WEBVTT - How Bees Work 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:03.199 Brought to you by the two thousand twelve Toyota Camry. 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:07.960 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:16.800 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:20.280 There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and you put us together, 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:24.120 give us a little nextar let us um collect pollen 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:26.920 with the hair on our bodies. And you have stuff 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:30.280 you should not be a lot of pollen, you know. Yeah, 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:35.479 honeymaking fools. Yeah, you would be best at is Ronny Williams. 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:39.360 Oh man, that guy's scary. Yes, you would be a 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:43.800 honeymaking fool. How you doing well, sir? How are you? 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:47.080 I'm pretty good. It's a little early, uh it is, 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:49.440 it is, but you're feeling good. Yeah, man, I love 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:52.600 recording in the mornings. Yeah, been up since six am 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:55.800 reading about bees. Yeah. Well this is ah I can amazine. 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:57.640 You could. You could have gotten up at four or 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:00.400 five because it's like the most extensive article in the 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:04.600 universe is how bees work. It's Tracy Wilson joint and 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:09.480 so it's thorough and exhaustive and exhausting. But it's a 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:13.039 good one. Dude. I love bees. Yeah, I hate bees. 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:19.119 Do you really why? Because they sting, they hurt, they 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:21.320 make me get up at six am. You only they're 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:25.920 fascinating creatures. Uh yeah, de Meal like them. Okay, well 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:30.720 you got to talk about him anyway. How about Um. 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:33.679 I don't really have much of a an intro, which 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:36.280 is probably for the best because this is a really 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:38.880 long episode. There's a lot of facts, Yeah, there are 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:42.000 in parts and things. Let's talk bees, man, how long 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:45.360 have they been around? Bees have been around for a 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:49.760 gazillion years. Uh, they've been around for a long time. 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:53.480 Ancient Egyptians um in fact, that there were sort of 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.440 magical creatures that the sun got rock cried down upon 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.600 the earth. Yeah, which is fanciful, and that's where bees 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:02.600 came from. But that's not where they came from. Uh. 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:07.000 The San people think that we came from bees of 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:09.520 the Kalahari. The San people. Yeah, yeah, they have this 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:12.120 creation myth that a bee was carrying a mannis across 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:16.640 the desert, got tired, died. Before it died, it laid 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:19.200 some eggs in the mantis, and then that became the 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:22.359 first human and that's where we came from. Not buy 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:27.480 that really? Sure? Why not? Uh? A lot of people 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:31.959 used to think that um, including beekeepers that they reproduced 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:36.280 spontaneously they didn't like have intercourse to do so. And 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:39.960 this was true until the mid six hundreds when a 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:45.440 very cool dude named jam swimmer Dam examined bees under 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:47.959 a microscope and saw a little reproductive parts. Yeah, we 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:51.200 got all wrong, he went, and I'm Jams swimmer Dam. 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:54.160 That's a pretty great name. It's a great name. That's 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:56.240 a good at that. Uh. Is that what he was? 0:02:56.520 --> 0:03:00.239 It's gotta be, you think swimmer Dam Jam swimmers am 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:05.560 probably so. Uh. And there are like twenty species of bees, 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:11.639 but we're going to concentrate mainly on honey bees mostly 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:14.680 a little bit of what are the other ones? Not 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:17.200 the bumble bees, but well we'll talk a little bit 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:19.760 about bumble bees too. Yeah, pretty much those two. Yeah, 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:22.080 but mostly honey bees. They're the most studied. I think 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:25.079 they're the most fascinating. But social and nons and I 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:29.480 don't want to say anti social solitary solitary bees and 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:32.120 anti socials may be a way to describe it. But 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:35.800 those are two two categories that we're going to dive into. YEA, So, 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:39.680 surprisingly bees go back even further than the ancient Egyptians, 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:42.800 The oldest bee fossil that they found is about a 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:45.520 hundred million years old, and they think that at some 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:51.320 point around then during the Cretaceous period, bees diverged from wasps, 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:56.840 not necessarily from washp. It doesn't mean that um bees 0:03:57.400 --> 0:04:00.080 evolved from wasp but then possibly they shared it a 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:03.720 common wasp like ancestor I but that was creepy man, 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:07.119 And I'll bet it was like eight ft long too. Yeah. 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.040 And this is about the same time too, not coincidentally, 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:17.240 when flowering plants started doing their thing. Before this, if 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:19.720 you wanted to, you know, do the the tree thing, 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:21.440 you had to plant thing, you had to do like 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:24.599 what conifers do, dropping your cones and counting on the 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:27.400 wind and nature to do your work, which may or 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:31.320 may not work. But thankfully bees came along and they said, hey, 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:33.920 you know what, we can help take your pollen, Mr flower. Yeah. 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:38.560 So so bees and flowering plants angiosperms coevals, and that 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:40.480 was a big step for bees. They're kind of like 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:48.960 the uh sweet philosophy majors of the wasp family. Uh. 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:52.799 They just went off and became herbivores, whereas their wasps, 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:56.600 their wasp relatives are wasp cousins were carnivores, and not 0:04:56.640 --> 0:05:00.599 only carnivores, carnivores that used ovipositors to you lay their 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:07.039 eggs in other animals. Yeah, that's gross, it is and 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:13.000 it's very aggressive. Um. But as we said, bees became herbivores. 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:15.159 They just go around to flowers. All they want is 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:19.560 to be left alone, collect pollen and nectar and then uh, 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:23.480 you know, pollinate flowers along the way. And they're very 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:25.520 happy with their lives like that. They they're into the 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:30.000 pan flute and birkin stocks. Do you think these are 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:33.919 like hippies a little bit? Yeah, you've never been attacked 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:38.039 by a dozen hippies, actually more than a dozen. I 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:40.599 was stung a dozen times. Is that what I told 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:44.520 that story before in the Colony Collapse podcast when I 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:48.279 was tagged in the head and face twelve times. Oh yeah, 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:53.119 that brings about one of my worst days, very painful. Um. 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:57.720 So let's talk about parts. The bees body is pretty remarkable. Um. 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:02.279 It's kind of exoskeleton made of chiten kitan, movable plates 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:04.559 of this kitan. Yeah, it's almost like a suit of armor. 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:07.240 It sounds like, Yeah, that's pretty neat. Uh, they've got, 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:09.240 like we said, a lot of hairs all over their body, 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:12.640 a little fuzzies that they collect. The pollen help regulate 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:15.400 body tempt keep it cool or warm, depending on what's 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:19.200 going on. And uh, like a lot of insects, they have, 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:24.039 they're divided into little sections the head, the thorax, and 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:27.520 the abdomen in this case, and the brain is in 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:30.279 the head. And it's not a big brain, no, but 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:34.000 it's pretty awesome. Well yeah, because it's specialized. So bee 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:36.800 brain has about nine and fifty thousand neurons. It seems 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:39.320 like a lot for a small insect. It does a 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:43.120 small brain, right, Um, but apparently it's not. And uh, 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:46.080 the reason why we know it's not because just based 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.320 on the number of neurons, bees should be incredibly stupid 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:52.880 and very simple animals, and they're not. The reason why 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:56.760 is because the neurons in a bee's head are extremely specialized, 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:00.480 and rather than being recruited by some like executive function 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:04.160 like we have in our frontal lobes, their neurons kind 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:07.000 of act on their own and communicate with other neurons 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:11.200 to carry out a very specific activity. Right. So this 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:13.560 division of labor in the brain allows these to do 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:15.600 a lot of stuff that it would require a bigger 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:19.600 brain to to do normally. It's pretty ingenious. Yes, that's right. 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:21.320 These are pretty smart when they figured out how to 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:24.680 do this to themselves. Uh. They have a couple of 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:27.960 a century into the uh five eyes. Three of them 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:31.720 are simple, a silly, and then two compound eyes and 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:36.480 they have lots of repeating parts called omata I think, 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:40.440 And they can actually see polarized light. They specialize in 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:44.400 patterns and humans can't do that obviously because we would 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:46.920 be like, just try the predator. Maybe that what that 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:49.480 looks like? That's thermal imaging. Oh yeah, that's right, it's 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:54.520 normal polarized to be. Um, you more polarized glasses, like 0:07:54.640 --> 0:08:00.920 your your polarized sunglasses. Remember this for I got the ravans. Yeah, 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:04.240 instead of ravan, it said polar that's what you get 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:06.440 for eight bucks. It's cvs. Is they worked? Do you 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:08.920 have them forever? Yeah? Until they broke. So that's how 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:12.520 you saw polarized light. Bees don't even need sunglasses from cvs. 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:14.640 They just see it naturally. And the reason this is 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:17.560 important is because um, as we'll see later on, they 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:21.080 used the sun to navigate and being able to see 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:23.320 polarized light. That means they can see clear through crop 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.120 clouds when it's overcast and know where the sun is. 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:28.840 That's right, very important. Uh, Like a lot of insects, 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:30.320 I've got the little mouth parts. You know, we've talked 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:33.920 about mouth parts. I think in uh please maybe flies, flies, 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:37.000 flies and fleas. Uh. They have the jaws or the 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:41.000 paired mandibles, the tongue with the colossa, and then the 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:44.480 lips which are the labor room and the maxilla, and 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:47.240 they support the probiscus, which I think most people know 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:53.960 is the the pollen sniffing device and collecting. Yeah, well 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:56.440 what I mean sniff, I mean sniff it up in there. Yeah, 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.880 it's like an r varts trunk pretty much, but in 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:04.360 instead of huffing ants, that huffs nectar. That's right. You've 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:07.320 got two pair of wings, you got three pair of legs. 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:11.559 The wings are actually part of the skeleton, which is 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:14.559 kind of cool. And and so if you're a little 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:18.760 boy that's tearing wings off of a bee, you're actually 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:21.680 breaking its skeleton. You need to spanking, You needed to 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:24.360 get stung. Oh yeah, that's how you learned that lesson 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:30.959 poetic justice exactly. And Uh. They the row of books 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:34.240 called the hamuli connect the wings, so they are just 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:37.280 beating together in synchronicity, but they don't connect all the time. 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:41.040 They're not fused together. The wings are separate front four 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:44.240 wings and rear wings are separate. And then when they 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:47.280 really want to get going and flying, they hooked together 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:50.319 using the hamuli. And that's to fly though, right, to 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:53.800 really take off. Oh Like, they have different speeds of 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:58.000 flying and they connect or disconnect depending on that. Tracy 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:03.720 skipped that part so much for thora. Uh. And then 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:07.240 you got the legs, which um, starting from the body 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:10.440 working out, you have the coxa, the tric canter, the femur, 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.360 the tibia, and the tarxas a k a hip, thiah 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:18.120 and put and that's the body for the most part. Yeah, 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:20.600 but the legs are also kind of specialized. They're almost 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:23.160 like a Swiss army legs. It's pretty cool. They've got 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:26.840 different kinds of hair. You've got brush hair, comb hair, 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:29.839 depending on the kind of pollen you're collecting, and then 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:33.160 basket like hairs that hold pollen. You've got a pad 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:37.240 and a claw so you can like grab things. You 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:42.880 can strangle other bees if you want. Um, and this 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.120 is kind of cool. There's a small groove in the arm, 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:50.560 in the leg for scraping pollen from the antenna. And 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:53.360 then lastly there's a press on the bottom for packing 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:56.560 pollen into things. That's pretty neat if you ask me, 0:10:56.679 --> 0:10:59.520 that is pretty neat. Swiss army leg. Don't you call 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:03.160 the what I call it very nice? Should put a 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:06.560 pattern on that. So yeah, so chuck. When you you know, 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:09.360 when you accidentally squish a bee and you look down 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:11.520 at it and it's guts are everywhere, it's not red. 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:15.240 The blood isn't red. And actually it doesn't necessarily have 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.040 what we would call blood. It's called hemo lymph and 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:21.600 it it has oxygen just suspended in it. It doesn't 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.560 have red blood cells, which is why be blood hemolymph 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:27.640 is clear. Yeah, you don't see a lot of insects 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:33.640 with red blood, do you? Only only Americans red blooded insects. 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:38.440 Of course, we can't overlook the stinger um that is, 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:41.840 uh where the bees abdomen is, and it's an appendage 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:45.920 and like we said before, it's a egg depositor, an ovipositor, 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:51.480 and then the lancets will sting you and deliver venom. 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:55.800 From the poison sac in a venom gland. And once again, 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:59.000 these wasp like ancestors, they think that's where the bees 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:02.079 got the venom, and it's just a leftover trait from that, 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:05.600 even though they didn't go on to lay their eggs 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:09.160 in meat. Right, That's which is why the wasps evolved 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:12.480 venom to subdue their prey while they were laying eggs 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:14.720 and eating them and all that stuff. And bees, like 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:16.720 you said, had it left over, but they just have 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.240 it for defense. Yeah, and I guess it was obviously 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:23.400 a trait worthy of keeping. And uh like, if I 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:25.600 had a stinger and could inject people venom, I'd keep 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:29.400 it around, use it on occasion. You'd be like, come on, evolution, 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:33.400 just let me have it. There are stingless bees though, um, 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:36.640 quite a few species, and they don't have stingers at all. No, 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:40.280 and they were very handy among the Maya until very 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:43.920 recently for beekeeping because you just stick your hand in 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:45.440 there and be like, I'm taking your honey, and what 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:48.040 are you gonna do? Nothing, that's great because you're a 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:50.959 stingless bee. They couldn't even bite or anything. No, they 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:56.480 just stand idly by. That's their thing. Um, so check. 0:12:56.559 --> 0:13:00.520 There's a lot of there's a lot of stuff that 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:05.320 a bee produces there, like pubescent children. They just produce 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:07.559 all these different things with all these different glands all 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:10.600 the time. They're secreting stuff all the time. But it's 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:14.200 very useful stuff, that's right. Uh, and then chuck. You 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:18.360 know how when you get stung sometimes you hear or 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:21.480 you've heard a bee will die after it stings you. Yeah, 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:23.360 I think most people think that all bees die when 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:26.200 they sting you. True. No, it depends on the type 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:28.480 of stinger they have. Honey Bees, for the most part, 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:31.600 except for the queen honey bee have barbed stingers, and 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:33.640 if a bee has a barbed stinger, it is gonna 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:36.319 stick in you. If you're a mammal, a bee can 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:40.120 sting other insects with a barbed stinger and live after 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:42.840 singing repeatedly. If it stings in the mammal, we have 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:47.360 this um fat, meaty flesh that the barbed stinger hooks into, 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:49.520 and when the bee flies away, it leaves its stinger 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:53.839 and it's abdomen and guts stuck in you and so 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:56.160 it dies, which is why if you have a barbed stinger, 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:58.520 you can only sting once, but some bees do have 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:02.040 smooth stingers and and sting mammals as often as they like. 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:04.840 I wonder how often that how long that takes for 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:07.880 the be to die, because you know they're stinging and 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:09.720 they fly away. I wonder if it's like a few 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:11.640 minutes or a couple of hours, or if they just 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:14.240 like I would think, pretty quick quietly and bleed out 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:16.160 or but I mean, how long does it take a 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:20.160 bee to bleed out? I don't know, probably not hemolymph out. 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:21.800 But I know when I've been stung, I see him 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:24.960 fly away, and they look like they're doing all right 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:26.640 to me, And right when you turn around, they just go. 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:29.960 I guess I'm gonna trail the next bee that stings, 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:31.960 follow it. You're gonna check it. You gonna check it, 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:35.720 all right. So you want to talk about some juices 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:39.520 and stuff, some venom, Yeah, we should talk about venom. 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:45.200 Remember the difference between venomous organism and a poisonous organism 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:49.120 is venom is produced in the body poisons outside, right, 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:53.720 that's right, uh, And a be's venom uh basically destroyed cells. 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:56.400 Like it's pretty hardcore stuff. It's a good thing. It's 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:59.040 in small quantities probably, I can imagine if it was 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:03.239 larger quantities could be pretty destructive. But they have peptids 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:06.200 and enzymes break through the fat linings of the cell, 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:11.240 destroy the mass cells. Uh, and that releases histamine. This 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:13.880 is where we get into like whether or not you're allergic. 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:16.760 You could be in big trouble. Yeah, because histamine that's 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:19.760 part of your immune response, which is a good thing. 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:22.160 You know, you want that, right, And histamines open the 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:26.440 blood vessels so that you can get your antibodies, your immunes, 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:29.680 your immune cells to this site much more quickly. But 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:31.800 if you have a b allergy, your immune system is 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:35.280 too large, it's too big a response. Your blood vessels 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:37.800 dilate so much that you lose blood pressure and fall 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:42.960 over um, which is called anaphylactic shock. That's right, and 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.760 that can kill people dead. And if you are allergic 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:51.640 to bees, you uh almost in the likelihood have an 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:55.760 epinephrine shot with you because it's dangerous stuff and that 0:15:55.760 --> 0:16:00.560 will constrict the blood vessels and save your life hopefully, right, 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:03.640 if you get it in time. I imagine it depends 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:07.840 on the person. Fingers crossed fingers crossed um. So, like 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:12.200 we said, there's twenty thousand, approximately twenty species under the 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:17.120 super family Appodia or a Podia. How do you say that. 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:22.680 Let's go with a Podia. And depending on the bee, 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.960 you're gonna have a different kind of nest. But they 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:29.040 are similar, you know, in a lot of cases. So 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:31.520 we'll break it down into honey bees and bumble bees 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:35.120 for the nesting purposes and for social those are they're 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:39.200 both social. That's right kind of bees they are. So, uh, 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:43.240 you've got um among honey bees. You have a perennial nest. 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.040 She is always around. It's kind of cool. They build 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:50.000 the same nest and for life. Yeah, I love that, uh, 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:53.880 and for generations um. And they build it by secreting 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:57.640 um stuff out of their glands because bees are like 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:02.240 the pubescent children human children of the of the insect world. 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:04.880 They're always secreting stuff out of their glands. But they 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:06.280 make good use of it and one of the things 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:11.200 that they use it for is wax to build nests. Yeah. 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:13.399 And these are all ladies, by the way, It's a 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:16.760 very important point. Yeah, these are all little women workers. 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:20.240 And the reason why is because male bees for the 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:24.679 most part, are around to fornicate and that's about it. 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:27.320 In fact, they don't even have a lot of the 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:30.199 parts that you need to be a real bee, but 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:34.040 to collect pollen or anything like that. They're there to 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:36.440 reproduce and that's it. Yeah. In fact, they will even 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:38.240 get kicked out of the hive if things get a 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:41.080 little too crowded and food is scarce or winners coming. 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:43.760 The women will say, all right, it's time for you 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:47.680 guys to leave. You know, you can't stay here, that's right. 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:50.520 I wonder what they do. They probably say, I'm in 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:51.960 this thing you if you don't get out of here, 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:53.840 no owner. What the males do, though, they go off 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:56.800 and die. They die, They form their own little like 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:00.760 boys club. I have the impression that male bees are 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:04.080 kind of too oh fish to think of that kind 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:07.119 of thing dummies. Yeah. But so if you see a 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:10.920 bee collecting pollen, yeah, in almost every species, that's a 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:14.359 female bee. If you see a bee stinging you or 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:17.240 feel a beasting in you, that's a female because the 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:21.800 stingers an ovipositor, which makes it a female parts right. Um. 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:24.080 But as we were saying, the nests that are built 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:28.719 and maintained and uh stocked um are all done by 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:32.160 females with the honeybee. That's right, and it's perennial. Yes, 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:35.639 and uh, in that little nest, if the queen bee is, 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:38.919 the queen bee will be delivering a queen substance. It's 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:42.760 a pheromone. And if it did, another secretion, another secretion. 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:45.200 If and if the little lady be start getting less 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:47.719 and less of this, they'll say, you know what, we 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:49.919 need to split up and make a new queen and 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:52.680 a new hive. And let's just go ahead and start 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:55.320 this process now. And let's pick a new queen and 0:18:55.320 --> 0:19:00.760 start feeding her royal jelly. Another secretion and um, raise 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:04.040 her right right on this royal jelly. So with the 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:07.200 about half of the workers and the old queen take 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:10.560 off and found a new um hive. I guess there's 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:13.040 too much pressure on the new queens. So yeah, like 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:15.320 we got this place built for you, you just grow 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:16.960 up and take care of it. And that's what happens. 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:19.920 The new queen grows up and and the hive basically 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:24.000 divides like a cell into pretty pretty cool yeah um 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:28.880 solitary or not solidier bumblebees found they found annual um 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:33.200 nests and basically that idea too though diggs every year 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:38.000 it's not getting attached to something. Yeah. Um, so they 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.639 in the In the fall, the queen mates, spends the 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:44.800 winter underground. In the spring, she lays some eggs that 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:48.880 turn out to surprisingly mostly be females, if not all females, 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:52.080 and they help her build a nest. In the summer, 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:55.960 she lays some more eggs. Those hatch into males. Those 0:19:56.000 --> 0:20:00.800 males fly off, and all of the male bumblebees. Somehow 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:03.119 scientists haven't figured out how they do it. They figure 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:07.000 they get a uh, they say, hey, we're all gonna 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:09.919 be over here to mate this Friday. We'll see you 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.720 guys there. Then all the queens from all the individual 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:15.879 nests for miles around come over and everybody copulates, and 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:18.560 then they leave the scrunchy on the door. Yeah. And 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:22.439 then that's that ye, And that's the cycle starts a 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:26.640 new the female lays eggs or goes back underground for 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:29.120 the winter. That's right. And these are the social bees, 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:32.920 Like we said, um, However, less than fift of bees 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:35.879 are social, even though they're the ones we usually think of. 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:38.440 More as far as like hives and nests and things. 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:43.040 My favorite are the solitary bees. Why because they're doing 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:45.760 their own thing. My my really favorite reason why. It's 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:49.320 because the different ways they make their home. Yeah. I 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:51.680 just think it's really cool. Yeah. So, like social bees 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:54.280 are are known from the type of hives they have, 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:56.440 that's kind of how they divided. But yeah, the way 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:59.600 that they make their homes. For solitary bees, that's yeah, 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:02.560 that's a good definition. And solitary bees they'll get together 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:04.639 on occasion if they need to, like band together for 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:09.080 defense or something, but they generally do their own thing. Um. 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:11.320 So some of the different ways that these guys can 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:15.879 make homes, like carpenter bees, which are my favorites. Um 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:19.399 they bore holes in wood and unpainted like raw wood, 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:22.480 and they usually are like the spitting image of a bumblebee. 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:24.280 But if you see a bumble bee going into a 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:27.200 hole in like your door jam, that's a carpenter bee. 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:28.919 I like carpenter bees. I think it's cool. And they 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:31.639 get the little tool belt. Yeah, they always have a 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:34.560 pencil behind their ear. Yeah, And they're always late and 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:36.600 the job is never done on time, and they'll tell 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:38.800 you straight this is gonna cost two or three times 0:21:38.800 --> 0:21:42.360 when I originally estimated exactly. I just think it's cool 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:43.919 that they can actually bore into the wood like that. 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:47.239 It's amazing. And they're always like perfectly little round holes too, 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.320 I know. Like what's surprising is they use their eyes 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:53.280 to bore a little laser shoot out of them. Wow. 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:56.000 I don't think I knew that. Tracy skipped that too. 0:21:56.840 --> 0:21:59.359 There are the plaster or bees. Um, they dig little 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:02.720 holes and tunnels and line them with another secretion. That's 0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:06.760 sort of like blaster makes sense. The leaf cutters, what 0:22:06.800 --> 0:22:11.920 do they do? They use those uh those um grasping claws, remember, 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:14.800 and then they bite leaves apart with their their mouths 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:17.480 and line their nests with them because they like to 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:19.879 be nice and comfy. Mason bees. Used to be a 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:24.320 mason bee yeah yeah, um, and I would secrete something 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:28.120 from my jaws that basically was like mortar and put 0:22:28.280 --> 0:22:31.159 sand and pebbles together and make a nest. It's a 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:35.600 strong nest. This is like basically the three pigs of 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:40.920 the bee. We're going from, like we're going from leaves 0:22:41.040 --> 0:22:46.359 to wood yeah, wooden sand yeah. Nice. The carter b 0:22:47.359 --> 0:22:51.000 that's they like furry wooly parts of plants. And that's 0:22:51.040 --> 0:22:55.960 basically they're like the Bob Guccioni bees. Yeah, they wear 0:22:56.000 --> 0:22:58.919 silk robes and stuff like that. Uh. And then my 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:02.640