Two Brains One Bot
Two girls attempting to survive in the age of rising stupidity & robots. Join us each week as we laugh about life, memes, pop culture, and the dumb shit that AI says. 🧠🧠🤖
Two Brains One Bot
Bee Hole: Bees? BEES?!
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You know how sometimes you see one video online and it becomes your entire personality? That’s what happened when Ashley attempted to write a pod episode and decided to pivot last minute and tell Christy just how freaking fascinating bees are.
In this episode, we get into the three different bee lifestyle types, weird and wonderful bee facts, and a whole lot of information that you absolutely did not know you needed to know about our tiny little flying friends.
Then we put our newfound bee knowledge to the test with a Myth or Fact game… where we ask the age-old questions: Do you like jazz?
Naturally, things derail.
There are bees. There are a lot of bee holes. There are also entirely too many references to Arrested Development and one particular misunderstanding involving beads.
So come for the bee facts. Stay for the bee holes.
Resources:
https://entnemdept.ufl.edu/honey-bee/podcast/
https://www.xerces.org/bug-banter/all-about-bees-celebrating-pollinator-week
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bee_movie
https://www.tiktok.com/@netflixisajoke/video/7269079219160780075?lang=en
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So I have some things that I want to embroider. Like I bought this cute bag. Like, you know how you go on vacation and they have canvas bags that have like the name of the place where you're at? Yeah. And like a little image, but it's just screen printed on. Would it not be so cute if I like embroidered?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that'd be really cute.
SPEAKER_00Certain designs over top of it, yeah. So that's gonna be my next endeavor, but I still gotta learn all the stitches. And I'm I'm doing good. Yeah, it's fun. It's relaxing.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Something about stabbing something a bunch of times feels really good.
SPEAKER_00For sure, for sure, for sure.
SPEAKER_01And uh how's guitar going?
SPEAKER_00You know, we have been tasked with with practicing 15 minutes four times a week, and I have done that two times.
SPEAKER_01Oh, good.
SPEAKER_00Practice two times for 15 minutes, so not good.
SPEAKER_01That's better than what I've been doing.
SPEAKER_00Which is?
SPEAKER_01I think I practiced for like an hour or two on one of the days. Okay.
SPEAKER_00But like I think about it often.
SPEAKER_01I do think about it.
SPEAKER_00I need to make flashcards for the notes so I can learn the notes because that's really complicated.
SPEAKER_01The your tip about using a metronome was really helpful.
SPEAKER_00I haven't even downloaded a metronome app.
SPEAKER_01It's on the I think it's on the app that we use to tune him.
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01I think there's a metronome included. The more you know. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I'll find out. I I think I will maybe try and get 15 minutes in tonight.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, do it. My the hard part for me is that as soon as I as soon as I pull my guitar out, my kids want to play it. Yeah. They want to stand next to me and well, there's just so many things.
SPEAKER_00Like the minute I have free time, there's so many things that I want to do, and then I end up just squandering my time. So that's that's a problem.
SPEAKER_01Speaking of, I have to tell you something that I've recently become obsessed with.
SPEAKER_00Uh what?
SPEAKER_01Honey bee colony removal videos.
SPEAKER_00Oh, with the funny girl?
SPEAKER_01I don't know. Is there a funny girl? I mean, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Oh, maybe she's not funny.
SPEAKER_01I mean, there's a girl that's cute on there. I'll I'll tell you about it. So this lady and her partner have a company in Florida called How's Your Day Honey? Which I think is also so cute. They have like little stickers, super cute. Um, but they go around people's homes that have been like infested and remove the bee colonies. What like it like I mean like they're cutting floorboards, like they're cutting like people's floors.
SPEAKER_00Oh, it's not just a little nest, it's a no, it's like a huge. Like what do they call that when it's like uh somebody stays, like they're squatting, the bees are squatting?
SPEAKER_01The bees are squatting. And the cool thing is is like in some of the videos that they've shown, they have like a little heat sensor camera.
SPEAKER_00Oh and you can see like what's that's actually not cool.
SPEAKER_01Um, anyways, I am obsessed watching these videos, and I had I had told you before we started this, I had a different episode and idea in my life. Yeah, this is completely different. Um, and I just kept getting distracted by these B videos.
SPEAKER_00So you're like, just one more, and then I'll write for a little bit of the episode and then like just one more.
SPEAKER_01Well, you know how well maybe this doesn't happen to you, but sometimes I hyperfixate on things.
SPEAKER_00Not one time ever.
SPEAKER_01I think I might have a little bit of that ADHD. But like the dog in you.
unknownI got that dog in there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like I like some like all of a sudden I'm just watching a video about it. Like I'm not You're like, how did I get here?
unknownPretty much.
SPEAKER_00I was writing. No, that happens to me. Sometimes, like I'm I'm literally like just so totally focused on something, and then all of a sudden it's like squirrel, and I was and I'm like, No, no, no, and like slap myself, yeah, get back to work.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, pretty much. That's exactly what it's been. Yeah, so the episode that I've written for you today, I wrote today. Okay, perfect, but it was inspired by my my the fact that I cannot stop watching these big bee videos, they're so cool. Okay, and it's really cool because they try to find the queen. Oh, and then they move it to their apiary, so they they are rescuing these bees from otherwise being like schmurtered because like and they catch them in like the little plastic, like yeah. Yeah, yeah, and then because of the the the pheromones that the queen bee gives off, the colony follows it. So what they do is they find the queen and they put her in like a new box.
SPEAKER_00It's crazy. It's crazy. How do they find the how do they find her?
SPEAKER_01I don't know, because in these videos, like they're you're seeing like hundreds of thousands of bees, and they're like just like picking up scoopfuls of bees and looking.
SPEAKER_00I mean that's why like the internet isn't is doesn't show you all the the things. Like they had to be scooping bees for hours and then all of a sudden they found her.
SPEAKER_01But like maybe or they're really no one of the videos though, they they put her, like they put the queen in like the little thing, and the caption said straight to gel. But yeah, so they put it on like this box and then all of the bees follow it because of the pheromones. Yeah, so they rem they leave essentially from where they were investing and move to this safer home for them, which then gets moved to an apiary.
SPEAKER_00Do moms have pheromones? Because sometimes I will remove myself from a situation and my children still follow.
SPEAKER_01Probably.
SPEAKER_00Okay, just asking for a friend.
SPEAKER_01Maybe. Probably.
SPEAKER_00Fun fact. Well, I guess we'll find out. Your but fun fact, Ashley's children are at my house right now, and my my my children are watching her children, so we'll see if the kids can smell Ashley and they'll come pawing at the door.
SPEAKER_01Probably. Actually, they're in heaven. Maybe. Yeah. I told I told your family to give them as much as they can to keep them busy.
SPEAKER_00So she said there's no sugar limits.
SPEAKER_01No, no sugar limits. I'll pay the consequences later.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um famous last words.
SPEAKER_01I know. I'm gonna be texting you later. Well, also, we also have a it's okay.
SPEAKER_00I I put my phone on do not disturb, so you can text me all you want. Yeah. And I'll just do it right when you leave here.
SPEAKER_01Hey.
SPEAKER_00I'm just kidding.
SPEAKER_01I got go fuck you so you're single parenting right now. I am single parenting right now. Not because me and my husband are divorced, but because my husband got to go do something fun.
SPEAKER_00No, maybe.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, maybe, maybe when he gets home. No, she one of my kids had no nap today, so she's real feral. So um, after just having stitches, we're we're really doing great over here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Oh, how are you doing? Not great.
SPEAKER_01I'm alive.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Okay, but your hair looks good.
SPEAKER_01Thanks. I chopped it. If you want to see my my chop, it's cute. Here's the thing about me is one change about me. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's fun.
SPEAKER_01It's fun.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But your new hair lady, like yeah, yeah. You got my hair lady now. She's a bomb.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, anyways, so these videos, they're really cool. I've watched literally every video that I can get my hands on, and it's really fascinating. So on that note, I'm going to tell you everything I just learned about bees.
SPEAKER_00Beads? Bees. Bees. Bees. You knew I was gonna do that, right? For anyone that doesn't know that reference, it's a arrested development. There's the funniest episode where Lindsay comes in and says that she's got a new business idea, and she said beads. And Job, out of like melting into the couch, is like bees beads.
SPEAKER_01Here's how you know it's funny when someone has to explain it to you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Shut up.
SPEAKER_01Do you have a Simpsons reference that you could give right now?
SPEAKER_00Um, I don't, but I bet you there is some type of B episode with The Simpsons.
unknownProbably.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um Never mind. I did just come up with it, but never mind.
SPEAKER_01Tell me. No, I'm not gonna tell you.
SPEAKER_00You don't deserve to know.
SPEAKER_01You're gonna wait till I'm in the middle of a sentence and then say it.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so just as a disclaimer, this um could likely be like a multi-part series because bees are cool as hell. Yeah. So if I miss anything.
SPEAKER_00Are they interesting? Yeah, they're they're pretty interesting.
SPEAKER_01If I miss anything, maybe we will circle back around or you know, I'm gonna give some resources where you can go look up some of the stuff.
SPEAKER_00We actually say that quite a bit of like, I'm I'm just gonna like tell you a little bit about this. Like, this will probably be another episode and then we never come back.
SPEAKER_01No, but you know what I did last time that I'm like patting myself on the back for because I'm better than everyone. I actually put resources in the last episode that I posted.
SPEAKER_00Oh, not me. Oh, find your own sources. Well, I'm your source. I'm your source. You're to find me.
SPEAKER_01You can quote me on that.
SPEAKER_00You know, and you know, and Michael Scott quotes Wayne Gretzky.
SPEAKER_01Yeah that's that's how I quote Wayne Gretzky, Michael Scott.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01So on on the note of resources, a couple of them that I found were actually podcasts, which is pretty cool. So one of them was the two bees in a podcast. Um, it's a it's literally a podcast created by the University of Florida Honey Bee Research and Extension Laboratory. It's really cool.
SPEAKER_00So, what was the name of these? But but what is the name of the the videos you've been watching? How's your buzz? What is it?
SPEAKER_01Oh, the the Instagram reels is um Hana How's Your Day, honey?
SPEAKER_00How's your day, honey? Not even close. How's your buzz? That's a good one.
SPEAKER_01How's your buzz? There's probably something. Are we changing the name of this podcast?
SPEAKER_00No, but somebody can use that and then let me know.
SPEAKER_01Um, so yeah, the University of Florida. Focus. I'm gonna need you to lock in.
SPEAKER_00Locking in.
SPEAKER_01So the University of Florida has um an entire YouTube page and podcast dedicated to um helping beekeepers and bee research. So their YouTube page says that their mission is to serve beekeepers through research and education programs related to honey bee health, pest management, crop pollination, honey bee husbandry, and bee ecology. So go check that out if you want to just deep dive on bees. It's way more like extensive than anything I'm gonna give you here. And they're important. And they are so important. And there's so many things I didn't know about them, okay, which is really cool. The other website I found was um Xercees. How's your buzz? No, Xerces. Quit trying to make How's Your Buzz happen? It's never gonna happen. And none for Gretchen Wiener.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, none for her.
SPEAKER_01Um, I think it's Xerxes, it's X E R C E S dot org. Oh, you would say that's Xerces, right? Sure, man. Um, they have a podcast called Bug Banter where Do you know what I would have done?
SPEAKER_00I would have put that word into Google and said, How do you say this?
SPEAKER_01I've done that before and it never helps me. Then I just feel stupid when I say it wrong, and then I'm like, oh, actually, here's the Yeah, never mind.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01Um, anyways, they have a podcast called Bug Banter where they actually had an episode. Yeah. They had an episode called All About Bees celebrating pollinator week, and it was posted in June of 2024. And they had a Q ⁇ A with some of the top researchers in the country that work with like um states and and local like Bureau of Land Management places to help increase their bee populations. So yeah, so those are some resources that I found. But let's get into the three main lifestyles of bees. Because I I bet you didn't know this, but bees, they're gonna lifestyle. Bees?
SPEAKER_00Bees, bees, okay, got it. Get out. Sorry. I will do that one more time and then I will put it to bed.
SPEAKER_01And then it'll be a Simpson thing.
SPEAKER_00So if you're lucky. Yeah, because it's funny.
SPEAKER_01Because of that cards against humanity card. Bees?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I haven't seen that one. Just anytime any person says bees, I'm always like bees. You know what?
SPEAKER_01So unhinged.
SPEAKER_00You're my people, if you know that reference. Oh, I just heard a child yell.
SPEAKER_01That was my child.
SPEAKER_00It's fine. They're fine.
SPEAKER_01It's a French sink bird. Sorry.
SPEAKER_00That's all right. Okay. You know what? You lock in. You're over here judging me, you lock in.
SPEAKER_01So as we know, bees are actually vital to our survival. But what I didn't know is how many different types of bees there are. So according to the experts on the Bug Banter podcast podcast, there are roughly 3,600 species of native bees in the U.S.
SPEAKER_00Wow. Um how many are nice? I don't know. How many do we like?
SPEAKER_01I think I mean, I think bees are different than wasps. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00A bee's not a bee's not a bee.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I should have looked that up probably, but I don't think wasps and hornets are the same as I mean, I'm talking about like honeybees or bumblebees or whatever.
SPEAKER_00Will you do a different episode on wasps? I hate them bitches.
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Because I don't want you to say bees.
SPEAKER_00I get it one more time. I get it one more time. Time it correctly. I will. It's gonna be great. You're not gonna know it's coming. Sorry, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01To better organize this, we're going to break it up into three main lifestyles of bees, like I said before. The introverts, the socialites, and the freeloaders.
SPEAKER_00Did you watch the B movie?
SPEAKER_01Sure did.
SPEAKER_00When you were doing this today?
SPEAKER_01No, but I have a funny B movie joke later.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I I love the B movie.
SPEAKER_01It's good. Yeah, it's good. Who doesn't love Jerry Seinfeld?
SPEAKER_00I don't know, George.
SPEAKER_01Kick over. Newman. Newman. So first let's talk about the introvert, um, introverts first or solitary bees. What we typically think of with bee colonies is massive hives that I mentioned at the top of this episode. But that isn't necessarily the most common. So over 90% of bee species are completely solitary.
SPEAKER_00What is that? What does completely solitary mean?
SPEAKER_01I'll tell you. So these bee species, they leave their nest, they mate, and then they return to manage the nest on their own. It's basically the single mama bees out there doing the hard work for their babies and clearly thriving. There's no hives, no honey, no queens, other than the obvious queen that's hustling for her bee babies, but they are basically colonies of like a mama and her babies. Oh.
SPEAKER_00Which is and they just go like pollinate and come home.
SPEAKER_01Oh, pretty much. And basically the entire idea isn't to make honey, but to keep like their babies alive and like which we still need them. They're they're native bees, so they're not. But um, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh man, I have a lot of questions, but I will I will refrain.
SPEAKER_01Feel free to ask your questions. No, I will refrain to the so these solitary colonies are typically found in the ground, usually like small tunnels made in dirt.
SPEAKER_00Oh okay. Are they aggressive? I don't know. I didn't look that up. Okay. Probably not, because I don't think I don't think regular bees are mean.
SPEAKER_01Like it's just those types of jacket assholes. Yeah, there's so many types. I don't I don't know. I think they'll definitely protect their hive if they need to. Yeah. But it's uh the thing.
SPEAKER_00They're like the ones that like you're walking through like flowers and you accidentally like knock it and it like bumps you with its butt and it's like, dang it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I didn't mean to do that. Yeah. So have you seen these hives before in the ground? Like in real life? Um, I don't know. Do you know what I'm talking about though?
SPEAKER_00Uh not really. Okay, so I see a lot of things in the ground. We have I planted rose bushes at my house, and one of the rose bushes definitely has a bee or wasp. I think it's a wasp nest down into it because I was like pruning and stuff the other like a couple months ago and I got stung all over.
SPEAKER_01Yikes.
SPEAKER_00So I'm guessing that was a wasp because they're pretty aggressive.
SPEAKER_01So did they leave their stinger behind?
SPEAKER_00I don't know. No.
SPEAKER_01Because if not, it's not a it's not a bee. It's a wasp.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah. So oh, so they so okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
unknownJeez.
SPEAKER_00So you should have had me do a a morsel of research before this.
SPEAKER_01No, I mean I did I barely I'm gonna tell you some stuff. Like I barely did any research, honestly.
SPEAKER_00What is a bee?
SPEAKER_01Bees.
SPEAKER_00I say bee all day long, and I don't think it's the same thing. I don't think we're referring to the same thing.
SPEAKER_01I'm a bee, I'm a bee, I'm a yeah.
SPEAKER_00That I think that's a different bee.
SPEAKER_01So I have seen these in-ground nests before. At my old house, we actually, and I I'd never seen anything like this, but and it was like you could see the opening.
SPEAKER_00How big is the opening?
SPEAKER_01It was like this big.
SPEAKER_00Like oh, like the size of a tuna can. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Right?
SPEAKER_00What if I only eat tuna packets?
SPEAKER_01God damn it, Christy.
SPEAKER_00It's a tennis ball.
SPEAKER_01I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Tennis ball for those of us that only eat tuna packets.
SPEAKER_01Girl inches, boy inches. I don't know. This big.
SPEAKER_00How many hole? How many holes?
SPEAKER_01However many centimeters that is. How many holes were running out of holes, Roy?
SPEAKER_00Ten centimeters. The nest is ready to hatch.
SPEAKER_01So when this happened to me, I lived in my old house. It was an older home in an older neighborhood. Um, and my husband was out of the time out of town at the time hunting. Wow because it was in the fall. He's allowed to have fun. He does a lot around the house, okay?
SPEAKER_00Sure. So he's not even the commissioner anymore. Who cares? What does he even do?
SPEAKER_01Clearly nothing.
SPEAKER_00Just cut this part.
SPEAKER_01No, he'll think it's funny. Um, but I freaked out because I was like, if somebody mows over that, and it was on the side of our grass, like in the mow strip, where it was on the side of our neighbors that were older people. Oh no. And I'm like, if these if these older people go out and like mow the lawn and mow over these bees, they're gonna get stung to death.
SPEAKER_00So I definitely have not seen a a bee.
SPEAKER_01I'm a bee. I'm a beehole. She's she's never seen a beehole before. I thought we have to leave that in. That's so funny.
SPEAKER_00I stopped myself before I said it.
SPEAKER_01I need you to seriously look at me and say that no straight face.
SPEAKER_00I've never seen this hole of bees of bees that you've talked about. Like, that's I see ones that are very small, like the size of a peanut MM.
SPEAKER_01I thought you had never seen a beehole before.
SPEAKER_00I didn't say that. You are making things up.
SPEAKER_01But I asked you, have you ever seen these holes before?
SPEAKER_00I said no. But I'm just I I'm I'm like, I don't understand that's like big. It's just a hole, like you could like step in that and like trip.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, when I the one at my house, I don't know if it was the same thing. I don't know if it was a hornet's nest or what, because I think hornets can also make holes in the ground and nests.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Anyways, I had my brother, I freaked out and had my brother come back. Yeah, we don't want to hurt our neighbors spray them. So sorry to the bees for smurdering them.
SPEAKER_00Does your brother do that? That type of stuff?
SPEAKER_01He did for me.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01I mean, get you a big brother, man.
SPEAKER_00I have one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's a good time. Will he murder a bunch of bees for you?
SPEAKER_00He'll murder those bees.
SPEAKER_01In the beehole.
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_01I've turned it.
SPEAKER_00We're gonna have to now you have to mark this episode explicit. I was going to anyways. I know.
SPEAKER_01Alright, now that we've laughed about beeholes, let's go on to the social bees.
SPEAKER_00The social bees. I'd be a social bee. My nickname in high school. A social bee.
SPEAKER_01In warmth ways. That bitch is social.
SPEAKER_00And I quote.
SPEAKER_01So these are the honey bees and bumblebees that we talked about. Um they live in large, highly organized empires with a strict hierarchy of a queen, workers, and drones. So this is where we get honey.
SPEAKER_00And this is where you can you can refer to the B movie for your references here. Yeah. Is that one of your references?
SPEAKER_01Oh, it should be. I didn't put it in.
SPEAKER_00Just do it. It'll be fun.
SPEAKER_01Um no, but this is like I said with those, like those videos that I'm watching, when they pull those like floorboards up, you can see like the honeycomb. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's really cool. It's really cool.
SPEAKER_00Organized, very cool.
SPEAKER_01So um, something really fascinating that I learned when researching this is that bees work to make honey for winter because there are less plants and food available. And unlike um the the introverted bees, bees that live in like social environments or social colonies, they live for far longer. So they need to be able to hibernate or like whatever through the winter.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um what's the lifespan of a bee? Do you know? It depends on the bee. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I also learned that queen bees that are in these social like societal situations can live for a few years in contrast to the hardworking introvert bees. The social hive queens have their most productive A-legging period that lasts between two and three years. And then as she ages and her fertility and hormone output declines, a new and like and the queen slows down. Um, the worker bees usually replace her by raising a new queen.
SPEAKER_00How do they choose a queen? Do you know that? I don't know. No. Is that maybe it's a vote system?
SPEAKER_01Maybe.
SPEAKER_00Do they vote by mail or do they make them go in person?
SPEAKER_01You know what? You can't ask me that. So you already answered this question, but I have written here do you identify more as an introvert bee or a social bee?
SPEAKER_00Uh, probably a social bee.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, me too. I think I identify as a social bee.
SPEAKER_00A social bee that likes some introverted to. Time to embroider with my stinger butt. Cut that part. No, uh You're not gonna cut that, and I'm gonna be so mad at you.
SPEAKER_01I'm not. So next we move to um the rent-free guests, the freeloaders, the cuckoo bees.
SPEAKER_00Hold on, go back to the this is a silly question, but go back to the uh social light bees. Yes. So there's one queen. Are there boy bees and girl bees that are working for the queen bee?
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01So if you think you're gonna be from the bee movie, yeah. Oh, never mind. I get it.
SPEAKER_00No, I saw I saw it in the bee movie. I'm good.
SPEAKER_01I got you already asked the question, so I have to answer it for people who don't.
SPEAKER_00Oh, watch the B movie.
SPEAKER_01So the Queen, so the like I said, there's a queen, there's workers, and there's drones. The drones are the male bees that are essentially just there to provide sperm for the queen. That's it. That's all they're there for. Slay Queen. Okay, so now we're gonna move on to the rent-free guests, the cuckoo bees. So these little shits are freeloaders of the bee world. They're kind of assholes. Wait, so we have introvert bees?
SPEAKER_00Socialite. Socialite? Cuckoo?
SPEAKER_01Um, we're gonna call them freeloaders.
SPEAKER_00Oh, freeloaders. Okay, sorry, I forgot the third category, and then you said cuckoo bees, and I was like, I don't remember that. Yeah, sorry.
SPEAKER_01They're they're I'll tell you why they're called cuckoo bees. So um these guys are the freeloaders. They sneak into other bees' nests, lay their eggs, and then let the host bee do all the work raising them. It's giving men.
SPEAKER_00Ew. Okay.
SPEAKER_01And I have written, I know that most bees are female, like the worker bees and everything. Most of them are female. So I can't rag on men too much during this episode, which is just shame.
SPEAKER_00It's also the female that's going to drop them eggs, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01So the the queen makes all the eggs. Oh. The female bees are the the worker bees. They go out, they gather all the honey, or they gather all the pollen. Okay. And then they come back. The the drones are just there to provide sperm. Okay. Um so the interesting thing about cuckoo bees is that they completely lack pollen transporting structures. So they don't have anything on them that they can pollinate with. Oh, they they they need other bees to survive. They're like kind of almost like a parasite. Yeah, they're almost like a parasite. So they're called cuckoo bees because the cuckoo bird goes and lays its eggs in someone else's nest. The same thing with these bees. They go to a different hive, they lay their eggs there, and then they let that host be raise those.
SPEAKER_00Single mom that works so hard.
SPEAKER_01Pretty much. So the part of that though, so they don't have any pollen transporting structures, but they do have some awesome exoskeleton that's like basically armored so that they can fly into these other nests and lay their eggs like stealthily. And if they do get attacked, they can make it out before they don't, before they get stung to death, essentially.
SPEAKER_00Evolution baby.
SPEAKER_01I know it's crazy. What they do instead of like making their own hives is they stalk a host bee, like typically one of these um solitary bees that are like the single moms that work too hard. Yeah. And when the opportunity strikes, they lay their egg in a cell that's already been prepped with pollen for the host bee's offspring. Oh. It gets worse.
SPEAKER_00Dirtbag.
SPEAKER_01I know. These little shits then grow up and they have like larger jaws, and so they're stronger than the host bee. They kill the host bee and its offspring and eat up all the pollen, and then the cycle starts over.
SPEAKER_00Oh, geez.
SPEAKER_01Then that bee goes out and finds a different but it's it's it's what do they call it?
SPEAKER_00Like battle of the fittest or whatever.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, nature is brutal, you guys.
SPEAKER_00Um do these bees sting?
SPEAKER_01I would assume yeah, I would assume so. Yeah, yeah. They're a bunch of bitches, is my in my opinion.
SPEAKER_00So um the title of this episode could be Bee is for Bitches.
SPEAKER_01No, the title of this episode is gonna be Beehole. No.
SPEAKER_00My kids listen. That's okay. Make your kids listen. They're upstairs listening right now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, probably. Okay, so we're gonna move on to just some like rapid facts because I know I got into kind of like the nitty-gritty there. So um now that we know the three lifestyles that bees live in, let's talk about some of the like the funner things that I found on Google about bees. And we're gonna learn things together. Dills. So you probably already knew this. I didn't. Um honey bees communicate using a waggle dance, they shake their abdomen in a specific direction and angle relative to the sun, and they give their hive mates precise GPS coordinates to the best flower patches. Oh my gosh. Can you imagine just shaking your ass with your buddy? And your buddies going, ah, yes, now I know where the grocery store is.
SPEAKER_00No, but if you asked my friends, what does Christy do when she eats something good? It's this. It's a little wiggle.
SPEAKER_01Everybody, all the women.
SPEAKER_00They do all the wiggle motion, and my friends know, oh, she's happy with her meal.
SPEAKER_01You should do you, well, you don't have time for that. All of the meals that you make that are gorgeous and delicious, you should do a TikTok channel of you making these.
SPEAKER_00Oh, hell no.
SPEAKER_01I've sent you a thousand of those videos.
SPEAKER_00No, I just I just steal other people's ideas.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no. Sounds beautiful, but not today, Satan.
SPEAKER_01So speaking of the um or the shiver the shiver. Bumblebees can fly in freezing weather. They decouple their wings from their muscles to shiver violently, raising their internal temperature to 86 degrees Fahrenheit or 30 degrees Celsius before taking off.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_01Isn't that cool?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because where do they go in the winter?
SPEAKER_01I think the the like um society the introverted bees typically either hibernate or die. One of the two. And then the ones that have hives, they yeah, they can fly in the w in the wintertime, but they're not usually like so. In the Amazon, there are bees that don't eat pollen. What do you think they eat instead?
SPEAKER_00Alligators.
SPEAKER_01Dead meat. They use specialized gut bacteria to digest rotting flesh and turn it into a sweet, edible secretion. Gross.
SPEAKER_00So they're like maggots. Pretty much.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it sounds like a crossbreed or something. And then the the final um cool fact I found was bees build up a positive electro electrical charge while flying. When they land on a flower, which has a negative charge, the pollen literally jumps off the flower and sticks to their hairs like static electricity.
SPEAKER_00I love it.
SPEAKER_01Isn't that the coolest?
SPEAKER_00It's chemistry.
SPEAKER_01I have you seen those like slow motion videos of like the bees landing on they're really cool. I'm not on that side of apparently I have a thing for bees now. My algorithm is built by brick by brick.
SPEAKER_00Build by bees. Build better bees. Build better beeholes. Beeholes.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so that's all I have for you, but we're gonna play a game.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01So I have some common myths and some facts.
SPEAKER_00Oh dear.
SPEAKER_01You're gonna tell me which is a myth and which is a f which is true, and then I'm gonna kind of give you like a little explanation. So there's only five of these. Dills, dills, dills. Number one all bees die after they sting you.
SPEAKER_00False. Oh wait. True. Because we're Oh, because we were saying bees and wasps aren't the same. I call everything a bee.
SPEAKER_01So it's false.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Only female honeybees die after stinging because their stingers are barbed and get stuck in human skin. If they can't get their stinger out, they fly off and it pulls their abdomen out.
SPEAKER_00Oh gosh. Graphic. So it just falls out.
SPEAKER_01There's a like on that same page that I was watching, she gets stung sometimes and she just like holds her finger there and tries to let it get out.
SPEAKER_00Oh, ow.
SPEAKER_01And sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't.
SPEAKER_00That's quite the chill. I don't have that chill.
SPEAKER_01But what I know, she's really cool. But what happens is if they do leave their stinger in, um, you can see it pulsing the venom into your skin. Like she showed a close-up video. It's really cool. It's really, really cool. Clearly, I have a thing for bees now.
SPEAKER_00Beeholes.
SPEAKER_01Um, so that's just that's just honey bees.
SPEAKER_00One interesting fact about me.
SPEAKER_01I really like beeholes. That's the sound bite of the century.
SPEAKER_00If we had a better social media manager, you're doing great with zero support from me.
SPEAKER_01So solitary bees, like the the ones that are the single moms, bumblebees, and wasps have smooth stingers and can sting multiple times without injuring themselves.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01So the ones that leave their stinger in you are usually honey bees. Okay. They're taking a very great sacrifice to sting you.
SPEAKER_00So if you have to like flip it out, like out, like say a little prayer for that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, sorry, bee. Sorry. Um sorry bee. Which is typically why they're not as aggressive, I think. Some of them are, some of them aren't.
SPEAKER_00Well, they're they're just there for a job.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they're just trying to do their job.
SPEAKER_00Because wasps serve no purpose in society.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Other than to be bees. Bees.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Bees!
SPEAKER_00No, I didn't do it. You I haven't done it yet.
SPEAKER_01All right. Round two.
SPEAKER_00Deal.
SPEAKER_01Not all bees live in hives.
SPEAKER_00True.
SPEAKER_01True. Roughly 70% of wild bee species live underground in tiny tunnels.
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01The other 30% live in deadwood, hollow plant stems, or snail shells.
SPEAKER_00Snail shells.
SPEAKER_01Snail shells that's interesting.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That's small. All right. Uh, number three, to save the bees, we need to buy more honey bee hives.
SPEAKER_00True. False. Okay, cool. I don't want to buy any. So that's great.
SPEAKER_01Honeybees are a domesticated species like livestock. Introducing millions of managed honeybees can actually crowd out and starve local endangered wild bee species by eating all the available pollen. What I actually found was that they need more flower plant diversity to be flourishing, like a flourishing colony. Um, and they need the competition of that as well. And all of the flowers need multiple pollinators. So, you know, diversity is really important. Funny how that works. Could we maybe move that up the chain?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. No, no. I do want to plant more like pollinator-friendly plants, and I always think about that every year, and every year I don't do it. Yeah. Because it gets hot real quick and then I shut down.
SPEAKER_01Uh round four, male bees don't do any of the work.
SPEAKER_00True.
SPEAKER_01True. Male bees, which are drones, have only one job mating with the queen. They don't even have stingers or pollen baskets.
SPEAKER_00Oh.
SPEAKER_01The females do 100% of the foraging, hive building, and nursing.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_01Which checks out.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Number five. Bees like jazz. Bees? Beads. Bees like jazz.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01You like jazz? Oh god. Answer is probably. I made that one at once. That's funny. You like jazz. All right. So in conclusion, bees are cool as hell, and I want to learn more. I definitely want to start planting more native plants. I think it's really cool to see like pollinators.
SPEAKER_00Put some things out there. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And remember, the important thing is that about saving bees isn't just about honey. It's about protecting the thousands of weird, solitary underground species. Um, and nature finds a way to work together, so we need as much diversity as possible with bees and elsewhere.
SPEAKER_00Dill.
SPEAKER_01So please, if possible, leave a patch of bare dirt or dead wood in your yard instead of a perfectly manicured lawn to give wild bees a home.
SPEAKER_00I want my lawn to turn into clover.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00But that's not a shared view.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So this has been the Bee Podcast, T Bob edition.
SPEAKER_00Two bees, one bee. Wait, two brains, one bee.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That definitely is gonna work out.
SPEAKER_00That killed it.
SPEAKER_01Crushed it. Remember to stay curious.
SPEAKER_00Stay human.
SPEAKER_01And don't let the robots win.
SPEAKER_00Or the bees. Or the bees die. No, we want the bees. Don't let the bees die. Don't let the wasps win.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because trash. Trash. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Bye. Cue.
SPEAKER_00Bees.
SPEAKER_01Bees. Bees. Bees.
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