Stuff You Should Know - How Bees Work

Episode Date: January 27, 2013

With less than a million neurons in their tiny heads, bees shouldn't be able to do much more than eat, sleep and reproduce. And yet, bees are capable of high functions like population economics and navigating by the sun on overcast days. Learn about these fascinating insects, including what a stinger really is in this episode of Stuff You Should Know. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the 2012 Toyota Camry. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and you put us together, give us a little nectar,

let us collect pollen with the hair on our bodies, and you have stuff you should know. That'd be a lot of pollen, you know? Yeah. You'd be honey making fools. Yeah. You would be best at it, Robin Williams. Oh, man, that guy's scary. Yes. You would be a honey making fool. How you doing? Well, sir, how are you? I'm pretty good. It's a little early. It is. It is. But you're feeling good? Yeah, man, I love recording in the mornings. Yeah. Been up since 6 a.m. Reading about bees. Yeah. Well, this is a, I can imagine, you could have gotten up at four or five, because this is like the most extensive article in the universe, how bees work. It's Tracy Wilson joint, so it's thorough and exhaustive and exhausting.

Yes. But it's a good one, dude. I love bees. Do you? Yeah. I hate bees. Do you really? Yeah. Why? Because they sting, they hurt, they make me get up at 6 a.m. You don't think they're fascinating creatures? Yeah, it doesn't mean I like them. Oh, okay. Well, you got to talk about them anyway. I don't really have much of an intro, which is probably for the best, because this is a really long episode. There's a lot of facts. Yeah, there are parts and things. Let's talk bees, man. How long have they been around? Bees have been around for a gazillion years. They've been around for a long time, ancient Egyptians. In fact, there were sort of magical creatures that the sun got raw, cried down upon the earth. Yeah, which is fanciful. And that's where bees came from.

That's not where they came from. No. The SON people think that we came from bees of the Kalahari, the SON people. Oh, yeah? Yeah, they have this creation myth that a bee was carrying a manus across the desert, got tired, died. Before it died, it laid some eggs in the mantis, and then that became the first human. And that's where we came from. Not by that. Really? Sure, why not? A lot of people used to think that, including beekeepers, that they reproduced spontaneously. They didn't have intercourse to do so. And this was true until the mid 1600s, when a very cool dude named Jam Swammerdam examined bees under a microscope and saw little reproductive parts. Yeah, we got all wrong. He went, and I'm Jam Swammerdam. That's a pretty great name.

It's a great name. That's a good at that. Is that what he was? It's got to be. You think, Swammerdam? Yeah. Jam Swammerdam? Probably so. And there are like 20,000 species of bees, but we're going to concentrate mainly on honey bees. Yeah, mostly. A little bit of what are the other ones? Not the bumblebees, but we'll talk a little bit about bumblebees, too. Yeah, pretty much those two. Yeah. But mostly honey bees. They're the most studied. I think they're the most fascinating. But social and non-sense. I don't want to say anti-social. Solitary? Yeah, solitary bees. Anti-social is maybe a way to describe it. But those are two categories that we're going to dive into. Yeah. So surprisingly, bees go back even further than the ancient

Egyptians. The oldest bee fossil that they found is about 100 million years old. And they think that at some point around then during the Cretaceous period, bees diverged from wasps. Yeah. Not necessarily from wasps. It doesn't mean that bees evolved from wasps, but then possibly they shared a common wasp-like ancestor. I bet that was creepy. But it was like eight feet long, so ancient super wasps. Yeah. And this is about the same time, too, not coincidentally, when flowering plants started doing their thing. Before this, if you wanted to do the tree thing, you had to plant things, you had to do what conifers do, dropping your cones and counting on the wind and nature to do your work. Yeah, which may or may not work. But thankfully,

bees came along and they said, hey, you know what? We can help take your pollen, Mr. Flower. Yeah. So bees and flowering plants, angiosperms, co-evolved. And that was a big step for bees. They're kind of like the sweet philosophy majors of the wasp family. They just went off and became herbivores, whereas their wasps relatives or wasp cousins were carnivores. And not only carnivores, carnivores that used ovipositors to lay their eggs in other animals, other bugs. Yeah, it's gross. It is. And it's very aggressive. Yeah. But as we said, bees became herbivores. They just go around to flowers. All they want is to be left alone, collect pollen and nectar, and then, you know, pollinate flowers along the way. Sure. And they're very happy with their

lives like that. They're into the pan flute and Birkenstocks. You think bees are like hippies? A little bit. Yeah. You've never been attacked by a dozen hippies? No, actually more than a dozen. I was stung a dozen times. Is that right? I told that story before in the Colony Collapse podcast when I was tagged in the head and face 12 times. Oh, yeah, that rings a bell. One of my worst days. Yeah, very painful. So let's talk about parts. The bee's body is pretty remarkable. It's got an exoskeleton made of chitin, chitin, movable plates of this chitin. Yeah, it's almost like a suit of armor, it sounds like. Yeah, that's pretty neat. They've got, like we said, a lot of hairs all over their body, little fuzzies that they collect

the pollen, help regulate body temp, keep it cool or warm, depending on what's going on. And like a lot of insects, they're divided into little sections, the head, the thorax, and the abdomen in this case. And the brain is in the head. And it's not a big brain. No, but it's pretty awesome. Well, yeah, because it's specialized. Yeah. So a bee brain has about 950,000 neurons. That seems like a lot for a small insect. It does. A small brain. Right. Right. But apparently it's not. And the reason why we know it's not is because just based on the number of neurons, bees should be incredibly stupid and very simple animals. And they're not. The reason why is because the neurons in a bee's head are extremely specialized.

And rather than being recruited by some executive function like we have in our frontal lobes, their neurons kind of act on their own and communicate with other neurons to carry out a very specific activity. Yeah. Right. So this division of labor in the brain allows bees to do a lot of stuff that it would require a bigger brain to do normally. It's pretty ingenious. Yes. That's right. Bees were pretty smart when they figured out how to do this to themselves. They have a couple of sensory antennae, five eyes. Three of them are simple, a silly, and then two compound eyes. And they have lots of repeating parts called omatidia. I think so. And they can actually see polarized light. They specialize in patterns. And humans

can't do that, obviously. We would be like, just try the predator, maybe. That's what that looks like. That's thermal imaging. Oh, yeah, that's right. That's thermal. Polarized to be. You wear polarized glasses. Exactly. Like your, uh, your polarized sunglasses. Oh, yeah. Remember that? Before I got the Ray Vans. Yeah. Instead of Ray Vans, it said polarized. Yeah. That's what you get for eight bucks at CVS. They worked. You had them forever. Yeah. Until they broke. So that's how you saw polarized light. Bees don't even need sunglasses from CVS. They just see it naturally. And the reason this is important is because, um, as we'll see later on, they use the sun to navigate. And being able to see polarized light, that means they can see clear through

clouds when it's overcast and nowhere the sun is. That's right. Very important. Like a lot of insects, I got the little mouth parts. I know we've talked about mouth parts, I think in the fleas, maybe flies, flies, flies and fleas. Uh, they have the jaws or the paired mandibles, the tongue or the colossa. And then the lips, which are the labrum and the maxilla. And they support the probiscous, which I think most people know as the, the pollen sniffing device and collecting. Yeah. Well, when I mean sniff, I mean sniff it up in there. Yeah. It's like an arbor trunk. Yeah. Pretty much. But instead of huffing ants, it huffs nectar, right? That's right. Uh, you got two pair of wings. Right. You got three pair of legs.

The wings are actually part of the skeleton, which is kind of cool. And so if you're a little boy that's tearing wings off of a bee, you're actually breaking its skeleton. You need a spanking. You need to get stung. Oh yeah. That's how you learn that lesson. Poetic justice. Exactly. And, uh, they, the, the row of hooks called the hamuli connect the wings. So they are just beating together in synchronicity. But they don't connect all the time. They're not fused together. The, the wings are separate front, four wings and rear wings are separate. Yeah. And then when they really want to get going flying, they hook together using the hamuli. And that's to fly though. Right. Yeah. They're really take off. Oh, like they have

different speeds of flying. Yeah. And they connect or disconnect depending on that. Yeah. Tracy skipped that part so much for thorough. Uh, and then you got the legs, which, um, starting from the body working out, you have the coxa, the trochanter, the femur, the tibia and the tarsus, AKA hip thigh, shin foot. And that's the body for the most part. Yeah. But the legs are also kind of specialized. They're almost like a Swiss army legs. It's pretty cool. They've got different kinds of hair. Yeah. You've got a brush hair, comb hair, depending on the kind of pollen you're collecting. And then basket like hairs that hold pollen. You've got a pad and a claw. So you can like grab things. Yeah. Uh, you can strangle other bees if you want. Really? Your bee. Um,

and this is kind of cool. There's a small groove in the arm, in the leg for scraping pollen from the antenna. And then lastly, there's a press on the bottom for packing pollen into things. That's pretty neat. If you ask me, that is pretty neat. Swiss army leg. Is that what you call it? That's what I call it. Very nice. You should put a patent on that. So, yeah. So Chuck, when you, you know, when you accidentally squish a bee and you look down at it and it's guts are everywhere, it's not red. The blood isn't red. And actually it doesn't necessarily have what we would call blood. It's called hemolymph. And it has oxygen just suspended in it. Yeah. It doesn't have red blood cells, which is why bee blood hemolymph is clear.

Yeah. You don't see a lot of insects with red blood, do you? Only only Americans. Red blooded insects. Of course, we can't overlook the stinger. That is where the bees abdomen is and it's an appendage. And like we said before, it's a egg depositor, an ovipositor. And then the lancets will sting you and deliver venom from the poison sac in a venom gland. And once again, these wasp-like ancestors, they think that's where the bees got the venom. And it's just a leftover trait from that, even though they didn't go on to lay their eggs and meat. Right. That's, which is why the wasps evolved venom to subdue their prey while they were laying eggs and eating them and all that stuff. And bees, like you said, had it left

over, but they just have it for defense. Yeah. And I guess it was obviously a trait worthy of keeping. Sure. And like if I had a stinger and could inject people with venom, I'd keep it around. Sure. Use it on occasion. You'd be like, come on, evolutions, let me have it. Exactly. There are stingless bees though, quite a few species, and they don't have stingers at all. No. And they were very handy among the Maya until very recently for beekeeping because you just stick your hand in there and be like, I'm taking your honey and what are you going to do? Nothing. That's great. Because you're a stingless bee. They couldn't even bite or anything? No. They just stand idly by. That's their thing. Tummies. So check, there's a lot of,

there's a lot of stuff that a bee produces. They're like pubescent children. They just produce all these different things with all these different glands all the time. They're secreting stuff all the time. But it's very useful stuff. That's right. And then Chuck, you know how when you get stung, sometimes you hear or you've heard a bee will die after it stings you. Yeah. I think most people think that all bees die when they sting you. Not true. No. It depends on the type of stinger they have. Honeybees for the most part, except for the queen honeybee, have barb stingers. And if a bee has a barb stinger, it is going to stick in you. If you're a mammal, a bee can sting other insects with a barb stinger and live after stinging repeatedly. If it stings in a mammal, we have this

fat meaty flesh that the barb stinger hooks into. And when the bee flies away, it leaves its stinger and its abdomen and guts stuck in you. And so it dies, which is why if you have a barb sting, you can only sting once. But some bees do have smooth stingers and can sting mammals as often as they like. I wonder how often that, uh, how long that takes for the bee to die. Because you know, they sting you and they fly away. I wonder if it's like a few minutes or a couple of hours or if they just like, I would think pretty quick go quietly and bleed out or yeah. But I mean, how long does it take a bee to bleed out? I don't know, probably not long. Hemolymph out. But I know when I've been stung, I see them fly away. Yeah. And they look like they're doing all right to

me. And right when you turn around, they just go, I guess I'm going to trail the next bee that's stinging and follow it. You're going to track it? Yeah, track it. You totally should. All right. So, uh, you want to talk about some juices and stuff? Some venom? Yeah, we should talk about venom. Remember the difference between a venomous organism and a poisonous organism is venom is produced in the body. Poisons outside, right? That's right. And a bee's venom, uh, basically destroys cells. Like it's pretty hardcore stuff. It's a good thing. It's in small quantities, probably. I can imagine if it was larger quantities, it could be pretty destructive. But, uh, they have peptides in enzymes, break through the fat linings of the cell, destroy the

mass cells, uh, and that releases histamine. This is where we get into like, whether or not you're allergic, you could be in big trouble. Yeah. Because histamine is part of your immune response. Yeah. Which is a good thing. You know, you want that. Right. And histamines, uh, open the, the blood vessels so that you can get your antibodies, your immune, your immune cells to the site much more quickly. Yeah. But if you have a bee allergy, your immune system is too large. It's too big a response. Your blood vessels dilate so much that you lose blood pressure and fall over, um, which is called anaphylactic shock. That's right. And that can kill people. Yeah. Dead. And, uh, if you are allergic to bees, you, uh, almost 100% in likelihood have an epinephrine

shot with you. Yeah. Uh, because it's dangerous stuff and that will constrict the blood vessels and save your life. Hopefully. Right. If you get it in time, I imagine it depends on the person. Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. Um, so like we said, there's 20,000, approximately 20,000 bee species under the super family, uh, apodia or apodia. How do you say that? Let's go with a podium. A podium. A podium. And, uh, depending on the bee, you're going to have a different kind of nest, but, uh, they are similar, you know, in a lot of cases. So we'll break it down into honey bees and bumble bees for the nesting purposes. And for social, those are, they're both social. That's right. Kind of bees there. So, uh, you've got, um, among honey bees, you have a perennial nest,

which is always around. It's kind of cool. Yeah. They build the same nest and for life. Yeah. I love that. Uh, and for generations, um, and they build it by secreting, um, stuff out of their glands because bees are like the pubescent children, human children of the, of the insect world. They're always secreting stuff out of their glands, but they make good use of it. And one of the things that they use it for is, uh, wax to build. Yeah. Nests. Hot. Yeah. And these are all ladies, by the way. It's a very important point. Yeah. These are all little women workers. Uh, and the reason why is because male bees, for the most part, are around to fornicate and that's about it. In fact, they don't even have a lot of the parts that you need to be a, a real bee, to collect pollen

or anything like that. They're there to reproduce. And that's it. Yeah. In fact, they will even get kicked out of the hive if things get a little too crowded and food is scarce or winners coming. The women, the women will say, all right, it's time for you guys to leave. Yeah. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. That's right. I wonder what they do. They'd probably say I'm going to sting you if you don't get out of here. No, I wonder what the males do though. They go off and die. Do they die? Or do they freeze? They form their own little like boys club. Uh, I have the impression that male bees are kind of too oafish to, to think of that kind of thing. Dummy. Yeah. But so if you see a bee collecting pollen in almost every species, that's a female bee.

If you see a bee stinging you or feel a bee stinging you, that's a female because the stinger is an ovipositor, which makes it a female part. That's right. But as we were saying, the nests that are built and maintained and, and uh, stocked are all done by females with the honey bee. That's right. And it's perennial. Yes. And uh, in that little nest, if the queen bee is, the queen bee will be delivering, um, a queen substance. It's a pheromone. And if, get another secretion, another secretion, if, and if the little lady bees start getting less and less of this, they'll say, you know what, we need to split up and make a new queen and a new hive. And let's just go ahead and start this process now and let's pick a new queen and

start feeding her royal jelly, another secretion and, um, raise her right, right on this royal jelly. So with a, about half of the workers and the old queen take off and found a new, um, hive. I guess there's too much pressure on the new queen to start. I guess so. Yeah. Like we got this place built for you. Right. You just grow up and take care of it. And that's what happens. The new queen grows up and, and the hive basically divides like a cell in two. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. Yeah. Um, solitary, not solitary bumblebees. Yeah. Found, they found annual, um, nests. And basically, I like that idea too, though. New digs every year. It's not getting attached to something. Sure. Yeah. Um, so they, in the, uh, in the fall, the queen mates spends the winter

underground in the spring. She lays some eggs that turn out to surprisingly mostly be females, if not all females. Yeah. And they help her build the nest. And in the summer, she lays some more eggs. Those hatch into males. Those males fly off and all of the, uh, male bumblebees, somehow scientists haven't figured out how they do it. They figure, they get a, uh, uh, they say, hey, we're all going to be over here to mate this Friday. Right. We'll see you guys there. Yeah. Then all the queens from all the individual nests for miles around come over and everybody copulates and then they leave the scrunchie on the door. Yeah. And then that's that. Yep. And that's the, the cycle starts anew. The female lays eggs or goes back underground for

the winter. That's right. And these are the social bees. Like we said, um, however, less than 15% of bees are social, even though they're the ones we usually think of more, as far as like hives and nests and things. My favorite are the solitary bees. Why? Because they're doing their own thing. My, my really favorite reason why is because the different ways they, uh, make their home. Yeah. I just think it's really cool. Yeah. So like social bees are, are known from the type of hives they have. That's kind of how they're divided. But yeah, the way that they, they make their homes for solitary bees, that's, yeah, that's a good definition. And solitary bees, they'll get together on occasion if they need to like band

together for defense or something, but they generally do their own thing. Right. Um, um, so some of the different ways that these guys can make homes like carpenter bees, which are my favorites. Um, they bore holes in wood and unpainted like raw wood. Yeah. And they usually are like the spitting image of a bumblebee. Yeah. But if you see a bumblebee going into a hole and like your door jam, that's a carpenter bee. I like carpenter bees. I think it's cool. And they get the little tool belt. Yeah. They always have a pencil behind their ear. Yeah. And they're always late. Yeah. And the job is never done on time. But they'll tell you straight, this is going to cost two, three times what I originally estimated. Exactly. Uh,

I just think it's cool that they can actually bore into the wood like that. It's amazing. Yeah. And they're always like perfectly little round holes too. I know. Like what's surprising is they use their eyes to bore little lasers shoot out of them. Oh, wow. I don't think I knew that. Tracy skipped that too. Yeah. Uh, there are the plaster bees. Um, they dig little holes in tunnels and line them with another secretion that's sort of like plaster. Yeah. Makes sense. The leaf cutters. What do they do? They use those grasping claws, remember? And then they bite leaves apart with their mouths and line their nests with them because they like to be nice and comfy. Mason bees used to be a mason bee. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I would, uh, secrete

something from my jaws that basically was like mortar and put sand and pebbles together and make a nest. That's a strong nest. This is like basically the, the, the three pigs of the bee kingdom we're going from like, we're going from, uh, leaves to wood. Yeah. Wood and sand. Yeah. Nice. The Carter bee. That's a, they like furry woolly parts of plants and that's basically they're like the, uh, Bob Gucci only bees. I bet that's a homie nest. Yeah. They wear silk robes and stuff like that. Uh, and then my favorite thing is when, uh, Tracy points out a few species actually will like check out an empty snail shell and say, that looks like a very nice little apartment. I'm just going to move in there and you want to move in. Let's just divide it up

with more secretions and you take that half. We'll make it a duplex. Yeah. That is really cool. Or others will go into an old ant hill or termite hill or a wasp nest and be like, hello. And if they hear back, hello, hello, hello, they'll, they'll say, well, this is where I'm going to lay my eggs. It's already built. Yeah. And the cuckoo bee, these guys are dumb. They go, they're parasitic bee, not in that they eat other bees, but that they, um, they lay their eggs in other bees' nests and just say, Sayonara. Yeah. And they rely on their pollen. It just is like, I feel like they're dumb. They like, they can't figure it out on their own. So they just kind of sneak in there in the dead of night and do their thing. Yeah. Sweat bees. Remember those

little guys? Very aptly named. They are after your sweat. I thought that was sort of a lifestyle. It's not. No, they're sweat bees. That's right. The orchid bee is another good example of co-evolution. They think that the orchid bee with its extremely long probe probiscus, um, basically evolved to get the nectar out of orchids, which keeps its nectar very deep in the flower blossom. Yeah. Evolution. Scaring in the face. Uh, the scariest bee, Josh, is there such thing as a killer bee? Uh, no, that's kind of a media hype. I mean, any bee, especially if you had a bee allergy, could kill you. Yeah. Um, but what are killer bees? So back in the fifties, I think, 1957 in Brazil, some, uh, apiarists, uh, some beekeepers imported some African honeybees and they got loose

and they went and mated with the European honeybees that were already in the area. Yeah. And what you had was Africanized honeybees, which are virtually identical to European honeybees, but they are far more aggressive, especially if they think you're messing with their hive. I wonder how that happens. And they will sting you. You know, like Africans and Europeans mating that makes them aggressive. That's just interesting. Yeah. They combine those two and all of a sudden they're just pissed off. Yeah. But then at some point the media got a hold of it as they started to approach from Brazil upward toward America. Yeah. We have some here, right in the States.

Yeah. They made it to Texas, Florida, I believe, maybe even Georgia, California, Arizona. I bet there's some in South Georgia. And, um, they, the media went crazy over killer bees. That seems like a 70s thing. I sort of remember that. I thought it was 80s. Was there, was there a movie or something? Oh, I'm sure. A swarmy movie. Yeah. I think there had to be. Or there should be. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs.

They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. Cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being

robbed. They call civil asset. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, y'all. This is Dr. Joy Horton Bradford, host of the award winning weekly podcast, Therapy for Black Girls. Our incredible community of sisters has been building the Therapy for Black Girls podcast for five years running. And over that time, we've published over 250 episodes and gained over 18 million podcast downloads. During this time, we've tackled the stigma surrounding mental health and shared conversations to help us all understand ourselves and others a little better. Hundreds of incredible licensed

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bees can live up to five years. Some of them honeybees. I think that's the queen. Just the queen? Okay, that makes sense. Because I didn't get, because Tracy also said that some of them don't even live through the winter. I guess it just depends. Right, that's why I think it was the queen that she was referring to up to five years. That's amazing. For an insect? Sure. I mean, she's well taken care of. She doesn't have to do a lot. That's right. The males, like we said, are there to deposit their male parts in and unfortunately they don't leave with their male parts. Yeah, depending on the species of bee, they may much like stinging a mammal once they copulate. Does that work for bees?

This copulation? Yeah, sure. They leave their, like you said, their man parts in the female and die as a result. They tear their hand to man out, takes it more than he leaves it. Oh, is that right? I don't know. I just have a feeling that the female bees just seem like they're the smart ones. Yeah, exactly. Like I have your, you know, what's it called? You're not a penis. No, it's not a penis. They're endophallus. Okay, I've got your endophallus and I'm not giving it back. Exactly. And now you're dead. That's right. So with honeybee specifically, I think the queen bee is the only one that lays eggs. Is that correct? No, the queen, honeybee's females will lay like a few eggs during their lifetime, but the queen bee

lays thousands. Okay, all right. So it is possible for a honeybee to lay an egg. Okay, but for the most part, just a few. Carrying on the hive, that's up to the queen. Oh, yeah. Right? Big time. The, and then once an egg is laid, it goes through the same stages that like a caterpillar will. Yeah, I never knew that either. Yeah. So like you lay an egg and it hatches into a larva, which looks like a little worm, a little sick, gross white worm. And it's fed by workers for a couple of days. Yeah. That royal jelly, which you said they secrete from their heads, right? Yeah, I don't think the regular bees get the royal jelly, do they? For the first two days. Oh, for just two days. That's right. If you want to make a queen,

you feed that bee, you feed any female larva royal jelly the whole time. Until it hatches. You're raising her. Yeah. Okay. Until she spends a cocoon. So they get royal jelly a couple of days. They, they molt. They're the worker seal off the honeycomb, which is an egg chamber in this case. Yeah, each little one. Yeah. Those like build a little door basically. Yeah. And it's one per, no more. That's right. No less. And then the larva spends a cocoon and eventually emerges as an adult. And I've heard tell that the first thing a bee does when it's born is clean out its egg chamber over the next bee. They're very busy and tidy and like, yeah, they've got a lot of stuff to do for sure. And here's the other cool thing. Males will get a little bit larger cell, but

the queen can actually decide whether or not to have a male or a female. Yeah, that's remarkable. Yeah, because a queen will collect sperm enough for her lifetime. In one shot. Yeah. In one mating season. Right. I understand that. And then she'll dole it out depending on what kind of bees the hive needs at any point. Amazing. So what's the what's the magic sauce then? What, how she does this? She stores, all right, if she uses stored sperm to fertilize the egg, then she hatches female. If she leaves egg unfertilized, then it's a male. Right. So it's up to her. And what's crazy is this, this, it all depends on what kind of state the hives in. Like, do you need more workers to go gather more food? Yeah. Or do you need more males to reproduce?

It's pretty cool. Yeah, how they strike that balance with that tiny little rain. Yeah. I guess years of experience. How do they pick the queen too? Do you know that? I don't know. Is it just random and then they start them on the royal jelly and that just gets the process going? That's the impression that I have that as long as it's a fertilized egg that will become a female. Yeah. Then I think you could feed any of those royal jelly. It's probably one of the queen's daughters though. It's supposed to one of the few of the others. Right. Don't you think? Keep that royal bloodline intact? Yeah, I would think. Yeah. That's just a guess. I bet somebody knows. I mean, what if they accidentally raised a cuckoo bee's egg as the queen? What a colossal nightmare that

would be. Has it picked an army movie like that? Okay, so the little egg's hatch in the little worker bees, they have different jobs according to their age, but they are going to be taken care of the young at this point. They're going to be feeding them pollen or beebred, which is pollen and nectar mixed together. It sounds delicious actually. It is. A lot of people think that bees are just only after nectar. They collect pollen on purpose as well and they use it to make beebred. That's right. Beebred does sound very delicious. As you get older though, you're going to have different jobs. At first, you're a nurse and then like you said, once you get a little older, you might be a maid or a butler and clean. No, not a butler. I guess a maid. Right.

And start cleaning out the other empty cells. Yeah. Even though you said they're supposed to do it yourself, I guess some are lazy maybe. Sure. Some other worker bee has to come behind and take care of their business. And they're like, I'm going to keep my eye on you. Exactly. And then they also learn at that point how to forge for food and make honey. And this is where things get kind of fun. And those are the oldest ones. Yeah. The oldest ones are the scouts and the ones that forage are the oldest bees in the hive. Yeah, the followers. Yeah. And I want to say real quick too, first Chuck, that was social bee reproduction. Yeah. Solitary bee reproduction is very sad sometimes. In some species, the mother lays an egg, seals up whatever she's

used to as the nest with a little beebred, little honey, whatever. And then takes off and dies. And they never see their little baby bee. Nope. That is sad. Isn't that sad? It is. So bees find their food in pretty remarkable ways. They can smell like really, really well. Yeah. And like we said, they can recognize color patterns and things. And they have their solar compass. So this allows them to see where the sun is. They also have an internal clock. So when they go out, the scout bees and find the food, they know, well, the sun's right there and I flew 300 yards. Now I'm flying back and the sun is right there. So they can actually use those together to pinpoint or pinpoint for the others where the food is because they're

going back to tell everyone, hey, and they let them taste like this is what you're after, taste a little bit of this. And now come with me by way of this dance. Right. Literally. They can remember and judge and measure where they went, where the food source was, but then they also can communicate it. Like you said, through dancing. And if food's really close by, they'll just basically run up a vertical wall of a honeycomb, which they call the dance floor. Yeah. And not just us. No, it's called the dance floor. That's what people who study bees call it. And they basically just run up or down in the direction of the food source in relation to the sun, not in relation to the hive. Yeah. When they go out, they'll be like, oh, okay, the sun's over here. It's

in this direction. That's pretty cool. Yeah. That's called the round dance. Right. And they depend on their sense of smell because they don't get super specific with the round dance. Yeah. They're like, I'll get you out there and then you'll know. Trust me. Exactly. Yeah. Because bees can smell from meters away, which is that's a really far distance considering how small bees are. Sure. Sure. And when the food's a little further away, they do the actual waggle dance. And basically, this is running again in a line in the direction of the food and then making these little circles in opposing directions at the end of the line. So they'll run up and then go to the left in a circle and then run up and then go to the right in a circle. And that tells everybody

where the food is and then the quality of the food source, how tight the circle is, I think, kind of says it's really, really good. Yeah. Or if it's a big loping circle, maybe like, it's okay. Yeah. We've had better. And then the bees also flapping its wings at the same time. And all the bees that have gathered around, like you said, are called followers. Yeah. There's the oldest ones in the hive and they're taking all this information in and a specific group of them are going to be directly behind the bee while it's doing this waggle dance. Flapping its wind. Yeah. Flapping its wings. And that wind is going to tell them about how long they need to travel for. And then all the bees take off when they get to about the right area, they go into like a

search pattern until somebody finds it and then they start making trips back and forth. Yep. I mean, they're delivering a lot of information here. Yeah. Very specific information. And they make about a dozen trips. Each bee can carry about half her weight in pollen or nectar. Which is amazing. Yeah. And then when they come back to unload the stuff, there's more communication going on because the little unloaders that are back at the hive will behave differently according to how much more food they need. If they're like, come on, come on, give it, give it, give it. That means keep going, keep going. And then they're like, eh, yeah, I guess I'll take it since you brought it, but we're really doing okay. Right. And that means they're stopped up. They're like,

all right, well, I'm not going to get any more if you're just not going to be excited about it any longer. Let's just find some men to have sex with. Right. Or let's turn this nectar into honey. Yes. Just because for storage purposes, honey has far less volume than nectar. It's basically concentrated nectar. Yeah. So you can store more of it. Right. That's right. So they transform nectar into honey in a kind of a gross way. They regurgitate it over and over and over, which evaporates the water out of it. And they also flap their little wings to, I guess, use air to do the same thing. And so honey is a bunch of regurgitated bee stuff because it's bee vomit. Yeah. I mean, there's bee stuff in there as well. Yeah. It's not just nectar. Yeah.

They're sucking the moisture out, but they're also adding enzymes and stuff from their body to make honey. It's not just dehydrated nectar. It's honey's a different thing that's made by this stuff. That's right. But it has some pretty amazing properties to it. One of the things that's added during this regurgitation process is called glucose oxidase. Yeah. And when it's fed to young, to the young, it's broken down into glucose, which gives them tons of energy because there's a lot of sugar calories in honey. But it's also broken down into hydrogen peroxide, which is one of the things that gives honey its antimicrobial antibacterial properties. That's right. And that's why humans have been using it and eating it for thousands and thousands of years to treat wounds occasionally.

Yeah. And it can be good in a pinch if you're a survivalist. Yeah. Especially in open wound. So, I mean, you've heard that honey is, like, it keeps forever, basically. Obviously, it doesn't keep for everybody. It'll keep a very long time. That's one of the big reasons. Another reason is that it has a high osmotic pressure and it's hygroscopic, which means it wicks moisture out of the air around it. Yeah. And since it has a high osmotic pressure, it does it really strongly. So, if you're a little nice, moisturized piece of bacteria and you come in contact with honey, it's going to suck the moisture out of you and kill you. So, antibacterial. Wow. Yeah. That's pretty amazing. If you come across a beehive in the winter time and they just seem like they're

all in their sleep, hibernating, not so. They're still pretty active. They will leave the hive to poop and pee because, well, I guess they don't pee, but they leave the hive to do their business because they don't want to go in their little cell, which, again, they're very tidy little creatures. Yeah. They know not to, like, wallow in their own feces. Right. Not feces, but be pooped. Scat. Be scat. But they are still pretty busy in there because they have to keep warm. So they, and especially keep the queen warm. And so they tremble just like humans kind of shiver just to increase the warmth. Then the summertime, they will flap their wings to kind of keep things climate controlled on the cooler side. And drip water on the honeycomb too. That's amazing.

They are pretty amazing creatures, if you ask me. And I still hate them. Yeah. Oh, we should also say real quick that while bee honey has a lot of antibacterial properties and antimicrobial properties, one particular bacteria that is impervious to honey's defenses is clostridium botulinum, aka botulism. Oh, yeah. The bacteria that gives you botulism. And since it's soil-borne, it's very easy for C. botulinum to get into honey. It's in honey. Any honey you eat is going to have it in there. It's not in large enough measure to affect us, but it could be life threatening to a baby, which is why they always say, like, never give honey to a baby. Oh, yeah. Ever. Huh. You know, I don't think we mentioned either. The honey, you know, you have different flavors of honey.

That depends on what the bee has been, what kind of flowers the bee's been hanging out with. Yeah. It's like orange blossom honey. Or clover. Or is orange blossom and clover. Yeah. So I never knew that either. Makes perfect sense. Bees. I thought it was like an added flavor or something. You know, like, we have this honey. Yeah, number five. Yeah, whatever. You know, we'll make different flavors of honey. I think that was like naturally great. You're like, when are they going to make bacon honey? Oh, man, I bet that's good. Oh, you just cook some bacon, put some honey on it? Yum. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind

the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute a 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm a prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil asset for it. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

Hey, y'all. This is Dr. Joy Horton Bradford, host of the award-winning weekly podcast therapy for black girls. Our incredible community of sisters has been building the therapy for black girls podcast for five years running. And over that time, we've published over 250 episodes and gained over 18 million podcast downloads. During this time, we've tackled the stigma surrounding mental health and shared conversations to help us all understand ourselves and others a little better. Hundreds of incredible licensed mental health care professionals and other experts have joined us to share tips on taking better care of ourselves. We flip through the pages of your favorite romance novels with author Tia Williams, checked in with Grammy award-winning artist Michelle Williams,

and discussed the hurdles of balancing competitive sports, motherhood, and mental health with Olympic athlete Natasha Hastings. Five years down and many more years of work to be done. Join us now by checking out the therapy for black girls podcast on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Um, and you know, we had, we did a podcast on colony collapse disorder. Yeah. So I would encourage people to go listen to that as well. It was a good one in the archives. Um, you got anything else? I got nothing else. Okay. So it's bees. If you want to learn more about bees, you should go check out this very thorough article on howstuffworks.com and type in bees and it will bring it up and you can learn even more, including about colony collapse disorder.

Yeah. And, um, beekeeping as well. Yeah, maybe we should do beekeeping one day. Okay. I don't mean a podcast. I mean, just start around the side, side business. Haven't we already? Don't you have like a smoker and everything? Uh, yeah, TV will tell you I do. Um, okay. So since I said, uh, search bar, I think I did at howstuffworks.com and that means it's time for, of course, listen to Neil. All right, Josh, I'm going to call this, uh, correction from a librarian. Remember we did our book banning podcast. That's her correction. Yeah, that's all she said. And that is from Carly. Thank you, Carly. Uh, hey guys, love your show as a librarian. I was excited to hear what you had to say about book banning. However, I'd like to clear up a misconception about the role

of a librarian in banning books. Uh, you said if a customer patron approaches a librarian, wants a book banned, it is up to the librarian to decide, uh, this is not, this could not be further from the truth in 99% of the cases. Uh, public libraries are run by boards of trustees, volunteers in the community who set policies for the library. Uh, these community members are not librarians. And when someone wants a book removed, they must fill out a form and submit it to the board. Then the board reviews the material and the objection. Board of trustees, uh, it is the board of trustees who decides whether or not to remove the item. Uh, the board of trustees may consult with others like librarians, uh, review sources, the community at large, et cetera,

but it is not the librarian who decides whether to ban the book. Um, I hope to hear this corrected, she says, because it is unfortunate to hear one's profession misconstrued and an international public forum. So that is from Carly and she says, thanks and keep up the good work. Yeah. And shush. Thanks Carly. Appreciate that. Um, I think everybody got that. It was pretty clear and concise. Yeah. It is not librarians in most cases who carry out the banning. It sounds like she might have been yelled at by somebody because of her podcast. Maybe. Well, she just yelled at us. No, she was nice. Um, if you have a correction for us, we are always very much open to those who want to hear them so we can pass them along because we like correcting ourselves and getting things

right. You can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. And you can send us a good old fashioned email at stuffpodcast at discovery.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Brought to you by the 2012 Toyota Camry. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff stuff that'll piss you off the cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app,

apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Langston Kermit. Sometimes I'm on TV. I'm David Boreen. I'm probably on TV right now. David and I are going to take a deep dive every week into the most exciting groundbreaking and sometimes problematic black conspiracy theories. We've had amazing past notable guests like Brandon Cowell Goodman, Sam J, Quinta Brunson and so many more new episodes around every Tuesday, many episodes out on Thursdays where we answer you, the listeners conspiracy theories. Listen to my mama told me on the iHeart radio app, apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast.