Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central. I'm meeting with Cam and
Speaker 1: Summer Johnson, who are raising a family and killing bees.
Speaker 1: I'm going to follow them for the day to mainly
Speaker 1: find out why find God's name, not leave this honey
Speaker 1: farmer with death boxes to white people. All right, fine,
Speaker 1: I'm here. I don't know where I'm at. What's the
Speaker 1: first step in this bee keeping situations? This is your
Speaker 1: first step. This will keep you safe. I suppose to
Speaker 1: be saving his laundry hamper. Yeah, keep the bees off
Speaker 1: your face, no problem. I think one of the reasons
Speaker 1: black people haven't gotten into bee keeping is because of
Speaker 1: the outfits. They're planned boring. So I put my own together.
Speaker 1: You know, I just wanted to wear something like Loki
Speaker 1: slightly embellish, just you know WHOA that's a V suit right,
Speaker 1: the razzle dazzle. I mean, you look like a big flower.
Speaker 1: They might try to pollinate you. All right. Now, As
Speaker 1: black people, we're in a constant state of danger, right,
Speaker 1: What made y'all I want to be in more dangerous?
Speaker 1: So we moved out to the suburbs. When Zach, our
Speaker 1: second child, was five years old, he had really bad
Speaker 1: he's allergies, he struggled with asthma. We'll be in the
Speaker 1: emergency room, you know, a couple of times a year,
Speaker 1: until we wanted something natural instead of pumping his body
Speaker 1: full of steroids in medicine. And so we read about
Speaker 1: raw honey, right, the ants inflammatory properties, How good it
Speaker 1: was for him. We said, you know what, we got
Speaker 1: some land. Let's experiment with beehives and we got hooked. Hold,
Speaker 1: that's not a jump. Nobody makes right like you not like,
Speaker 1: oh my kid is like Cozen's tolerant. Let me start
Speaker 1: an almond farm. It actually worked. He had no like
Speaker 1: allergies or asthma after we cured him in the year's
Speaker 1: worth of honey. Turns out, if you have seasonal allergies,
Speaker 1: local raw honey has healing properties with allergens native to
Speaker 1: your area. Over time, a person may become less sensitive
Speaker 1: to the pollen. So basically, raw honey says a lot.
Speaker 1: That's people in open shut. Like I've been saying from
Speaker 1: the beginning, more black people definitely need to get it
Speaker 1: on this. It's more black people to be keeping. You
Speaker 1: think that's predominantly white, but it's changing. Okay, So there's
Speaker 1: y'all and dozens we know dozens of beekeepers every so
Speaker 1: what is the reason that like beekeepers for the most
Speaker 1: part are white. I mean there's a lot of like
Speaker 1: there's a lot of like systemic reasons of like access
Speaker 1: to like land, and I mean you do need some
Speaker 1: space to be keeping. So uh, you know, we always
Speaker 1: admolished African Americans to buy in the country too, so
Speaker 1: they'll have more lands and there's more agriculture going on.
Speaker 1: So land and racism got it all? Right? If sacrificing
Speaker 1: myself will inspire others in the black community to become beekeepers,
Speaker 1: then I'm ready to meet these bugs with dagger bucks.
Speaker 1: But mainly I'm doing this because I'm stuck in the
Speaker 1: middle of Ova, New Jersey and can't get it over Houlp. Well,
Speaker 1: the good thing is Stunn wasn't allergic to electricity. I'll
Speaker 1: be the first black Amish people. Hold up, Hold up,
Speaker 1: this is too many bees. I'm not comfortable. Doesn't feel
Speaker 1: like a safe space. How do you make them like,
Speaker 1: calm down? Yes, that will keep you safe. Someone puts
Speaker 1: lavender in it, so it's like flavor smoke. Sure, these
Speaker 1: bees are just vaping. Yeah, so it simulates like a
Speaker 1: forest fire, right, so then they're distracted from us. The
Speaker 1: intruders are thinking, how do I get this? And they
Speaker 1: just get calm. So the smoke makes them think that
Speaker 1: their high is on fire, but they get calm about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because if my apartment was on fire, I'd be real calm, insane.
Speaker 1: My only knowledge of bees is that a swarm of
Speaker 1: them killing mcculey, cocon and my girl. Man. So they'll
Speaker 1: do that to a little white boy. I don't know
Speaker 1: what they would do to a grown black woman. We're
Speaker 1: opening the box, yes, one to look like they get mat.
Speaker 1: It's dripped it. Smoke them, that's your job, keep them smokes.
Speaker 1: Calm them down here. Oh they just busted out the front.
Speaker 1: See how calm they're said. You're not gonna stock. If
Speaker 1: they were aggressive, they be stinging the front of your veil. Oh.
Speaker 1: So if they're mad, they go for the face. They
Speaker 1: go for the face. You want to look for the
Speaker 1: queen and the bottom chamber. You want to make sure
Speaker 1: the hive is healthy and those bees can go off
Speaker 1: to another hive and find a queen or vice versa. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta take care of the queen first in any situation.
Speaker 1: That's why my doorman gives me my packages before anybody
Speaker 1: else in the building. It's kind of obvious that she's
Speaker 1: not like aware of bee keeping at all. Um, So
Speaker 1: can you tell me more about their behavior? See what
Speaker 1: I did there? Now, isn't honey just regurgitated? Be vomit? Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's be vomited. Hey America, honey is be vomiting? Did
Speaker 1: you know that? So now, well, now we'll we'll go.
Speaker 1: We'll take this one and going there and hardest and extracted.
Speaker 1: Well again, it's a beautiful story of parental love has
Speaker 1: blossomed into a trailblazing black owned business. This is pure yumminess.
Speaker 1: What do you think? It's really good and it has
Speaker 1: been inspiring to see the symbiotic relationship that is formed
Speaker 1: between humans and nature. Just keep me away from them bees.
Speaker 1: So it's young Zachary. You see that your parents have
Speaker 1: done all of this, and they got a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of death boxes in the back. They worked very hard
Speaker 1: to keep you alive, young man, What are you planning
Speaker 1: to do with your life? Are do you like trying
Speaker 1: to pitch in do the most they can for the honey,
Speaker 1: in for the business. Okay, what are they done? For you. Well,
Speaker 1: my name is on it too. It's Zack and Zoe,
Speaker 1: so it is for me too. I hope through this
Speaker 1: whole thing is that we've inspired more people to be beekeepers,
Speaker 1: especially more people of color to keep bees. Puns to
Speaker 1: everybody anybody who reaches out ruling to help help them
Speaker 1: get started, help them, point them in the right direction,
Speaker 1: talk about the books to bee keeping clubs. Dous who
Speaker 1: can do it? You can do it. Yeah, I really
Speaker 1: hope we made a bee keeper out of her. You know,
Speaker 1: I think we did right. She's not too far from us. No.
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