March 20, 2025 • 23 mins
With spring coming, honeybees are busy foraging nectar and pollen from blooming flowers. From ancient foraging to the modern day farmer’s market - E+M celebrate the rich symbolism of bees and the magical honey-making process in this special episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm so excited to talk about honey.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I love honey. I have a million different types of
honey in my pantry. I mean, I know a million salt
and a million mustards.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Then let me tell you all, honey is not created equal.
There's a lot of honey I have in my pantry
I do not.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Like depending on what the bees are eating or what
pollen they're collecting from what plants, it tastes completely different.
I mean, honey, I think is magical.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
It's so magical. It is really magical. And you and
I cosplayed as bees and better Cruz, we helped pollinate
the vanilla plant. I don't know if it was a cosplay,
if we were cosplaying a bee, or if we were
if we create made a baby with the vanilla plant,
but her boat we'll talk about that. We'll talk about
that later.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I think, yeah, I think you and I may have
been bees in another life because we were really good
at it.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
So today's episode is all about the sweet history of honey.
My name is Evil Longoria and I am Myra and
welcome Too Hungry for History, a podcast that explores our
past and present through food.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some
of our favorite dishes, ingredients and beverages.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
From our culture. So make yourself at home. He went,
I didn't realize how much I loved, honey. You know.
We were in Vaya the Bravo, which is you know,
the lakeside of Mexico City, outside of Mexico City, and
this new little farm opened up and they have all
these little animals, and so Santy could hold the chickens
(01:32):
and be with baby chicki's and he could feed the goats,
and he can pet the cows. And they have all
these beehives. So Santi got to put on the whole thing,
like you know, the head thing and the boots and
the gloves, and he was taking out all the honeycombs
and the bees are everywhere, and he loved it. He
was like, Mom, I think I'm going to be I'm
to be a bee keeper. I was like, it was
(01:54):
so cool. So I want them now, I want them,
like here, I want I want to have my I
had bees growing up. My dad had bees growing up.
Of course you did, yes, yes, we did. We made
our own, honey. Oh man, that is so cool. I
have to meet your dad, I know. And by the way,
it's labor intensive and super sticky, like it's not fun.
(02:15):
As a kid, You're just like, this is dumb. This
is like a lot of labor for one jar of honey.
But honey luss it has a long shelf life. Yeah,
it's so good. We would chew the wax once we
poked out all of the honey and it just drips
and drips. Then that wax kind of dries out, and
that was a gum for us. We would chew on
it like gum. It was the best. What variety of
(02:37):
honey do you like the best? Gosh? I like, I
mean different kinds.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I mean I love buckwheat honey that has it's kind
of an earthy kind of flavor that's really kind of strong.
I love like lavender honey, like wildflyer honey. Usually when
I go to like a farmer's market, or when I
travel or go on a road trip and we stop
at little stores, I always pick up honeys from always
(03:03):
whatever the region, so because it just tastes so different
than what you could buy at the store, you know.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
But you know it's a bunny. I do too. If
there's somebody in Mexico, whether I'm in Wajaka or Gudalaccara
or wherever, and they're on the side of the road
selling honey. I'm like, stop that. And my husband's always like,
we don't need honey. I was like, we do need honey.
I need honey from this region. Like I have to yea,
buy it. It's the one thing I think I do hoard. Yeah,
(03:29):
I'm the same.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Actually, I have to stop because it all tastes different
and you don't really notice the differences until you taste
them side by side, right, Otherwise it's just it's just sweet.
But it just it's so connected to the land and all,
yes exactly, Like there's wild flower honey that they can
be eating from wild blossoms and flowers, and then there's
like acacia honey, right that is from the nector of trees. Right,
(03:53):
they're eating the nectar on the tree, and that is
like a very different taste if they're like getting it
from a flower or getting it from alfalfa or getting
it from a tree bark. Like that's why it's all
so different.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
I think I fell in love with bees when I
knew that they like to get drunk, right, I mean,
is that that's basically how they make honey, is that
they just get drunk.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Well, sometimes they get drunk. I mean if they have
fermented nectar, then they can get drunk.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
But they are like a little drunk human. They become
less coordinated, they have difficulty flying that they can become
so drunk that they can't move it all. They just
lie on their backs. But what happens. What happens when
a drunk bee returns to the hive, does it like, go, guys,
I need a break? They do?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Those drunk bees, the little party bees. But there's there
are guard bees around the hive, and they will realize
that the bee is drunk because of the way that
it's flying, because it's flying in like you know whatever, it's.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Like like the drunk person. Yeah, drunk flying.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
They don't let them in. These guard bees don't let
them in because that fermented Because that fermented nectar that
the drunk bee is carrying could damage the honey and
the hive and that would cause the entire food supply
of the hive to go bad. So once the drunk
beak has sobered up and they're no longer carrying this
(05:20):
fermented honey, then they can allow it back in. But
these rejected bees. Sometimes they just don't hang around and
they can't keep themselves safe, and so you know, they'll
either crash into dree and I or they'll get eaten by.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
You know, a spider web. I see so many bees
in spider webs. I bet you those were drunk bees. Maybe, yes, maybe.
Every time I see a spider web, I'm like, oh,
they got a bee. No, it's so funny. He ran
into the spider web because he was drunk. Because he
was drunk. Oh my god. Is that where the word
buzzed comes from. I'm a little buzzed.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah, I don't know, I know, I don't know if
that's where it comes from, but there's a Benjamin Franklin
wrote The Drinker's Dictionary in seventeen thirty seven, and he
refers to the word buzzy as indicating drunkenness, and this
term his head is full of bees to indicate that
(06:18):
someone is drunk. So this is an early reference to
this term buzz which is, you know, you're not drunk,
but you're kind of happy and just slightly in.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Talxic, I look, I like a good buzz. Yeah, I
like a good buzz. Maybe I was a bee in
my past life. Maybe we were bees in past lives
rather well, we didn't live long because we would have
been the drunk ones. Oh my gosh, I now we're
not allowed to enter the hive and then we've got
eaten by predator and died totally, totally, totally, So what's
(06:49):
the buzzy sound? What's the the is that their wings.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
It is the happens when the bees contract the muscles
in their thorax and that causes their wings to fly,
you know, a lot, and their bodies to vibrate, and
it sounds like they're buzzy.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Edward o' wilson. One of my favorite books is this
biology book. It's actually a hard book. I had to
look up every third word. I'm like, what is that word.
It's called The Social Conquest of Earth and it talks
about why termites, bees and ants have been around for
millions of years, and it's because they are born into
(07:27):
their labor so they're very good when it comes to
working together. They're very cooperative society termites, ants, and bees,
so we can learn so much from bees when it
comes to working together. So when we come back, we'll
talk about the process of making honey stay with us.
(07:50):
So let's get into the science of it. Because the
organization and the production plan of it all for bees
to make honey, it's actually unbelievable how or intensive it is,
and how this intricate process has so many steps of honeymaking.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
It really is unbelievable, the way the fact that they
are so incredibly organized, and they're female of course, like
they work together, they get things done, and they're so organized.
But the honeymaking process is just extremely involved. So first
(08:26):
the worker bees they leave their hive to collect the
nectar from flowers, right, and they use these like their
tongues to suck up the nectar, which which is this
sugary liquid produced by flowers. And this is the sugary
liquid that ferments, and this is what causes them to
become drunk.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So that's what they forage. They forage for the nectar.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
First they store it in the special part of their
stomach and there it's mixed with enzymes to begin to
break down the sugar.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
So they forage.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Me it's amazing how this is all happening in their
little It's amazing. It's probably, I mean, how many drops
of honey could there be, so they form perby it's crazy, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
And then okay, so then it's stored in their stomach
mixed with enzymes to break down the sugar. And then
they go back to the.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Hive and they go back to the hive and they
regurgitate the nectar into the house bee inside the hive.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
So they vomit up this nectar that was that was
stored in their stomach exactly exactly. That's good.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
And then inside the hive, the nectar is deposited into
these wax cells, these hexagonal wax cells, and the bees
fanned their wings to create airflow to help evaporate the
water from the nectar, and then it starts thickening into honey.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Once the honey has been dehydrated, it becomes thick and
syr be and then it's honey.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
And then it's honey. And then the bees then seal
the cells with wax to preserve the honey.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
How do they seal the cell with wax?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
I don't know how they do it, but they do this.
It's just it just blows my mind that they are
able to do this. A honey serves as a food
source for this entire colony of bees in the hive,
especially during the winter when the flowers aren't blooming and
nectar is not that available. And so, like we said before,
it's just this honey is a reflection of the natural environment, right,
(10:25):
and every hive will have a different you know, flavor
and texture, flavor depending on where.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
It is, color everything. Yeah, well, bees are highly organized,
because so they must be women. I feel like there's
more women bees than male bees. What type of bees?
What are their roles in the in the beehive.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So there's the queen bee that's the single reproductive female
in the entire hive, right, and she only mates once
in her lifetime with different drones, and the drones are male,
different drones in a single flight. And after mating, she
stores the sperm to for lizes eggs for the rest
of her life, so she could lay up to yeah,
(11:04):
two thousand eggs per day, and she releases pheromones to
maintain order and unity, so she the queen bee, can
live up to five years.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
She only really has sex once, that's it, and then
saves all the sperm for the rest of her life.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah, that's it isn't crazy, it's just wait here blows
my mind.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
That blows my mind. Queen bee, she should be that's
a good title. You know what's funny, Queen, I.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Thought worker bees were all the males. No, the worker
bees are all the female female. Worker bees are all female,
but they don't reproduce. They perform all the tasks needed
for the hive, all the foraging and the cleaning and
the guarding, everything for survival, so that all the worker
bees make up the majority of the hive. There's like
tens of thousands, and they live just a few weeks
(11:57):
in the summer and some some months in the winter.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
But like I used to think, there was one queen
bee and then the worker bees were all the dudes. No,
the worker bees are the chicks.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Yes, that's why. This is why it's so organized, because
it's all females and everybody has a role. The male
bees are the drone bees, and the male's sole purpose
is to meete with a queen. They don't have stingers,
they don't collect food, they die after mating, and they're
expelled from the hive before winter. So it's only about
ten to fifteen percent of the hives population is male.
(12:31):
And these are these h wait, how much ten to
fifteen percent.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Yeah, bees are female. Yeah, the cool What that is
the coolest thing I've ever heard.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
It's so cool. It's so cool, but I knew it.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
I mean, something that produces the most beautiful product, like honey,
it has to be done by a woman. It has
to be with such care. Female is And what about
the bouncer bees?
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Those guards outside the hives are those Those are the
bouncer bees that act like a bouncer outside of a
human bar, and they are the ones that are inspecting
the bees that are coming home.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Their job is to protect the colony. They check for
intruders such as drunk bees and also wasps or bees
that are coming from a different colony to try to
come in and steal the honey. And so they they're
the ones that are that are guarding outside of each hive.
There are about ten to twenty bouncers bouncer.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Bees, but those are female guards. Those are female.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
And the and the house bee that the worker bees
regurgitate their you know, honey into are also female. So
super cool, it's super cools.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
It's insane. But I also like the symbolism that they've
had throughout history. They've been like deeply symbolic throughout history.
They represent you know, a lot of special qualities like
diligence and hard working and community and fertility. So I
just feel like across cultures they've been revered as these
creatures of both natural significance but also divine significance, and
(14:12):
they play like these essential roles in human life and
agriculture religion, like I've always read, you know, they're in
every part of history because they're so old. They really
are very old species.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Yeah, it's such an old species and I love that.
You know, there's so much poetry around them as well.
Like the ancient Egyptians believed that honey bees sprung from
the tears of the sun god, and so this association
between bees and honey they were just considered sacred. You know,
Greek mythology, they're associated with Artemis and Demeter, goddesses of
(14:47):
nature and fertility and you know, wisdom. Again, this idea
of diligence and tireless labor as a metaphor for human industriousness.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
We could learn so much from bees. Yeah, I found
out that the bee became like the emblem of the
French monarchy under Louis the fourteenth, who adopted it as
his like personal symbol because he wanted it to symbolize
the monarch's power and authority and unity of the kingdom.
And I was like, that's so interesting that he chose
(15:20):
the bee.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
I know, it makes sense. And even among Native American tribes,
be often symbolized, you know, community and corporation and working
together to a common goal and this idea of the
best social structure. It's just so organized. Every member has
a distinct role, and it was seen as a metaphor
(15:41):
for tribal cooperation and unity and again also associated with
fertility and abundance. And they are essential pollinators for so
many different plants, you know, it's a link to the
Earth's fertility has made them important for so many agricultural
communities around the world. The earliest recorded image of a
(16:02):
human foraging honey is eight thousand years old, and it's
from the Cueva de la Regne cave paintings in Valencia, Spain.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
We see these, No, no, I'm not, but that was
eight thousand years ago. It's interesting because that's not long ago,
considering bees are one hundred and twenty million years old.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yeah, so, people, this is the first image of foraging honey. Right,
So the first time that we see this idea of
making honey like foraging or harnessing the power of bees
to produce honey, we see in Babylonian and Samarian writings
that go back about twenty one hundred BC.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
So, but it's also it makes sense because honey has
this ability to be preserved. So, you know, obviously in
these times where you don't have refrigerators or anything like that,
like you know, I'm sure they the preserving of the
honey was easy, and supposedly the Egyptians used it in
embalming practices to mummify bodies to prevent decay. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
It's so interesting. And in addition to that, you know,
preserving food and all of that, it's also recognized for
having antibacterial healing properties, so it's been used to treat
wounds and burns and infections, and it's still used for that.
You know, today, when we come back, we'll talk about
the vital role bees play in our food supply.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
So remember when we were in Bedagruz and there was
a special kind of bee in Mexico that pollinated the
vanilla plant, the vanilla flower, and he has like a
we she probably she has a very long arched stinger
because the vanilla orchid, which is an orchid, is like
(18:00):
hard to get to. It's hard to it's hard to pollinate,
and so these bees were like super special bees. Do
you know the names of those bees that pollinated the
vanilla plant, the Bompona bees. Are they extinct or endangered?
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Bompona? And then there's also the Melipona bees. They are endangered,
They're in danger. And so bees have played really a
very significant role in the history of Mexico for thousands
of years, including to pollinate the vanilla arcid for vanilla.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
So you know why the melepona bee, which is a
stingless bee native to Yucatan, it's endangered because of the
use of pesticide. Yah, yeah, I know. The use of
pesticides are really it's serious. It's serious. We need our bees,
and that particular bee, the Melipona is a is a
symbol of Mexican heritage, particularly in yukatt And I didn't
(18:54):
know this, but Mexico is one of the largest honey
producers in the world. No, I do not know. Yeah, yeah,
it's up there.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
It's like top ten of the biggest honey producers, and
they produce mostly European bees that were brought over, but
some also from native bees.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
I never kill a bee because I had heard like,
don't kill a bee because we need them. They're like
vital for biodiversity totally.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I never kill any insects. I'm the person that when
there's a spider in the house or something abug in
the house, everyone's like, might they cut And I'll just
get the bee and put it outside, Get the whatever
it is and put it outside. I will never kill
an insect, but now, especially bees, I'm going to bow
to them when I see them. But you know, beyond
(19:43):
it's culinary and medicinal uses, honey bees are crucial for pollination, right,
which is vital for agriculture and biodiversity. They act as
primary pollinators, transferring palling between plants, allowing plants to reproduce
and produce you know, fruits and seed. Bees pollinate one
third of all of the food that we eat, you know,
(20:06):
from apples and strawberries to cucumbers and squash and even coffee.
We can't have them without without bees, you know, without yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Without them, without them, wild plants too would not be
able to reproduce. And so you know, it's estimated that
bee pollination contributes billions of dollars annually to the global economy.
And because they're obviously responsible for the production of honey,
bee keeping provides livelihoods for all these farmers and all
(20:37):
these local economies. And I don't think I don't think
we put enough importance on them. No, we don't.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
And a decline and bee populations poses a really serious
threat to our global food security and biodiversity and the
health of ecosystems. So we really need to protect our bees.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Don't kill any bees that you come across, no, Yeah,
So what do we do to protect the bees?
Speaker 2 (21:02):
So there are different things that we could do. Right,
we could plant be friendly plants, like by growing a
variety of flowers that bloom at different times. Right to
provide bees with nectar throughout the year.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
You know what I heard that I heard that you
should always plant things in your garden and flowers that
would attract bees and that way they have nectar or
it's more easily found than them having to fly around forever. Also,
reducing pesticide use in general. You know, when I go
to the store and I buy organic. I'm not buying
it because the vegetable doesn't have pesticides and it's good
(21:37):
for me. I do it because that means a farm
worker wasn't sprayed, right, you know, and a farm worker
wasn't exposed to it. But I also do it for
this reason because that means that fewer chemicals in the
gardening can help protect these bees from harmful toxins. I
actually do it for that reason.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Absolutely, absolutely, that's the best reason to do it.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Really.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Another thing is to support local beekeepers, right.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
I think purchasing local honey is a way to support
bees because it just supports like the healthy beekeeping practices.
If you can buy from like specialty stores or farm
stands or farmers market and then get by the local honey.
Like I remember, I was in Albuquerque and I had
allergies so bad, and you know, my friend's like, you
(22:23):
gotta go, you know, get the honey. And sure enough,
like that, like my allergies went away once I bought
the local honey.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Wow, that's really interesting, you know. I want to mention
here in Los Angeles, there's a man Victor Caramillo Soriano.
He's one hundred years old and he said to be
the oldest living beekeeper in Los Angeles. He's in and
said he's from Sacatecas and he came to La during
the raceTo program, so he's been raising bees in his
neighborhood since nineteen forty eight. He calls his the worker
(22:54):
bees MESI has, and he has said that they're the
first to get up to work and the last call
it a today. They're better engineers and builders than people, and
they work in the dark.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
So support people like him. I love him that he
calls them misi has my daughter has. I love it well.
I hope you loved learning about honey, because I sure did.
And if you've got some interesting facts about your favorite foods,
send us a message. We love hearing from you.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Bye, everyone, Thank you so much for listening. See you
all next week.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Hungry for History is a Hyphenite media production in partnership
with Iheart's Michael Tura podcast network.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm so excited to talk about honey.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I love honey. I have a million different types of
honey in my pantry. I mean, I know a million salt
and a million mustards.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Then let me tell you all, honey is not created equal.
There's a lot of honey I have in my pantry
I do not.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Like depending on what the bees are eating or what
pollen they're collecting from what plants, it tastes completely different.
I mean, honey, I think is magical.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
It's so magical. It is really magical. And you and
I cosplayed as bees and better Cruz, we helped pollinate
the vanilla plant. I don't know if it was a cosplay,
if we were cosplaying a bee, or if we were
if we create made a baby with the vanilla plant,
but her boat we'll talk about that. We'll talk about
that later.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I think, yeah, I think you and I may have
been bees in another life because we were really good
at it.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
So today's episode is all about the sweet history of honey.
My name is Evil Longoria and I am Myra and
welcome Too Hungry for History, a podcast that explores our
past and present through food.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some
of our favorite dishes, ingredients and beverages.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
From our culture. So make yourself at home. He went,
I didn't realize how much I loved, honey. You know.
We were in Vaya the Bravo, which is you know,
the lakeside of Mexico City, outside of Mexico City, and
this new little farm opened up and they have all
these little animals, and so Santy could hold the chickens
(01:32):
and be with baby chicki's and he could feed the goats,
and he can pet the cows. And they have all
these beehives. So Santi got to put on the whole thing,
like you know, the head thing and the boots and
the gloves, and he was taking out all the honeycombs
and the bees are everywhere, and he loved it. He
was like, Mom, I think I'm going to be I'm
to be a bee keeper. I was like, it was
(01:54):
so cool. So I want them now, I want them,
like here, I want I want to have my I
had bees growing up. My dad had bees growing up.
Of course you did, yes, yes, we did. We made
our own, honey. Oh man, that is so cool. I
have to meet your dad, I know. And by the way,
it's labor intensive and super sticky, like it's not fun.
(02:15):
As a kid, You're just like, this is dumb. This
is like a lot of labor for one jar of honey.
But honey luss it has a long shelf life. Yeah,
it's so good. We would chew the wax once we
poked out all of the honey and it just drips
and drips. Then that wax kind of dries out, and
that was a gum for us. We would chew on
it like gum. It was the best. What variety of
(02:37):
honey do you like the best? Gosh? I like, I
mean different kinds.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I mean I love buckwheat honey that has it's kind
of an earthy kind of flavor that's really kind of strong.
I love like lavender honey, like wildflyer honey. Usually when
I go to like a farmer's market, or when I
travel or go on a road trip and we stop
at little stores, I always pick up honeys from always
(03:03):
whatever the region, so because it just tastes so different
than what you could buy at the store, you know.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
But you know it's a bunny. I do too. If
there's somebody in Mexico, whether I'm in Wajaka or Gudalaccara
or wherever, and they're on the side of the road
selling honey. I'm like, stop that. And my husband's always like,
we don't need honey. I was like, we do need honey.
I need honey from this region. Like I have to yea,
buy it. It's the one thing I think I do hoard. Yeah,
(03:29):
I'm the same.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Actually, I have to stop because it all tastes different
and you don't really notice the differences until you taste
them side by side, right, Otherwise it's just it's just sweet.
But it just it's so connected to the land and all,
yes exactly, Like there's wild flower honey that they can
be eating from wild blossoms and flowers, and then there's
like acacia honey, right that is from the nector of trees. Right,
(03:53):
they're eating the nectar on the tree, and that is
like a very different taste if they're like getting it
from a flower or getting it from alfalfa or getting
it from a tree bark. Like that's why it's all
so different.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
I think I fell in love with bees when I
knew that they like to get drunk, right, I mean,
is that that's basically how they make honey, is that
they just get drunk.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Well, sometimes they get drunk. I mean if they have
fermented nectar, then they can get drunk.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
But they are like a little drunk human. They become
less coordinated, they have difficulty flying that they can become
so drunk that they can't move it all. They just
lie on their backs. But what happens. What happens when
a drunk bee returns to the hive, does it like, go, guys,
I need a break? They do?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Those drunk bees, the little party bees. But there's there
are guard bees around the hive, and they will realize
that the bee is drunk because of the way that
it's flying, because it's flying in like you know whatever, it's.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Like like the drunk person. Yeah, drunk flying.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
They don't let them in. These guard bees don't let
them in because that fermented Because that fermented nectar that
the drunk bee is carrying could damage the honey and
the hive and that would cause the entire food supply
of the hive to go bad. So once the drunk
beak has sobered up and they're no longer carrying this
(05:20):
fermented honey, then they can allow it back in. But
these rejected bees. Sometimes they just don't hang around and
they can't keep themselves safe, and so you know, they'll
either crash into dree and I or they'll get eaten by.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
You know, a spider web. I see so many bees
in spider webs. I bet you those were drunk bees. Maybe, yes, maybe.
Every time I see a spider web, I'm like, oh,
they got a bee. No, it's so funny. He ran
into the spider web because he was drunk. Because he
was drunk. Oh my god. Is that where the word
buzzed comes from. I'm a little buzzed.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah, I don't know, I know, I don't know if
that's where it comes from, but there's a Benjamin Franklin
wrote The Drinker's Dictionary in seventeen thirty seven, and he
refers to the word buzzy as indicating drunkenness, and this
term his head is full of bees to indicate that
(06:18):
someone is drunk. So this is an early reference to
this term buzz which is, you know, you're not drunk,
but you're kind of happy and just slightly in.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Talxic, I look, I like a good buzz. Yeah, I
like a good buzz. Maybe I was a bee in
my past life. Maybe we were bees in past lives
rather well, we didn't live long because we would have
been the drunk ones. Oh my gosh, I now we're
not allowed to enter the hive and then we've got
eaten by predator and died totally, totally, totally, So what's
(06:49):
the buzzy sound? What's the the is that their wings.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
It is the happens when the bees contract the muscles
in their thorax and that causes their wings to fly,
you know, a lot, and their bodies to vibrate, and
it sounds like they're buzzy.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Edward o' wilson. One of my favorite books is this
biology book. It's actually a hard book. I had to
look up every third word. I'm like, what is that word.
It's called The Social Conquest of Earth and it talks
about why termites, bees and ants have been around for
millions of years, and it's because they are born into
(07:27):
their labor so they're very good when it comes to
working together. They're very cooperative society termites, ants, and bees,
so we can learn so much from bees when it
comes to working together. So when we come back, we'll
talk about the process of making honey stay with us.
(07:50):
So let's get into the science of it. Because the
organization and the production plan of it all for bees
to make honey, it's actually unbelievable how or intensive it is,
and how this intricate process has so many steps of honeymaking.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
It really is unbelievable, the way the fact that they
are so incredibly organized, and they're female of course, like
they work together, they get things done, and they're so organized.
But the honeymaking process is just extremely involved. So first
(08:26):
the worker bees they leave their hive to collect the
nectar from flowers, right, and they use these like their
tongues to suck up the nectar, which which is this
sugary liquid produced by flowers. And this is the sugary
liquid that ferments, and this is what causes them to
become drunk.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So that's what they forage. They forage for the nectar.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
First they store it in the special part of their
stomach and there it's mixed with enzymes to begin to
break down the sugar.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
So they forage.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Me it's amazing how this is all happening in their
little It's amazing. It's probably, I mean, how many drops
of honey could there be, so they form perby it's crazy, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
And then okay, so then it's stored in their stomach
mixed with enzymes to break down the sugar. And then
they go back to the.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Hive and they go back to the hive and they
regurgitate the nectar into the house bee inside the hive.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
So they vomit up this nectar that was that was
stored in their stomach exactly exactly. That's good.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
And then inside the hive, the nectar is deposited into
these wax cells, these hexagonal wax cells, and the bees
fanned their wings to create airflow to help evaporate the
water from the nectar, and then it starts thickening into honey.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Once the honey has been dehydrated, it becomes thick and
syr be and then it's honey.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
And then it's honey. And then the bees then seal
the cells with wax to preserve the honey.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
How do they seal the cell with wax?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
I don't know how they do it, but they do this.
It's just it just blows my mind that they are
able to do this. A honey serves as a food
source for this entire colony of bees in the hive,
especially during the winter when the flowers aren't blooming and
nectar is not that available. And so, like we said before,
it's just this honey is a reflection of the natural environment, right,
(10:25):
and every hive will have a different you know, flavor
and texture, flavor depending on where.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
It is, color everything. Yeah, well, bees are highly organized,
because so they must be women. I feel like there's
more women bees than male bees. What type of bees?
What are their roles in the in the beehive.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So there's the queen bee that's the single reproductive female
in the entire hive, right, and she only mates once
in her lifetime with different drones, and the drones are male,
different drones in a single flight. And after mating, she
stores the sperm to for lizes eggs for the rest
of her life, so she could lay up to yeah,
(11:04):
two thousand eggs per day, and she releases pheromones to
maintain order and unity, so she the queen bee, can
live up to five years.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
She only really has sex once, that's it, and then
saves all the sperm for the rest of her life.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah, that's it isn't crazy, it's just wait here blows
my mind.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
That blows my mind. Queen bee, she should be that's
a good title. You know what's funny, Queen, I.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Thought worker bees were all the males. No, the worker
bees are all the female female. Worker bees are all female,
but they don't reproduce. They perform all the tasks needed
for the hive, all the foraging and the cleaning and
the guarding, everything for survival, so that all the worker
bees make up the majority of the hive. There's like
tens of thousands, and they live just a few weeks
(11:57):
in the summer and some some months in the winter.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
But like I used to think, there was one queen
bee and then the worker bees were all the dudes. No,
the worker bees are the chicks.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Yes, that's why. This is why it's so organized, because
it's all females and everybody has a role. The male
bees are the drone bees, and the male's sole purpose
is to meete with a queen. They don't have stingers,
they don't collect food, they die after mating, and they're
expelled from the hive before winter. So it's only about
ten to fifteen percent of the hives population is male.
(12:31):
And these are these h wait, how much ten to
fifteen percent.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Yeah, bees are female. Yeah, the cool What that is
the coolest thing I've ever heard.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
It's so cool. It's so cool, but I knew it.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
I mean, something that produces the most beautiful product, like honey,
it has to be done by a woman. It has
to be with such care. Female is And what about
the bouncer bees?
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Those guards outside the hives are those Those are the
bouncer bees that act like a bouncer outside of a
human bar, and they are the ones that are inspecting
the bees that are coming home.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Their job is to protect the colony. They check for
intruders such as drunk bees and also wasps or bees
that are coming from a different colony to try to
come in and steal the honey. And so they they're
the ones that are that are guarding outside of each hive.
There are about ten to twenty bouncers bouncer.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Bees, but those are female guards. Those are female.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
And the and the house bee that the worker bees
regurgitate their you know, honey into are also female. So
super cool, it's super cools.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
It's insane. But I also like the symbolism that they've
had throughout history. They've been like deeply symbolic throughout history.
They represent you know, a lot of special qualities like
diligence and hard working and community and fertility. So I
just feel like across cultures they've been revered as these
creatures of both natural significance but also divine significance, and
(14:12):
they play like these essential roles in human life and
agriculture religion, like I've always read, you know, they're in
every part of history because they're so old. They really
are very old species.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Yeah, it's such an old species and I love that.
You know, there's so much poetry around them as well.
Like the ancient Egyptians believed that honey bees sprung from
the tears of the sun god, and so this association
between bees and honey they were just considered sacred. You know,
Greek mythology, they're associated with Artemis and Demeter, goddesses of
(14:47):
nature and fertility and you know, wisdom. Again, this idea
of diligence and tireless labor as a metaphor for human industriousness.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
We could learn so much from bees. Yeah, I found
out that the bee became like the emblem of the
French monarchy under Louis the fourteenth, who adopted it as
his like personal symbol because he wanted it to symbolize
the monarch's power and authority and unity of the kingdom.
And I was like, that's so interesting that he chose
(15:20):
the bee.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
I know, it makes sense. And even among Native American tribes,
be often symbolized, you know, community and corporation and working
together to a common goal and this idea of the
best social structure. It's just so organized. Every member has
a distinct role, and it was seen as a metaphor
(15:41):
for tribal cooperation and unity and again also associated with
fertility and abundance. And they are essential pollinators for so
many different plants, you know, it's a link to the
Earth's fertility has made them important for so many agricultural
communities around the world. The earliest recorded image of a
(16:02):
human foraging honey is eight thousand years old, and it's
from the Cueva de la Regne cave paintings in Valencia, Spain.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
We see these, No, no, I'm not, but that was
eight thousand years ago. It's interesting because that's not long ago,
considering bees are one hundred and twenty million years old.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yeah, so, people, this is the first image of foraging honey. Right,
So the first time that we see this idea of
making honey like foraging or harnessing the power of bees
to produce honey, we see in Babylonian and Samarian writings
that go back about twenty one hundred BC.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
So, but it's also it makes sense because honey has
this ability to be preserved. So, you know, obviously in
these times where you don't have refrigerators or anything like that,
like you know, I'm sure they the preserving of the
honey was easy, and supposedly the Egyptians used it in
embalming practices to mummify bodies to prevent decay. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
It's so interesting. And in addition to that, you know,
preserving food and all of that, it's also recognized for
having antibacterial healing properties, so it's been used to treat
wounds and burns and infections, and it's still used for that.
You know, today, when we come back, we'll talk about
the vital role bees play in our food supply.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
So remember when we were in Bedagruz and there was
a special kind of bee in Mexico that pollinated the
vanilla plant, the vanilla flower, and he has like a
we she probably she has a very long arched stinger
because the vanilla orchid, which is an orchid, is like
(18:00):
hard to get to. It's hard to it's hard to pollinate,
and so these bees were like super special bees. Do
you know the names of those bees that pollinated the
vanilla plant, the Bompona bees. Are they extinct or endangered?
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Bompona? And then there's also the Melipona bees. They are endangered,
They're in danger. And so bees have played really a
very significant role in the history of Mexico for thousands
of years, including to pollinate the vanilla arcid for vanilla.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
So you know why the melepona bee, which is a
stingless bee native to Yucatan, it's endangered because of the
use of pesticide. Yah, yeah, I know. The use of
pesticides are really it's serious. It's serious. We need our bees,
and that particular bee, the Melipona is a is a
symbol of Mexican heritage, particularly in yukatt And I didn't
(18:54):
know this, but Mexico is one of the largest honey
producers in the world. No, I do not know. Yeah, yeah,
it's up there.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
It's like top ten of the biggest honey producers, and
they produce mostly European bees that were brought over, but
some also from native bees.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
I never kill a bee because I had heard like,
don't kill a bee because we need them. They're like
vital for biodiversity totally.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I never kill any insects. I'm the person that when
there's a spider in the house or something abug in
the house, everyone's like, might they cut And I'll just
get the bee and put it outside, Get the whatever
it is and put it outside. I will never kill
an insect, but now, especially bees, I'm going to bow
to them when I see them. But you know, beyond
(19:43):
it's culinary and medicinal uses, honey bees are crucial for pollination, right,
which is vital for agriculture and biodiversity. They act as
primary pollinators, transferring palling between plants, allowing plants to reproduce
and produce you know, fruits and seed. Bees pollinate one
third of all of the food that we eat, you know,
(20:06):
from apples and strawberries to cucumbers and squash and even coffee.
We can't have them without without bees, you know, without yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Without them, without them, wild plants too would not be
able to reproduce. And so you know, it's estimated that
bee pollination contributes billions of dollars annually to the global economy.
And because they're obviously responsible for the production of honey,
bee keeping provides livelihoods for all these farmers and all
(20:37):
these local economies. And I don't think I don't think
we put enough importance on them. No, we don't.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
And a decline and bee populations poses a really serious
threat to our global food security and biodiversity and the
health of ecosystems. So we really need to protect our bees.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Don't kill any bees that you come across, no, Yeah,
So what do we do to protect the bees?
Speaker 2 (21:02):
So there are different things that we could do. Right,
we could plant be friendly plants, like by growing a
variety of flowers that bloom at different times. Right to
provide bees with nectar throughout the year.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
You know what I heard that I heard that you
should always plant things in your garden and flowers that
would attract bees and that way they have nectar or
it's more easily found than them having to fly around forever. Also,
reducing pesticide use in general. You know, when I go
to the store and I buy organic. I'm not buying
it because the vegetable doesn't have pesticides and it's good
(21:37):
for me. I do it because that means a farm
worker wasn't sprayed, right, you know, and a farm worker
wasn't exposed to it. But I also do it for
this reason because that means that fewer chemicals in the
gardening can help protect these bees from harmful toxins. I
actually do it for that reason.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Absolutely, absolutely, that's the best reason to do it.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Really.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Another thing is to support local beekeepers, right.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
I think purchasing local honey is a way to support
bees because it just supports like the healthy beekeeping practices.
If you can buy from like specialty stores or farm
stands or farmers market and then get by the local honey.
Like I remember, I was in Albuquerque and I had
allergies so bad, and you know, my friend's like, you
(22:23):
gotta go, you know, get the honey. And sure enough,
like that, like my allergies went away once I bought
the local honey.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Wow, that's really interesting, you know. I want to mention
here in Los Angeles, there's a man Victor Caramillo Soriano.
He's one hundred years old and he said to be
the oldest living beekeeper in Los Angeles. He's in and
said he's from Sacatecas and he came to La during
the raceTo program, so he's been raising bees in his
neighborhood since nineteen forty eight. He calls his the worker
(22:54):
bees MESI has, and he has said that they're the
first to get up to work and the last call
it a today. They're better engineers and builders than people, and
they work in the dark.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
So support people like him. I love him that he
calls them misi has my daughter has. I love it well.
I hope you loved learning about honey, because I sure did.
And if you've got some interesting facts about your favorite foods,
send us a message. We love hearing from you.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Bye, everyone, Thank you so much for listening. See you
all next week.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Hungry for History is a Hyphenite media production in partnership
with Iheart's Michael Tura podcast network.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
MAITE GOMEZ-REJÓN
Eva Longoria
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