WEBVTT - Ep. 356: Backwoods University - The Humble Pollinator 0:00:02.240 --> 0:00:06.159 Welcome to Backwoods University, a place where we focus on wildlife, 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:09.520 wild places and the people who dedicate their lives to 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:13.960 conserving both. I'm your host, Lake Pickle. On this episode, 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:16.160 we're going to learn about one of the most vital 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:38.000 but commonly overlooked elements of our ecosystem, pollinators. Now, if 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:41.080 you're sitting there thinking, man, that sounds awful lot like 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:43.639 a beehive, well then I would say to you, that's 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:46.480 a keen ear you got there, because it is definitely 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:50.199 a beehive. And if you're also sitting there thinking it 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:52.879 sure sounds like that, dude's awful close to it, then 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:54.760 I would say, well, you might as well be an 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:58.200 NHL goalie, because nothing's getting past you today. I am 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:02.760 indeed very close to it. It's a beautiful mid July morning, 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:05.880 roughly seven thirty am, and I am on a mission 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:08.959 to learn more about pollinators and their vital role in 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:12.600 our wild ecosystems. And I thought to myself, what better 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:15.400 way to do that than get some hands on experience 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:18.320 with the most widely known pollinator in all the land, 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:19.479 the honey beee. 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:23.200 So this is a this is a frame that you 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:27.360 at hardest okay, because it is one hundred percent cap. 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:30.679 Luckily for me, I didn't have to look far to 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:34.759 get this experience. The mother of my wife's lifelong best friend, 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:38.000 Miss Linda Easterling, has been beekeeping for the better part 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:40.360 of a decade, and she was nice enough to have 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:43.440 me over one morning, lend me a beekeeping suit and 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:46.040 give me a crash course in this unique hobby. 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:51.080 So when the nectar that they put in the seals 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:52.400 is ready, they cap. 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:54.640 It has to be a certain. 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:56.240 Water content to it. 0:01:56.360 --> 0:01:57.080 Gotcha. 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:01.360 When that wonderful content drops, then lay it's ready to cap. 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:06.560 They know somebody's in the hive, so they are starting 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:09.560 to store. They're loading up on honey in case something 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:10.520 happens to their house. 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:16.000 I see, sir, now, I don't know. 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:19.160 How you can feel it with love hands. 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:23.799 Miss Linda and I just opened up a beehive and 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:26.720 now she is showing me a honeysuper that is ready 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:29.760 to harvest. You'll be able to see this interaction fully 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:32.960 on the YouTube video, but for my audio only listeners, 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:37.440 imagine a rectangular box lined across with wooden slats that 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:40.919 maybe have an inch spacing between each of them. These 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:45.160 wooden slats are honeysupers. They match the box's length and 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.800 depth and essentially provide framing for the bees to make 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:52.120 and store honey. We pulled a fully capped super to 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:54.840 get a closer look. The most shocking thing for me 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:57.920 holding this in my hands, you know, besides the hundreds 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:00.560 of bees flying around my head, was the weight of it. 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:04.160 An empty Honeysuper weighs maybe three to four pounds, but 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:08.440 this fully capped honeysuper weigh closer to thirty pounds. These 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:11.880 bees had been busy, pun very much intended. 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:17.160 Oh yeah, I would not expect it to be that heavy. Yea. 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:21.160 So it's here. Isn't that amazing? How that's and since 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:23.119 I am kind of messed it up a little bit, 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:26.000 they're on your microphone too, you hear some jim buzzen. 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:27.120 That's what I was hoping for. 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:31.760 Can I Can I take this and hold it in 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:32.679 front of the camera there? 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:36.360 Okay, yeah, tostally honey honey production. 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.480 Yea, easier to see the breard and that box. 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:40.600 Go to that box. 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:44.200 Once we get through looking at this full honeysuper, Miss 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:47.360 Linda wants to show me a different, smaller hive that 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:50.320 will have much less honey production and will allow us 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:52.840 to see the brood. It was when we went to 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:55.880 the next time that we had a little bit of excitement. 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:59.520 That's the part and make people nervous when they're coming 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:01.280 up with your veil, your kind. 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:02.880 Of get seeded. One's in my veil. 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:04.000 This then weird. 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:05.800 Yeah, I'm gonna back up and let her out. 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:09.240 Yep, you heard that correctly. A single bee has broken 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:11.320 the force field and is now inside the veil of 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:14.520 my bee suit. Thankfully, Miss Linda walked me through what 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:17.719 to do in case this very thing happens. I'm supposed 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:20.400 to back away from the hive, pull open my veil 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:24.680 and calmly waft the bee out of there without getting stung. 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:27.400 Is the key part of all this. Let's see how 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:27.840 this goes. 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:30.880 We're still down there. Yeah, if she hadn't stung me, 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:34.039 come on, sweet to get out of there. 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:36.120 She's right there. 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:39.280 Say her bread. 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:40.240 Here, I thought. 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:41.760 I'm sorry, you can't relate. 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:45.719 Despite our best attempts, we just can't seem to get 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:48.240 this single bee to fly back out. And at that 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:51.279 point is when we get another little dose of excitement. 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:55.880 Won't chip almost has another one getting in now that 0:04:55.920 --> 0:05:02.960 one just got eat right right, turgoes wanting, but there 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:03.640 goes one day. 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:07.800 Then, unbeknownst to us, a few bees followed me over 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:09.880 when I backed away from the hive, and when I 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:12.040 opened the veil of my face mask up to let 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:15.720 the bee out, more flew in. At one point I 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:19.000 had three bees inside of my face net at once, 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:21.400 and I am more than happy to report that I 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:25.160 managed to get out of this small snaffoo with zero stings. 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:30.760 The key component to all of this was just staying calm. 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:34.080 Small side mission of this episode. I will always and 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:37.679 forever have a soft spot for critters that are often misunderstood. 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:40.719 And while the main premise of this episode is to 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:44.240 explain why pollinators are of crucial importance to our landscape, 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:47.279 I also want to rid the mindset of every bee 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:49.920 U se is on a mission to sting you. They 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:53.720 most definitely are not. At one point, one of those 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:56.479 three bees landing right on top of my ear and 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:59.880 it's still withheld fire. I think my point proves itself. 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:02.960 I spent the rest of the time with Miss Linda, 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:05.680 with no more bees inside my head net and taking 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:07.760 a look into the rest of the bee hives. That 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:10.000 she had on her property. And let me tell you, 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:13.360 if you ever get to experience what I experienced that morning, 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:16.800 you'll never wonder again where common terms like busy as 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:20.719 a bee or that person's a regular worker bee comes from. 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:25.600 These hives are constant work in motion, bees making and capping, 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:28.240 honey bees constantly flying in and out of the hive. 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:30.640 One of the coolest parts was watching some of the 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:33.680 bees fly back into the hive with visible poland that 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:36.680 they had collected and brought back to work for them. 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:40.239 Really never stops. Big shout out to Miss Linda Easterling 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:42.920 for giving me such a cool experience. If any of 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:44.960 y'all ever get the chance to tag along with the 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:48.279 bee keeper, I promise you it's worth your time. But 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:50.440 let's zoom out on all of this. You may be 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:52.800 sitting there wondering why I'm making such a big deal 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:56.320 about pollinators and honey bees in particular. You've probably heard 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:59.360 people mention that pollinators are important, but have you ever 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:02.039 heard the ants than as to why. I've learned over 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.400 the years that in many areas of wildlife and habitat management, 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:08.760 the smaller the organism is, the easier it seems to 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:11.880 be for us to overlook it, regardless of how important 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:14.640 of a role it plays. So sit back, turn the 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:17.480 volume up a notch, and listen in because you're about 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:19.920 to learn how vital these little bugs are to not 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:23.080 just our wildlife and wild places, but to our own 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:26.040 health as well. I promised you this. At the very least, 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:28.640 by the end of this episode, you'll never feel the 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:30.720 same about going and picking up a jar of honey, 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:42.840 that's for sure. Sarah Dant is an American historian that 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:46.800 specializes in the environmental history of the American West. She's 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:50.960 also a distinguished professor and experienced beekeeper, and the author 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:54.200 of one of my new favorite books, Losing Eden. Truly, 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:57.240 it's a fascinating read. Y'all should check it out. I 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:00.000 want to open up the conversation with Professor Sarah Dant 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:02.520 coming right out the gate with the fact about honey 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:05.760 bees that most people don't know and are very surprised 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:06.240 to learn. 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:12.480 Honey bees in particular are unique. There were no native 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:17.239 colony building bees in the Americas prior to the arrival 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:21.400 of Europeans. You know, you do have like small groups 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:25.120 of bumblebees. They tend to live, but only in groups 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:28.280 of like ten or fifteen. Nothing like the big honey 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:33.360 producing palm building chives and colonies that you see with 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:37.600 honey bees. Those are European bees that came over with Europeans. 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:40.200 I'm sure y'all heard that the first time, but just 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:42.040 in case you didn't, or you need to hear it 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:44.400 again for the sake of making sure you heard it right, 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:47.679 I'm going to repeat it for y'all. Honey Bees one 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:50.320 of the most famous insects in the entire country, one 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:53.120 of the few bugs that proliferate themselves in American pop 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:57.000 culture by being mentioned in nursery rhymes, folklore, and song lyrics. 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:02.000 Are not native to America. So how did they get here? 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:04.760 Did the European settlers bring them here? On purpose? 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:10.080 Absolutely? They did, absolutely brought bees. Because you think about it, 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:14.200 some of the most addictive substances that we know of 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:22.119 are sugar and salt, and sugar is not naturally occurring 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:27.240 in any kind of great quantity commodity in the natural world. 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:29.920 It's one of the reasons we crave it because it's 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:33.679 such a great source of energy, and we forget that nowadays. 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:36.120 You know, with high fruit toase, corn syrup and Halloween 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:40.120 and soda pop and McDonald's, we forget that if you 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:45.439 think about it, in nature, sugar is really rare. And 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:49.280 so when people I mean, and we're talking about people 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:54.079 as far back as Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, they're 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:59.960 cultivating bees because bees make honey, and honey is delicious, 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:05.160 and if sugar is a rare commodity, then you want 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:09.840 to do whatever you can to facilitate your access to it. 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:15.920 So when Europeans came to the Americas, starting with the Pilgrims, 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:18.480 are really who we think are one of the first 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:23.720 groups to bring honey bees with them. Absolutely, they deliberately 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:28.080 brought them because they wanted to bring with them that wonderful, 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:33.800 rare source of sugar. But bees being bees, they swarmed 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:39.200 and moved away from human habitation into the wild. So 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:41.920 you have both. You have wild bees and you have 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:49.200 kept domestic bees by colonists, and they're so successful that 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:55.880 native people actually call them English flies because they absolutely 0:10:55.920 --> 0:11:01.600 associated the presence of honeybees with the arrival of Europeans. 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:05.520 That really is some wild information we just got there. 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:08.800 Humans have been colonizing bees for the collection of honey 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:11.880 for thousands of years, with evidence dating back to the 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:15.560 ancient Egyptians. Bees were so successful when they were brought 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:18.720 to the Americas by the European settlers that native Americans 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:22.480 referred to them as English flies. And here's one factor 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:24.840 I want to focus on next. In that last bit, 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:28.319 you heard Professor Dant use the term swarming. Her exact 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:32.120 words were they swarmed and moved away from human habitation. 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:35.360 That fact is very important to the whole point of 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:38.240 this story. And let's break down the many reasons why 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:41.120 a swarm of bees is oftentimes brought up in a 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:45.520 negative connotation, usually associated with people getting attacked, stone and 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:48.880 all sorts of other horrors, when in fact, bees swarms 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:51.760 serve a very specific purpose that has nothing to do 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:54.120 with such horrors, and I think we should learn what 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:54.920 that actually is. 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:58.320 Well, one of the things that I think some people 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:03.280 may be familiar with is a bee swarm and why 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:05.600 do bees swarm? What does it mean? All of that? 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:09.400 To me, that's that's really interesting, and it's it's one 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:12.360 of the for me, it was always one of the 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:16.080 great teaching moments when I would get a call for 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:20.360 a swarm, because actually what I did was I gave 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:24.000 my name and number to a couple of pest control 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:28.560 companies and the nine one one people, because people would 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:30.560 either call them and say, oh my god, you're gonna 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:33.439 come spray these bees, or they would call nine one one, 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:38.840 oh my god, we were being invaded. And fortunately all 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:42.400 those groups would say, okay, let me give you somebody 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:44.400 a call, and so I would I would go out 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:48.199 and get the swarm. And it was a great opportunity 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:53.360 to interact with people who were completely freaked out that 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:55.400 there was this big wad of bees in the tree 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:58.160 in their yard and here's this girl with no gloves 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:00.480 on and a veil just kind of walk out there 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:04.319 in jeans and not freak out at all with efty 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:07.880 thousand bees buzzing around, and yeah, it sort of makes 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:12.600 you feel like superhero. So what happens is in a hive, 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:17.880 they'll get really two crowded. They've been successful, they're too 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:21.560 many bees in a hive. They need to split up. 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:26.320 So the queen that's in the hive will take a 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:31.400 portion of the bees and they'll fly usually somewhere within 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:35.720 one hundred yards or so of the hive itself. So 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:39.520 when you see a big, you know, basketball of bees, 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:45.160 what you're seeing is solid bees, and in the middle 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:49.880 is the queen. They're all around her. She's in the middle, 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:55.960 and they're just hanging out, usually literally in a tree, 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:59.920 and they've got scouts going out all over the kind 0:13:59.920 --> 0:14:04.000 of side looking for a new home. In the meantime, 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:08.360 in the hive, they have started the process of making 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:12.960 a new queen. And you have to feed baby bees 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:16.880 a certain substance called royal jelly, and if you keep 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:20.280 feeding it to them, don't grow into queens. You can 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:24.320 only have one queen in a hive, and so whicheverone 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:28.640 comes out first, goes through the hive, finds every other 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:33.080 ges stating queen and kills her. So I'm number one 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:37.440 and that's it, and then she becomes the new queen. 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:41.840 But at that point she's infertile. So the swarm is 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:45.720 up in the tree with the original queen, a lot 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:49.440 of bees, and at this point they're they're most vulnerable. 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:54.240 They're also pretty easy to manipulate because they don't have 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:56.880 anything to lose except the queen. So if you've ever 0:14:56.920 --> 0:14:59.720 seen the thing where somebody does like a beard of bees, 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:02.760 that's what they're doing. They're messing around with a swarm 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:05.240 they don't have a hive, they don't have honey, they 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:07.840 don't have brood, they have nothing that they need to protect. 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:11.960 So they're up in a tree. They've got scouts going 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:16.000 out looking for a good place to go. And when 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:18.840 one of the scouts comes back and says, I found it. 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:20.960 This is the place. Bring them young, like, this is 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:24.440 the place we got to go, then they all fly 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:29.360 and so if you've ever seen a swarm, it's pretty exciting. 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:31.760 In a tree, they're just kind of up there like 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:35.360 a basketball. But then when they decide to go, they 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:40.800 all go, and the din is incredible. It's really loud. 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:43.920 They're all moving, and then they'll be gone. So the 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:46.880 moral of that story is if you see a swarm, 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:50.960 you don't have to panic because they're not gonna stay. 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:54.440 They're looking for a new place and that the most 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:56.400 they're gonna be there for two or three days. They 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:59.640 don't have food, they don't have water. They're sending people 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:02.600 out to get that, but they don't have that, so 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:05.760 their motivation is to find a new house. 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:09.760 Important honey bee fact number one, and it's mainly tied 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:13.040 to a function bees swarm when they're trying to move 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:15.680 to a new home or a new hive might be 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:18.360 a better term. And we heard earlier that bees were 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:21.320 so successful when brought to the Americas that they swarmed 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:25.000 and left places of human habitation. And here's why that's interesting. 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:28.640 Think briefly back to the last episode on Mississippi Black Bears, right, 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:31.600 Remember the historical record we read from the book by 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:35.680 James T. McCafferty. It had a documented Delta pioneer making 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:39.160 use of wild honey in the eighteen hundreds. Think about 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:43.080 that for a second. I don't know about y'all, but 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:45.720 that leads me to ask the question, how quickly can 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:47.120 these tiny bugs spread? 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:52.760 Probably the Pilgrims bring bees with them. I don't think 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:55.680 the Spanish conquesitors did, who would have come before that. 0:16:55.760 --> 0:17:00.280 But the first Pilgrims come in Jamestown is in the 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:05.480 early sixteen hundreds, and we do know that by the 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:09.840 eighteen fifties their bees in California. So it just does 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:13.520 not take very long at all for them to move, 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:18.280 and to move pretty efficiently and quickly across the continent. 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:21.560 Not only is a swarm the bees function for spreading, 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:25.239 but it's an incredibly efficient function for spreading By that 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:28.000 quick math. It means that honey bees managed to cover 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:31.080 the entire country from east to west in around two 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.119 hundred and fifty years time. And when you think about 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:37.560 how tiny those bugs are, that's quite an impressive feat. 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:40.919 But now we have to address why that's important. 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:43.400 I think the way we could sort of sum up 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:46.000 what we're going to talk about here today is like this, 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:51.000 pollinators need you, and you need pollinators. When we're talking 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:55.199 about pollinators, we're talking about a really broad group of 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:59.760 insects and even small mammals, of which bees are certainly 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:05.000 but you know, bats are pollinators, birds are pollinators, there's bees, 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:09.920 there's other kinds of insects, all kinds of animals pollinate. 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:15.520 They are so essential and that basic service that they 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:19.919 provide accounts for one out of every three bytes of 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:23.480 food that one of us takes. So you think about 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:26.639 that the next time you're at a meal and you go, okay, 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:29.840 one bite of food, two bye of food, third bite, 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:33.080 you have to say thank you pollinator. Every third byte 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:36.879 of food you have to be saying, man, thank you pollinator. 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:42.080 That's how essential they are to the world around us. 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:45.920 And they're not charismatic megafonn it you know. So if 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:48.560 you get an elk or a bear or something like that, 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:51.199 people want to type it this is a bug, and 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:55.760 it's a bug that stings you sometimes. So it's one 0:18:55.760 --> 0:19:00.320 of those really essential things that people just k a 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:05.080 take for granted that Well, of course I have fruits 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:11.160 and vegetables and various cooking oils, and you don't ever 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.879 really stop to think, so what made that possible? And 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:18.480 the answer is if it came from something that flowers 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:23.560 or makes seeds, it needed a pollinator to make that happen. 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:30.239 You need pollinators because without them, suddenly most of the 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:32.920 food in the world is going to get shut off. 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:37.200 Okay, so we now know that honeybees and all pollinators 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:41.320 are important to us, and it truly affects everything facilitating 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:46.879 plant reproduction, food reproduction, agriculture, biodiversity, wild plant success, and 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:51.320 ecosystem health. As you can imagine, this affects a whole lot, 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:54.280 from something as large as row crop yields to something 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:57.000 as specific as the deer hunting quality on your property. 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:00.080 And that's no joke. But here's where the story or 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:03.240 it gets deeper and more nuanced. You already, I hope. 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:06.280 So because we're diving in. One of the first big 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:09.199 and interesting facts we learned about honeybees is that they 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:12.560 were not a native species to North America. And most 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:15.240 of the time, not always, but most of the time, 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:18.600 when you hear a story about an exotic species being 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:22.600 brought to North America, it commonly ends with a negative outcome. 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:27.000 But that's not the case with honeybees. And why is that. 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:37.679 Made of pollinators in particular have been suffering for the 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:40.600 last one hundred years. I would say a lot of 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:46.240 that has to do with again development, agricultural expansion. You 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:50.600 used to pesticides and other kinds of poisons. But you know, 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:55.320 it's really hard when the plants that they evolve to 0:20:55.480 --> 0:21:00.720 pollinate are not there, not there because we we've mowed 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:04.080 them down, we've plowed over them, we've paved over them, 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:07.040 or you know, again going back to this idea of 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:13.600 climate change, as the earth warms up, we're seeing plant 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:20.120 regimes moving. And when those plant regimes move, the pollinators 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:24.240 don't necessarily know to go with them. It's it may 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:26.840 be too far to fly, it may be all of 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:31.800 those things. And if it's warming, sometimes those plants are 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:36.640 blooming earlier than they used to before the pollinator has 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:41.600 typically whatever hatched out or moved into the area. So 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:48.720 we have these miskined bloom and fertilization issues that are 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:52.440 the consequence of climate change. And again we don't even 0:21:52.720 --> 0:21:56.560 think about those kinds of things. But several species of 0:21:56.680 --> 0:22:01.880 native bumblebees, for example, have declined in geographic range and 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:04.560 their numbers in the last twenty years. I think I 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:09.600 talked about in my book. For Western states now no 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:16.239 longer have bumblebees. Idaho, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Oregon they 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:21.200 don't have bumblebees. Bumblebees were native to the Americas prior 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:25.439 to the arrival of Europeans. Now they're gone completely in 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:30.959 those states, and that matters because the native plants that 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:37.120 they co evolved with now don't have this fundamentally important 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:41.919 elevator to go with them. And so honey bees, in particular, 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:45.479 the number of highs in the America is just, you know, 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:49.160 to sort of ball park it. Between the nineteen forties 0:22:49.200 --> 0:22:52.920 and now, the number of managed hives has dropped by 0:22:52.920 --> 0:23:00.520 about half. And that's in part because it's really straining 0:23:00.760 --> 0:23:03.560 to be a bee keeper, even a hobby bee keeper. 0:23:04.600 --> 0:23:07.800 Since about two thousand and six, as I wrote about 0:23:07.800 --> 0:23:11.000 in my book, there is this phenomenon that scientists called 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:18.199 colony collapse disorder or CCD, and they're mystified by it, 0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:22.159 not quite sure what causes it. Is it pathogens, is 0:23:22.240 --> 0:23:31.360 it parasites, Is it pesticides? But and we don't know. 0:23:31.520 --> 0:23:34.600 It could be again this kind of perfect storm of 0:23:34.640 --> 0:23:38.880 all of them coming together. But what it means is 0:23:38.920 --> 0:23:42.919 that every year, on the order of one third to 0:23:43.000 --> 0:23:45.960 one half and sometimes as much as seventy five percent 0:23:46.280 --> 0:23:52.400 of domestic bee hives don't make it every year. And 0:23:53.400 --> 0:23:56.360 it's it just breaks your heart. You know, you go out, 0:23:56.480 --> 0:24:01.399 you work your bees. One week in Likember, the hive 0:24:01.560 --> 0:24:05.359 is thriving. You've got brood, you've got a queen, they've 0:24:05.359 --> 0:24:09.680 got honey. Everything is good. And two weeks later to 0:24:09.720 --> 0:24:12.280 go out to check on your high and there's nothing there. 0:24:12.800 --> 0:24:19.879 They're just gone. And they can't leave in late September, 0:24:20.720 --> 0:24:23.960 that's not when they swarm. They're not going to be 0:24:24.080 --> 0:24:29.000 able to make a hive, gather enough food get themselves 0:24:29.000 --> 0:24:31.840 through the winter. So they're all going to die. But 0:24:31.880 --> 0:24:35.200 they don't die at your hives. They're just they're just gone. 0:24:46.480 --> 0:24:49.880 So why are we so focused in celebrating the success 0:24:49.880 --> 0:24:53.520 of the honeybee, a non native insect, because our native 0:24:53.560 --> 0:24:58.080 pollinators have been severely depleted. Some studies show up to 0:24:58.160 --> 0:25:02.040 one fifth of our North American pollinators and an elevated 0:25:02.160 --> 0:25:05.760 risk of extinction. And honey bees aren't exactly thriving right 0:25:05.800 --> 0:25:08.720