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:43.800 guess you would say pollen. Uh, And somehow insects start 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:47.520 getting this stuff on their bodies. Right, Essentially, a new 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.360 wind emerges and that wind is the movement of these insects. 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:54.880 And then, of course, once that works out for long enough, 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:58.600 plants sort of evolve traits to specialize in that mode 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:02.120 of transmission. It's no longer accident, it's how they work now. 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.080 In indeed, you see the the emergence of the delicious 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:08.960 nectar to sweeten the deal for the pollen carrying insects, 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:12.200 saying hey, come here, get all nice and covered in polony. 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:16.760 And I'm totally anthropomorphizing the entire process here, My apologies, 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:21.640 but but yeah, essentially bribing the insects with the with 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:23.880 the the delicious nectar to get them to carry the pollen, 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:26.760 giving them a specific reason to traffic the parts of 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:29.480 the plant where pollen is produced. So I can imagine 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:32.840 if you're some wasp d thirty five thirty million years 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:36.280 ago and you've been hunting insects. That's that's tough work, 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:39.000 you know, it's it's really tough. Now, if you could 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:42.520 just start getting all of your meals from a passive 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:45.760 plant that will sit there and let you just lap 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:50.080 up delicious sweet things from its open maw, that I mean, 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:53.400 what a nice deal. Yeah, Yes, suddenly there's this, there's 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:56.880 this wonderful new way to get the food you need now. Granted, 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:01.520 there's still there's still sort of tie to their predatory past, 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:04.560 and indeed today, um you'll you have you can look 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:08.760 at most common wasps and they're depending upon upon nectar 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:10.640 as their primary food, but they still have to turn 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:14.560 to their carnivorous ways when it comes to rearing their young, 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:19.640 implanting their young in the belly off another creature wasps. 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:23.520 Oh yeah, yeah, which is just a wonderful area that 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:26.320 we have explored in past podcast and I'm sure will 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:28.400 return in the future. Christian and I talked about it 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:30.839 in our X Files episode. Yes of course, yeah, that 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:35.600 parasitoid wasps are Not only is it just an endlessly 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:38.760 fascinating area, but we just get new studies each year 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:42.480 with either a new type of parasitoid wasp or some 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:45.920 new details about a species we are already familiar with. Yeah, 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:48.920 so the wasps evolved to to live off of what 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:51.400 is provided by the plants, and in an interesting way, 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:54.600 I think we could think about this as the plants 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:59.720 domesticating livestock. Yeah, the plants have domesticated the live stock 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:02.280 of in insects in order to do their bidding. And 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:04.760 of course the wasps are one thing, but it's the 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:08.200 bees where we really see this takeoff, because of course 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:13.120 bees evolve from wasps, they're all related. But the bees 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:15.960 are actually they're getting the nectar. They're bringing it back 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:20.280 for their young. They're they're they're they're they're creating honey, 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:23.920 they're creating these uh, these these waxy nests. They are 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:28.959 completely beholden to the nectar. Uh. They're no longer going 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:34.080 out and and specifically killing other creatures to rear their young. Okay, 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:36.839 so when we're talking about honey bees, true honey bees, 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:39.880 that this is the genus APIs right, Yes, and that's 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:42.760 why we also refer to it as uh is apriculture. 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:47.920 Oh yeah, bee keeping not the keeping of apes. A 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:50.719 fun fact to remember, by the way, next time you're 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:53.320 adding a dab of honey to your earl gray tea, 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:57.520 Is that honey is bee barf? Right? Yes? Is how 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:02.000 honey is produced. It's produced by uh bees grabbing some 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:05.400 sweet nectar, which is pretty much sugar water from plants 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:10.760 and then going through a complex process of regurgitation and evaporation. Yeah, 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:13.679 so they're kind of uh, you know, distilling it, refining 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:18.200 it through their They're just regigitation of the material, you know, 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:21.640 And I should I should also mentioned that, uh, when 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.040 it comes to two bees, we have bumble bees, we 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:26.080 have stingless bees, and we even have a few other 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:29.400 non bee species that produce honey and small amounts. But 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:31.360 for the most part, we're you know, we're dealing with 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:35.280 those uh, those APIs honey bees, which are the superstars, 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:39.200 the generators of like a true bounty and excess of honey, 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:42.120 uh in the amount that it makes sense for humans 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:45.160 to raise them and pillage their stores. Now, when I 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:48.040 was a kid, I used to wonder how we eat honey. 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:50.080 But I know bees make honey. I did not know 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:52.520 that they barfed honey up for us. I didn't know 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:54.800 that they made honey, but I didn't know what they 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:56.640 did with it. I was like, why do they make it? 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:59.520 Is it just? What is it? What's it for? Did 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:02.560 the bees themselves eat the honey? Yeah, they stored as 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:05.760 a primary food source. They also eat what is called 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:09.679 bee bread, which is a semiary cute name. Yeah. Yeah, 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:13.040 it's essentially like a pollen cake, you know. But yeah, 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:17.560 the the honey is a food source for the bee people, 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:21.040 if you will. Um, And they stored away and those 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:25.400 waxy cells in the honeycomb. But you mentioned wax. Of course, 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:29.160 wax is another important byproduct of bee culture. It's it's 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:33.480 their second great technology, yes, indeed, and uh and the 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:36.880 wax that the workers actually secrete from specialized glands on 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:41.079 the underside of their abdomen's wait what they secrete it? Yeah? Essentially, 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:42.959 you know, you can think of them as like wax nipples. 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:45.840 I guess, um, the bee the bees have wax nipples 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:48.120 and they put out the wax and what it's a 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.480 little flaky lipids for us. Yeah, And they get the 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:55.320 raw materials for this metabolized product through the consumption of 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:57.800 that honey and that be bread, which we already mentioned 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:01.240 and the be bread. Uh I should also have have 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:06.319 pointed out that it's essentially a collected fermented pollen. So um, 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:09.040 so these service the so it kind of goes around 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:11.679 in a circle, right, the nectar, the honey, the wax, 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:16.199 this whole um, this whole little little city for the insects, 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:19.280 built from the bounty of the flowers. Yeah. Now, long 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:24.040 before humans started formalized apriculture, before they started making bee 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:26.679 hives to keep bees in to sort of have an 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:31.280 agriculture of insects, they hunted honey. Right, there was wild 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:33.840 honey hunting. The same way you would hunt game in 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:37.120 the forest or on the savannah, you could hunt honey 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:40.000 just as it occurred in a bee hive that might 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:42.480 be hanging from a tree. And there are actually ancient 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:45.480 works of cave art that depict this. Yeah, there's still 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:48.520 also honey hunting traditions that survived to this day. And 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:50.839 it's essentially the same thing a bear does. Right of 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:53.200 a bear breaks into a honey hive or a honey badger, 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:55.760 it goes after some some bees as well. You just 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:58.640 you find out where the hive is, you locate it, 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:01.440 and then you you who is the best skills at 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:04.360 your disposal to break in there and get as much 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:07.079 dripping honeycomb as possible and run off with it. Now, 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:10.640 Krisky's book has an illustration, or not an illustration. It 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:12.760 does have an illustration, but also a photo of this 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:16.760 great cave painting from Spain that seems to depict honey 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:19.560 hunting from How how old is this thing? Yeah, this 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:22.800 dates back seven thousand to eight thousand years, so that 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:27.040 gives us a rough estimate not not not where it began, 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:29.960 but at least how far it probably goes. Yeah, and 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:33.120 so what what's depicted in the painting is this great setup. 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:35.120 It looks like a scene from a movie where you've 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:38.640 got somebody hanging from a rope apparently off a cliff, 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:42.160 being lowered down to an area where there's a tree 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:44.960 with a bee's nest hanging off of it, and reaching 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:47.080 in to grab the honey and you can see bees 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:50.840 swarming around the person. I mean, that's a lot of 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:54.720 trust in whoever's holding the rope, right, yeah, and uh 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:56.800 and and and you know you're just getting just the 0:14:56.800 --> 0:14:59.080 b Jesus stung out of you the whole time. But 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:03.640 it's just such I mean especially in a energy density, 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:06.320 energy counsity of that of that that score. I mean, 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:10.240 this stuff is just it's pure gold, uh, nutritionally speaking, 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:13.400 so you're going to occasionally do what it takes to 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:15.680 get it and bring it back, not to mention the 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:18.400 value you're going to have bringing that stuff back to 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:21.000 your community. But I guess we should now look at 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:25.480 when when true apriculture started. When did we start having 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:28.560 bee hives where where we sort of set up an 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:31.760 enclosure and said bees go live in there, here's where 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:34.960 you should make your homes, and they obeyed. Alright, So 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:39.520 it's best we can tell. Bee keeping probably emerged by accident, 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:42.880 probably in the fertile crescent um. And probably what you 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:47.000 had happened was you have human industries is creating all 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:50.760 of these different pots and containers, uh for your various 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:55.400 agricultural efforts, and one might leave a pot hanging around 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:59.440 somewhere unused. Suddenly some bees come in, they take up 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:03.200 a resident in the pot, and this could theoretically serve 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:08.240 as as like the first accidental bee hive that's actually 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:10.920 kept by the beekeepers and they realize, oh bees will 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:14.360 will will actually build their nest in this uh, the spot. 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:16.080 If I leave it out for them, there's a chance 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:18.240 I'll have my own captive honey. I've yeah. I mean 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:20.560 talk about turning a loss into a wind. So imagine 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:22.560 you know you've got this jar that you were planning 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:26.160 on keeping full of urgad infested rye uh, and you 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:28.040 go back to get it and suddenly it's full of 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:31.360 bees and you're like, oh man, my plans are spoiled. 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:33.520 I'm gonna get stung cleaning this thing out. But then 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:37.080 you realize you have access to all this sweet sweet honey. Yeah. 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:39.880 And and not only the honey, but the wax. The 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:43.800 wax is key because uh, there is evidence of lost 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:49.480 wax castings uh dating back to thirty BC. Now a 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:52.400 lost wax casting for anyone not familiar, this has to 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:57.040 do with, uh with a cast used to make uh 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:01.240 like a metal objects in which it's you build like 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:04.600 the clay or what have you, around a wax model 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:06.560 of the thing you're going to build, and then you 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:09.119 melt the wax out of there. And while you have 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:12.280 this mold which you can use to make metal tacks. 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:15.800 It's a way of turning easily multiple wax into metal, 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:19.440 which is pretty awesome. Yeah. So the only thing here 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:22.679 is that you don't have to be a beekeeper to 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:25.400 get that wax. That wax could have been obtained through 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:29.440 honey hunting. We just don't know. Um. But when when 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:35.159 it comes to actually finding the the earliest evidence of 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:38.639 bee raising, of bee keeping, then you really have to 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:42.359 go to the Egyptians, to the ancient Egyptians. Uh. And 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:46.440 this would put us around three thousand BC. That's five 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.800 thousand years ago. Yeah. I mean it's amazing just to consider, 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:54.200 completely separate from the topic of beekeeping, how enormously long 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:58.960 ancient Egypt went on. Yeah, we're talking roughly. You have 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:03.760 five thousand years of of human history wound up in 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:09.040 the ancient Egyptians. U A a civilization that after you know, 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:10.719 even when it was going it was it was an 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:14.680 ancient civilization. Um. And of course it's gonna it's impossible 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:18.000 for us to summarize, you know, thousands of years of 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:20.399 ancient history, the ebb and flow of political and social 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:22.560 change here. Uh. You know, in the In the same 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:25.359 way that Egyptian history is tied closely to the Nile, 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:29.000 so too is the region's history a long, twisting, swelling, 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:33.080 shrinking movement. Across the landscape of human history. But to summarize, 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:37.080 we're talking the civilization of ancient North Africa, generally attributed 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:42.880 to lasting from roughly thirty one hundred BC to three 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:46.560 and twenty two uh see. So that's talking about the 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:49.879 transition out of the Stone Age, out of the Nearithic period, 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:53.439 the beginning of large scale civilization in ancient Egypt until 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:55.439 the time I think they mark the end of it 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:58.920 with the time that the last hieroglyphic carvings were made 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:01.240 in Egypt. Yes, and it's the one in three hundred 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:05.200 some things. He correct. Now. You can also some historians 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:08.480 um And and authors including Jane Chrisky also go ahead 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:11.520 and include that Neolithic period and that would put the 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:16.400 beginning around fifty undred BC. So that's where you would 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:19.800 get a total time period of around uh five thousand, 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:23.040 one hundred and sixty three years of culture. Yeah. So 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:25.359 for those of you who think it's been forever since 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:29.800 the American Revolution or something like that, it is such 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:32.600 a tiny blip. Modern history is such a tiny blip 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:36.399 humans who really dwarfs the modern age. So you know, 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:40.879 that's essentially the time period we're talking about, and during 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:44.240 that time the ancient Egyptians demonstrated their expertise of a 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:49.000 number of general and highly specialized categories and skills. They 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:52.640 were accomplished farmers and engineers. They were artists and linguists. 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:56.600 They were soldiers, they were astrologers, they were doctors, and 0:19:56.800 --> 0:19:59.879 much more. I mean, everyone knows about the Pyramids and 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:04.000 areous architectural marvel marvels that survived this day. Everyone knows 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:06.720 about the rich history of mummification, which we've talked about 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:10.080 here on the show before, but there other stuff just 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:13.199 continues continually fascinates me when I read about it. For instance, 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:17.440 to find out that ancient Egyptians perform surgical skin graphs 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:21.919 as early as eight hundred BC UM and uh, indeed, 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:25.159 as we're discussing in this episode, that they practice uh 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:29.800 the earliest known examples of apriculture. Okay, well, once Egyptian 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:33.720 civilization is underway, once we've got our our dynasties and 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:38.120 our organized hierarchical civilization and culture, we we should look 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:40.760 at the role bees and honey played in that. And 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:42.680 one of the first things I think we can observe 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:46.920 is that there is a glyph in the ancient Egyptian 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:50.480 hieroglyphic language. It's one of their symbols, that's a honey bee. 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:53.320 That's right, Yeah, it's um. It shows up in some 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:56.920 of the earliest examples of ancient Egyptian writing. UM. In fact, 0:20:57.000 --> 0:21:00.919 we we see it in use by the Old Kingdom 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:09.080 that's h D seven through. And we probably shouldn't try 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:11.439 to get too much into talking about the different ages 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:14.840 froch in Egypt, but essentially there's an Old Kingdom that 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:17.440 goes on for a long time with many Pharaonic dynasties, 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:20.679 and then there's an intermediate period that's sort of like 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:24.119 a Dark Age, and then there is a Middle Kingdom, 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:28.000 and then there's another break in that there's another intermediate period, 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:29.920 and then there's a new Kingdom, and then of course 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:34.080 there's the Greco Roman period. But but essentially coming into 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:36.840 the Middle Age. Yeah, but but essentially at this point, 0:21:37.359 --> 0:21:39.399 just think of this that the Great Pyramid and the 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:43.840 Sphinx are there, they're relatively newly constructed, and there's evidence 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:48.600 already that the Egyptians had at that point uh mastered 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:52.960 to some degree beekeeping and we're producing honey Okay, Yeah, 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:56.640 according to um to Kritsky, here there's evidence from around 0:21:56.680 --> 0:22:01.040 this point that you actually had a a row in 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:04.760 the in the governmental structure known as the seiler of honey. 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:08.040 There's an individual who was the seiler of honey, and 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:13.399 this at least suggests either very organized honey hunting or 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:18.960 quite possibly the beginnings of industrialized um beekeeping. You know, 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:21.800 I love this title that you see throughout ancient Egypt. 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:25.760 The seiler. Yeah, the person who seals and that that 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:29.239 abuse an authority. Yeah, it reminds me a lot of 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:31.520 our our recent episode on the INCA, and we talked 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:35.040 about the importance within a government, with importance within an empire, 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:38.640 of of having a way to of course record uh, 0:22:38.680 --> 0:22:41.800 you know, amounts when it comes to goods, the the 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:44.720 price of goods, the exchange of goods, and then also 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:47.600 being able to to seal it and say this is 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:51.679 what is contained within and uh and someone is accountable 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:54.879 for it. Yeah. It's a very wonderful physical metaphor for 0:22:54.920 --> 0:22:59.119 having the final word on something. But so we do 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:02.159 see in ancient in Egypt the evidence of the first 0:23:02.480 --> 0:23:06.800 organized beekeeping, right. Yeah. The The current earliest known evidence 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:12.920 takes this uh to uh around UH hundred and thirteen 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:16.159 d c E and specifically, it takes us to the 0:23:16.240 --> 0:23:19.840 solar temple chasap be Brick. So what we have here 0:23:20.200 --> 0:23:23.680 within the ruins of this solar temple, that's again it's 0:23:23.760 --> 0:23:28.040 it's devoted to to ray. We see decorative color reliefs 0:23:28.080 --> 0:23:32.800 that show off scenes of desert wildlife, boating and beep keeping. Yeah, 0:23:32.840 --> 0:23:35.760 and it's got these different vignettes that actually showed the stage. 0:23:35.800 --> 0:23:38.760 I mean, it's not just sort of like a cartoon like, oh, 0:23:38.800 --> 0:23:42.520