Speaker 1: Hey, it's your old pal Alley Ward with another straight
Speaker 1: shooting episode of Ologies. Bees. Bees. Man, you're worried about them,
Speaker 1: aren't you. Good minute you've cradled a cup of warm tea,
Speaker 1: you've gazed out a window vacantly and thought, what the
Speaker 1: fuck are we gonna do about these fucking bees? Well,
Speaker 1: first thing, let's get to know them a little better.
Speaker 1: So now, I've wanted to do this episode for literally
Speaker 1: twelve years. When I first came across a list of
Speaker 1: ologies back in the day, this one was honestly the
Speaker 1: one I was most horny for. I love insects. I've
Speaker 1: harbored a fantasy for decades that I will retire and
Speaker 1: become a very wrinkly old lady who wears cotton smocks
Speaker 1: and lovingly tends to like thirty thousand bee pets in
Speaker 1: her desert garden, trying to name each one of them
Speaker 1: a human name. Speaking of loving admiration, I'd like to
Speaker 1: take time to stare at you like a grateful creep
Speaker 1: and look into your eyes and say thank you ologites
Speaker 1: for rating and reviewing, and also for leaving reviews on iTunes.
Speaker 1: It helps so much. It lets the podcast get seen
Speaker 1: by other people. And also I'm very needy for feedback
Speaker 1: sometimes and I read every single one of your reviews.
Speaker 1: Subspeciedie says, thank you, Ali. This podcast feels in neat
Speaker 1: I didn't even know I had before I found it.
Speaker 1: Your edits are like the most relatable internal commentary. And
Speaker 1: my Twitter feed has become so much less bleak and
Speaker 1: more full of squids. Get those squids in your timelines, guys,
Speaker 1: get them right in your eyeballs. Okay, back to bees.
Speaker 1: So is it melatology apology? There is controversy? Which is it? Okay?
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to title this because I didn't
Speaker 1: know what to call it. So appis malifera or APIs malifera? Whatever?
Speaker 1: Is the genus and species of the year. European honeybee
Speaker 1: the ones you think of commonly when someone says honeybee.
Speaker 1: But there are so many species of bees. There are
Speaker 1: twenty thousand species of bees. That's like if every seat
Speaker 1: in Madison Square Garden were filled with one species of bee,
Speaker 1: just one little bee representing just taken in the show.
Speaker 1: So is it apology or melatology? I look this up
Speaker 1: and I got nauseated with enthusiasm. I'm not lying about
Speaker 1: that to learn that apology from Latin apists for bee
Speaker 1: is the study of just honeybees and beekeeping, but melatology
Speaker 1: Greek melata meaning bee is the study of all the bees.
Speaker 1: So this episode is melatology because we talk about a
Speaker 1: bunch of species, and I like my insect talk to
Speaker 1: be inclusive as hell. So this melatologist is the president
Speaker 1: of the Portland Urban Beekeepers Association, and I knew I
Speaker 1: was down to colum with her immediately when she returned
Speaker 1: my email with the question how soon are you wanting
Speaker 1: to be connected? She went for it. So a few
Speaker 1: days later we met in my hotel lobby, and at
Speaker 1: first I walked right past her because I thought she
Speaker 1: was twelve. She is tiny, bespectacled with a strawberry blonde bob,
Speaker 1: but is actually a full grown, badass bee president with
Speaker 1: years of beekeeping obsession under her belts, but not literally
Speaker 1: because how So we went up to my room and
Speaker 1: I realized that she had a backpack with a bee
Speaker 1: patch stitched on, she was wearing a shirt with a
Speaker 1: bee on it, and she has a bee tattoo. So
Speaker 1: she started talking and I immediately got my mic set
Speaker 1: up because everything she says, is golden. So be prepared
Speaker 1: to learn about weird places for nests, what color not
Speaker 1: to wear, what happens when you vacuum up bees, how
Speaker 1: you can become a beekeeper literally like today, why you
Speaker 1: should communicate all of your needs by shaking your rump,
Speaker 1: how wasps can get bent, and why these damn bees
Speaker 1: are dying and what to do to save them, and
Speaker 1: also the future of humanity. So please get so pumped
Speaker 1: for melotologist Amanda Shah.
Speaker 2: I've always been interested in weird things.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, I have to ask you right now, Harry,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you this one. Okay, You're the president
Speaker 1: of a beekeeping organization.
Speaker 2: Yes, I was actually just elected in January.
Speaker 1: What does that entail? Are you drunk with power? Most
Speaker 1: of the time, I try to use my powers for good.
Speaker 1: So it's urban beekeeping because we're in Portland. It's a
Speaker 1: pretty big city.
Speaker 2: Yes, and there is there's an enormous backyard beekeeping community
Speaker 2: in Portland.
Speaker 1: Do you think that Portland lends itself to backyard beekeeping
Speaker 1: because it's like kind of cool?
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, yeah, and the climate is mild, and I
Speaker 2: think that people in Oregon are gardeners. They are more
Speaker 2: adept to organic, natural.
Speaker 1: Right locally farms. Yeah, situations, Yes, they're like I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get I'm gonna make my.
Speaker 2: Make my own, or go to the farmer's market.
Speaker 1: Tell me about your love affair with bees. When did
Speaker 1: it begin? So?
Speaker 2: I started keeping native bees about five years ago, uh,
Speaker 2: Mason bees. I call it the gateway bee now because
Speaker 2: I quickly, you know, became enchanted with keeping bees and
Speaker 2: planting my pollinator garden, and you just I became more
Speaker 2: in tune with what's going on throughout the season, and
Speaker 2: I was always looking out for other bees that were
Speaker 2: visiting my garden that I had never seen before.
Speaker 1: What's a mason bee?
Speaker 2: Mason bees are solitary bees. They're known as the gentle pollinator.
Speaker 2: They're native. They're also called blue orchard mason bees, and
Speaker 2: they nest in these little tubes and they're super easy.
Speaker 2: It's like bee keeping for anybody. Anybody could keep mason bees.
Speaker 2: And they're just they're fuzzy, and they're shiny and blue
Speaker 2: and cute, and you know, when they're coming back to
Speaker 2: their nest, you can see little packs of pollen on
Speaker 2: their bellies bringing it back and they're just they're really cute.
Speaker 1: So a non yellow, non striped bee, Yes, they exist,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of them. So mason bees are
Speaker 1: this really beautiful kind of gun metal blue color. And
Speaker 1: in a lot of the one billion photos I just
Speaker 1: scrolled through while turning into a living, breathing, heart eyed emoji,
Speaker 1: mason bees appeared to be covered in pollen a lot
Speaker 1: like little dusty dummies. So I guess sloppy gatherers make
Speaker 1: really good pollinators. They're just like raw like confetti pollen everywhere,
Speaker 1: And so do they have to you put like tubes
Speaker 1: out where they can kind of burrow into.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So you can actually buy these little cardboard tubes
Speaker 2: on Amazon or pribay local garden store and you can
Speaker 2: just put out a little house to put them in,
Speaker 2: and you can buy the cocoons. They come in little
Speaker 2: cocoons and they hatch each spring and they you know,
Speaker 2: pollinate for six weeks and then they lay eggs for
Speaker 2: the next generation that will hatch out of their cocoons
Speaker 2: the following springtime.
Speaker 1: Oh that's adorable.
Speaker 2: So it's a short term. You know, you can only
Speaker 2: get six weeks of mason bee watching, and that wasn't
Speaker 2: enough for me. So I started studying really really hard
Speaker 2: and got my first beehives a few years ago, and
Speaker 2: it is just spiraled out of control.
Speaker 1: This is a good addiction to happen. It is side note,
Speaker 1: an addiction to bees would technically be called ready for
Speaker 1: this melissaphilia. And I only know this because I researched
Speaker 1: addicted to bees and I found that this was a
Speaker 1: common self professed ailment of beekeepers. And then I looked
Speaker 1: up the fear of bees and found out it was
Speaker 1: melissa phobia. So we now know that one be addiction
Speaker 1: is common. And two, all of your friends named Melissa
Speaker 1: are named after bees. Melissa in Greek means bee, so
Speaker 1: extra shout out to any Melissa out there keeping bees.
Speaker 1: Double duty on the bees.
Speaker 2: One of the most surprising things about getting into beekeeping
Speaker 2: was getting connected to this great community of hobbyists, professional scientists.
Speaker 2: I am surrounded by really really wonderful beekeepers and there's
Speaker 2: been a lot of support there.
Speaker 1: And did you like bees or insects as a kid
Speaker 1: or did you when did you develop an interest.
Speaker 2: I've always been kind of into nature and and you know,
Speaker 2: all that stuff, but it wasn't until I saw this
Speaker 2: documentary called More Than Honey that I really felt the
Speaker 2: need to start learning about bees.
Speaker 1: What is it?
Speaker 2: It's well, it speaks to the challenges that our pollinators
Speaker 2: are facing, and like there's real trouble. People need to
Speaker 2: get on board and help. So I started. That's when
Speaker 2: I got into Mason beekeeping because that was something I
Speaker 2: could do immediately without a lot of pre study. And
Speaker 2: you know, planting my pollinator garden stuff you can kind
Speaker 2: of do on your own without a big investment or.
Speaker 1: And now that this is partly I imagine the concern
Speaker 1: came out of colony collapse, colony collapse disorder, right and
Speaker 1: just in general, we got a problem with the bees, right, Like,
Speaker 1: y bees need our help right now. If bees could
Speaker 1: have a telethon, they'd be like you.
Speaker 3: Guys, dial in all now, help would be So what
Speaker 3: is happening?
Speaker 1: Like it's it's pesticides. So I know that one room
Speaker 1: was like cell phones are killing bees now, but like,
Speaker 1: so what's happening? So if we the bees are dying
Speaker 1: and then without the bees, we don't have things pollinated,
Speaker 1: which is important for agriculture and just in general botany.
Speaker 1: But like, what's going on with these bees.
Speaker 2: So what we're seeing is, you know, bees are being
Speaker 2: put into nest boxes that aren't ideal. Oh and if
Speaker 2: you look at the industrial bee keeping complex, bees are
Speaker 2: being forced to pollinate and work outside of their normal cycle.
Speaker 2: Oh and and so they're being pushed to these limits
Speaker 2: and it's weakening their immune systems. And when there's monoculture
Speaker 2: and pesticide use involved, it causes them to collapse. There's verites,
Speaker 2: there's diseases that come with that because that also weakens
Speaker 2: ser immune system.
Speaker 1: Okay, aside on these veroamites. Their genus and species name
Speaker 1: is verroa destructor, and they are like bedbugs to bees.
Speaker 1: They are these tiny, flat, kind of button shaped, rusty
Speaker 1: brown little nasties, and when they feed on bees, they
Speaker 1: drain them of fats and lymph and they leave these
Speaker 1: open wounds that make the bees more susceptible to fungi
Speaker 1: and viruses like one that deforms their wings. So these
Speaker 1: kind of mites, verromites, were introduced into the US in
Speaker 1: the eighties. I don't mean to talk shit, but everybody hates.
Speaker 2: Them, and so I think that it's a complicated issue.
Speaker 2: It's not just the pesticides. It's not just the monoculture,
Speaker 2: not just the flimsy boxes that were keeping them in.
Speaker 2: It's all of that together and trucking them around the country.
Speaker 2: That's not normal. That's not what they're designed to do.
Speaker 1: What is their normal life cycle? Do? They only work
Speaker 1: in certain months and we're like, yo, we got stuff
Speaker 1: to pollinate, right.
Speaker 2: It's February, got almond trees to pollinate.
Speaker 1: Get up, let's go. So Portland is relatively temperate, and
Speaker 1: Amanda says that the bees do survive over winter and
Speaker 1: then they're up and at them in late March, early April,
Speaker 1: and then by November they start shutting down for winter again,
Speaker 1: living off the honey. And they have smaller colony numbers,
Speaker 1: but the summer bees are the most extra they're out there.
Speaker 2: The summer bees only last about six weeks because they
Speaker 2: literally work themselves to death.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and most of them are women anyway, ryes.
Speaker 2: They needed to take a break, right.
Speaker 1: It is like because most of the workers, the workers
Speaker 1: are all women.
Speaker 2: The workers are all women.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and so they work themselves to death to death?
Speaker 2: Yes, good, yeah, I had no idea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, someone needs to step in and be like, girl.
Speaker 2: Just take a day off. Once in a while.
Speaker 1: Don't worry about these flowers for to day, right, And so, now,
Speaker 1: what can a person do? This is one question that
Speaker 1: I got so many times that I can't even attribute
Speaker 1: it to a single listener, But like, what can we
Speaker 1: do for the bees? You started becoming interested in apiculture
Speaker 1: because of their plight, but you went like full hog
Speaker 1: and now you're the president of association like this and
Speaker 1: this in the scale of like zero to ten, Like
Speaker 1: what can the average person do?
Speaker 2: I always tell people you don't have to be a
Speaker 2: bee keeper to help the cause. The biggest thing that
Speaker 2: bees need right now, honey bees and native bees is
Speaker 2: food that's safe, you know, Providing plant seeds that haven't
Speaker 2: been pre treated with pesticides and check the labels because
Speaker 2: a lot of them are pre treated.
Speaker 1: Oh I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and planting plants that haven't been pre treated with
Speaker 2: systemic pesticides. That's one of the big issues.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what a systemic pesticide was because I
Speaker 1: live in la and my garden is a parking lot.
Speaker 1: But they're the kind of pesticides that live in the
Speaker 1: tissues of the plant instead of just being misted over
Speaker 1: the leaves. Man agriculture is a warfield. There are poisonings,
Speaker 1: sudden vanishing of tens of thousands of family members, There's
Speaker 1: billions of dollars at stake. It's like a candyland of microdramas.
Speaker 2: Another thing that native pollinators are struggling with is habitat.
Speaker 2: So if you can have a corner of your yard
Speaker 2: where you know you can have that compost pile on
Speaker 2: the ground for bumblebees to nest in, or there, you know,
Speaker 2: there's lots of other ground nesting bees. So like having
Speaker 2: that awareness, you can make your yard its own little
Speaker 2: nature site and the bees will come. They will come.
Speaker 1: You don't have to worry about like setting out a
Speaker 1: party and you're like, no, even care.
Speaker 2: Right, you don't have to send it. Just plant the
Speaker 2: safe flowers, put out some habitat. They'll be fine.
Speaker 1: And now you keep saying native bees, and I feel
Speaker 1: like we need to educate some people that honeybees non
Speaker 1: native species.
Speaker 2: Correct, not native and we brought.
Speaker 1: Them over from Europe for their for to use them
Speaker 1: as honey producers. But can you tell me a little
Speaker 1: bit about the difference between honeybees and native bees and
Speaker 1: should honey bees should we be should we be using
Speaker 1: honey bees in this environment.
Speaker 2: With native bees, they're actually more effective pollinators than honey
Speaker 2: bees are. But honeybees sort of get all of the attention,
Speaker 2: and they can be used in the agricultural industry, they
Speaker 2: can be used as livestock to pollinate large crops. But
Speaker 2: native bees are more effective pollinators. And we have over
Speaker 2: four thousand species of native bees in America, so there's
Speaker 2: a lot of them out there, but they sort of
Speaker 2: don't get the attention that they need because the honey
Speaker 2: bees are, you know, the star of the show and
Speaker 2: they're the ones getting you know, the cry for help
Speaker 2: is for the honey bees, but really it's the native
Speaker 2: bees that need the habitat. They need variety in their diet.
Speaker 2: So when you have like these giant fields of almonds
Speaker 2: or cotton or corn or soy beans, that's not good
Speaker 2: for the native bee population because they need variety.
Speaker 1: Oh, so the agriculture kind of cuts them off from
Speaker 1: the flora that would be out there. Now, yes, got it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so planting things in your backyard on your property
Speaker 1: that are good plants for them, is it helps them out?
Speaker 2: Yes, And having variety and making sure that you have
Speaker 2: plants blooming as long as possible during the growing season.
Speaker 1: And now what do you keep.
Speaker 2: I plant a lot of oregano, mint, lavender and stuff
Speaker 2: that's really easy to grow. This kind of blooms long season.
Speaker 2: Borage is a really great bee food and it's super
Speaker 2: easy to take care.
Speaker 1: Of and you can eat the flowers.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, and they're deer resistant. Oh you have deer
Speaker 2: coming through your property.
Speaker 1: Now what kind of bees do you keep?
Speaker 2: I keep mason bees and I keep honey bees.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, So the jump to honey bees where you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm going in like I'm becoming a bee keeper, like
Speaker 1: hardcore bee keeper. How did you approach that?
Speaker 2: I started studying honey bees very shortly after starting my
Speaker 2: venture with Mason Bees. But the thing that really kicked
Speaker 2: it into high gear was early spring a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago. I was in my backyard and I hear
Speaker 2: a bunch of people calling my name, Mandy, Mandy, Mandy,
Speaker 2: got it, come quick, come quick. So we run out
Speaker 2: of the fry yard and there's a swarm of bees.
Speaker 2: There's a honey bees swarm collecting in the maple tree
Speaker 2: in my front yard. It was just I'd never seen
Speaker 2: a swarm before, and it just felt like a sign that.
Speaker 1: Is thrilling, that's like finding a puppy. Yes, so exciting.
Speaker 2: I have never felt that kind of exhilaration in my life.
Speaker 2: It was really special. And so I called the swarm hotline.
Speaker 2: There's a hot line that you could call and they'll
Speaker 2: let beekeepers know there's a swarm. And the sky came
Speaker 2: and he was like the Sam Elliott of beekeepers, so tough,
Speaker 2: and he had the mustache and everything. And the swarm
Speaker 2: was up high in this tree and he gets out
Speaker 2: this ladder and it's rickety. It's this tripod ladder thing,
Speaker 2: and he just goes up there and he's got this
Speaker 2: special vacuum for vacuuming up the bees and he just
Speaker 2: just gets gathers them up and you know, puts them
Speaker 2: in his car and drives off. Why can I keep
Speaker 2: them in mind, I wasn't quite ready yet. I didn't
Speaker 2: have hive to put them in. I did't anything, and
Speaker 2: so but that was what really made me like realize,
Speaker 2: this is it. I'm doing this. So I spent the
Speaker 2: rest of that year like getting my equipment, taking beekeeping classes,
Speaker 2: reading more, joining the organization and just you know, getting.
Speaker 1: Myself ready before you go Amazon priming a whole be setup,
Speaker 1: which you can totally do for like two hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: You may want to check with a local beekeepers association
Speaker 1: first because they can sometimes rent or lend out equipment,
Speaker 1: which is very handy, or they can tell you which
Speaker 1: stuff is bunk and not to buy. One thing that
Speaker 1: Amanda always has on under her be suit is her
Speaker 1: bee tattoo, and it covers the entirety of her right bicep.
Speaker 1: It's this gorgeous floral mural featuring, of course, her favorite
Speaker 1: tiny friends. At what point did you get your be tattoo?
Speaker 2: I got my bee tattoo in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: Oh so this is after you started keeping honeybees?
Speaker 2: Yeah, shortly after. And it's funny because I had it
Speaker 2: done in four sessions, and I was doing it in
Speaker 2: the springtime, and after two of the sessions, I caught
Speaker 2: swarms that day on two occasions.
Speaker 1: No way, that's kind of freak.
Speaker 2: It's totally freaky.
Speaker 1: So do you go help catch swarms too? Yes, so
Speaker 1: you become the Sam Elliot of bee keeping, the Lady
Speaker 1: Sam Elliott. So you use what a vacuum? Do you use?
Speaker 1: Is it like a modified black.
Speaker 2: And deck girl, haven't. I don't have a bee back.
Speaker 2: I use other methods. But you can make a bee back.
Speaker 2: You just have to make sure the suction is not
Speaker 2: very strong, and you know, collects them in a bucket.
Speaker 2: But I use other methods. And the thing about going
Speaker 2: out to catch a swarm, you don't know what you're
Speaker 2: going to find when you get there. They might be
Speaker 2: really high up in a tree, might be wrapped around
Speaker 2: a tree trunk and a shrub. Or I caught one
Speaker 2: that was on the ground. They were just in a
Speaker 2: pile on the ground, and it was it was really
Speaker 2: really early spring. It was kind of cold, and so
Speaker 2: they were just kind of laying there cold. They you know,
Speaker 2: they couldn't move, and so I very very carefully used
Speaker 2: sheets of card stock to kind of scoop them up
Speaker 2: and put them into the box because I didn't know
Speaker 2: what else to do, and it worked. But you just
Speaker 2: that's the exciting thing about swarm catching. You just you
Speaker 2: don't know what you're gonna find.
Speaker 3: Sometimes are they agitated? Sometimes? Yeah, do you ever see
Speaker 3: killer bees? Or I feel like no, no, they're it's
Speaker 3: too cold here for them. They're central northern California as
Speaker 3: high as they go.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I feel like we heard a lot about
Speaker 1: that those in like the nineties or like killer bees.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we don't have them there.
Speaker 1: And so when you're catching a swarm, have you been
Speaker 1: have been stung before?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Which hurts more the tattoo or the beasting.
Speaker 2: The basting is kind of an anxiety inducing adrenaline rush.
Speaker 1: Okay? Is that because of the venom?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's your body reacting to it and keeping you
Speaker 2: from having a bad reaction. But the tattoo is a
Speaker 2: more long lasting pain, for sure.
Speaker 3: It's more like a burn, right, Okay, So it's like
Speaker 3: a it's a I guess one is a quick poke
Speaker 3: in the other is a more systemic situation.
Speaker 1: So what's in an angry b butt that's not in
Speaker 1: a tattoo gun is a good question. Let's break it down. So,
Speaker 1: b venom contains a compound called melatin, which makes red
Speaker 1: blood cells burst, which hurts, and there are other proteins
Speaker 1: that destroy cell membranes, cause pain, destroy nerve tissue. There's
Speaker 1: also histamine in b venom, which makes your capillaries and
Speaker 1: causes itchy welts. So when bees sting, they release a
Speaker 1: pheromone that says, hey, bitches, I'm in trubs, causing other
Speaker 1: worker ladies to come and kick your ass. It's a
Speaker 1: last ditch defense. Bees don't want to see you, they
Speaker 1: don't want to die. They would really, really rather very
Speaker 1: much not. Yeah, how many times have you been stung
Speaker 1: by bees?
Speaker 2: I've only been stung four times really, and last season
Speaker 2: I didn't get stung at all, which is kind of crazy.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to be really super careful and thinking about
Speaker 2: the times that I had been stung. It was totally
Speaker 2: my fault, really because I wasn't being careful. There were
Speaker 2: a couple of times where I grabbed a piece of
Speaker 2: equipment without checking underneath, you know, if I was doing
Speaker 2: an inspection and I pick it up and squash a
Speaker 2: bee and you know, get stung. I've had them climb
Speaker 2: up my pant leg before I get stung on the
Speaker 2: head one time.
Speaker 1: So you prevent getting stung just being really really kind
Speaker 1: of cautious about where they are at all times, like
Speaker 1: just kind of watching your back. Yes, okay, yes, and
Speaker 1: now when they're swarming, tell me what is happening.
Speaker 2: So a swarm is like a birth of a new colony.
Speaker 2: And it happens in the springtime when bees are you know,
Speaker 2: coming out of winter. The queen starts laying eggs, the
Speaker 2: colony starts, they get brooding up, they start ramping up
Speaker 2: their their population production, and so they'll make new queens
Speaker 2: to prepare for the swarm. And so when the new
Speaker 2: queens emerge, the old queen leaves the hive with about
Speaker 2: half of the bees and they go off to find
Speaker 2: a new place to live.
Speaker 1: Oh that's actually, that's fascinating because I always thought that
Speaker 1: it was a new queen that was like a bye,
Speaker 1: But really it's the old one.
Speaker 2: That's like the old one.
Speaker 1: Yeah that she's like, fine, we're out of here. I
Speaker 1: never knew that. Yeah, And so they go off. She
Speaker 1: takes about half the hive. How do they How do
Speaker 1: they decide who goes with her and who stays?
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's it's amazing to me that they
Speaker 2: can even coordinate the move and find a new place
Speaker 2: to live and have the timing be just so right.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure how they decide who gets to go
Speaker 2: with mom and who gets to stay with the new mom.
Speaker 1: I had to find out how these allegiances and betrayals
Speaker 1: were made, and I read a whole article about it,
Speaker 1: and at the very end it just summarized it with
Speaker 1: quote it's rather random. Yeah, it's almost like I wonder
Speaker 1: if it's like a stepmom s she's younger, like up,
Speaker 1: and so they swarm, they all leave and they just
Speaker 1: they they're in this like cloud and then they kind
Speaker 1: of will like gather at a pit stop on a
Speaker 1: tree and be like, Okay, where are we going? Where
Speaker 1: we're going?
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, here's.
Speaker 1: The weirdest place that you've seen hive.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen hives myself and very easy places, but
Speaker 2: I follow some professional be removal beekeepers on Instagram and
Speaker 2: they've shown pictures of one beekeeper showed bees living in
Speaker 2: an elephant statue, like statue was hollowed out and the
Speaker 2: bees were living in it.
Speaker 1: It's like a trojan horse, right, the weirdest trojan horse.
Speaker 2: Compost bins, water meter boxes in the sidewalk. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We once had a swarm inhabit a wall of arts
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, and it was the weirdest day.
Speaker 1: Was it Friday the thirteenth? It was good Friday. Our
Speaker 1: dog died that day. There was an earthquake and there
Speaker 1: was a bee swarm in the wall. It was the
Speaker 1: weirdest day it was. I just remember our whole fit
Speaker 1: was like it's very all at once. It was like
Speaker 1: it felt very biblical. Yes, but they can also they
Speaker 1: can also find an inn and hang out in your walls.
Speaker 2: Right, yes, yeah, it's common for them to like if
Speaker 2: they find a little hole in this, Hey, this is
Speaker 2: a nice sized space, it's warm, it's high off the ground.
Speaker 2: Let's do it. They'll move into chimneys. Oh yeah, which
Speaker 2: is like, gosh, how do you how do you take
Speaker 2: them out of a chimney?
Speaker 1: Yeah? How do you take them out of a chimney?
Speaker 2: So I have a beekeeper friend that has done this
Speaker 2: several times, and he says it's like a slow strangle.
Speaker 2: He says, you just sort of lure them out in
Speaker 2: a way that they can't get back in. But often
Speaker 2: you have to give them a new queen because the
Speaker 2: old queen doesn't know to come out, and so it's
Speaker 2: it's complicated and it takes a long time.
Speaker 1: Once you have a bucket of bees, not the bears, ah,
Speaker 1: do you then distribute those to people who are looking
Speaker 1: to populate hives.
Speaker 2: I keep them when I catch them, and so it's
Speaker 2: always a race for resources, like, oh my gosh, I
Speaker 2: just kind of swarm. I need to make sure I
Speaker 2: have equipment ready for them. And in my first season
Speaker 2: that was the biggest surprise, was like a constant race
Speaker 2: to keep up with the demand for equipment. And it's
Speaker 2: not cheap. Beekeeping is not a cheap hobby.
Speaker 1: I imagine it.
Speaker 2: Costs a lot to get started. But once you do
Speaker 2: get started, then you know it's not so bad.
Speaker 1: And do you ever have people who are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought beekeeping would be for me, but turns out, no,
Speaker 1: here do you want my stuff? I've never had that,
Speaker 1: so there's not a big attrition rate. Okay, right, And
Speaker 1: so how many hives do you have? How many bees
Speaker 1: you have?
Speaker 2: I have three traditional hives, traditional Lanx drat hives like
Speaker 2: you would see in the beekeeping operations.
Speaker 1: Uh, what is a Lanx draft hive? Okay? Those are
Speaker 1: the square beekeeping boxes, usually white, that you see near
Speaker 1: orchards and in backyard beekeeping with the leaves that you
Speaker 1: can remove. So they were named in the nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: for their inventor, LL. Langstrath, and when I first saw
Speaker 1: the Wikipedia photo, I thought, oh, cool, a lady, But
Speaker 1: it turns out he was just an older dude with
Speaker 1: luxurious tresses. He was also a clergyman, and he passed
Speaker 1: away at the age of eighty five by dropping dead
Speaker 1: at the pulpit as he was beginning a sermon. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's one kind of hive.
Speaker 2: And then I also have a tree hive. What which
Speaker 2: is So the tree is the bee's ultimate nest site,
Speaker 2: that's what they're really designed to live in. Is a
Speaker 2: hollow of a tree. It's insulated, it's alive, it has
Speaker 2: its own microbiome that is happening inside. So this tree
Speaker 2: was in somebody's yard and they had to have it removed.
Speaker 2: And I have a friend here in Portland. His name
Speaker 2: is Brian Lacy. This is this area of expertise. So
Speaker 2: he works with arborous to preserve that section of the
Speaker 2: tree and keep it intact so that he can find
Speaker 2: a new home for it with the bees still inside. Wow,
Speaker 2: it's wild. And so I have this bee tree and
Speaker 2: it's really I think a humbling experience as a beekeeper,
Speaker 2: because you have to trust them. You can't get in
Speaker 2: there and meddle with their affairs. You can only watch
Speaker 2: and trust that they know what they're doing. And out
Speaker 2: of all of the colonies I've ever had, the bee
Speaker 2: tree is the most robust.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, And do you go in there and harvest
Speaker 1: any honey at all? Or do you just let them
Speaker 1: do their thing?
Speaker 2: They it's a total totally hands off. I just sit
Speaker 2: and admire them, an ant farm.
Speaker 1: Kind of right. And now with your other hives, do
Speaker 1: you do any honey harvesting as well?
Speaker 2: I don't. And the reason is they work so hard
Speaker 2: for it, and I have not seen them have a
Speaker 2: surplus enough where I felt like I could take from them.
Speaker 1: How sweet is that? No pun intended for reals, What
Speaker 1: exactly is the role of honey? Or walk me through
Speaker 1: a little bit how it goes from essentially like flowerges
Speaker 1: to honey. It goes from like flowerges to barf to honey,
Speaker 1: Like what's happening in nature?
Speaker 2: Okay, So the bee goes out and grathers some nectar
Speaker 2: and they use their tongue. They're proboscis. It's like a
Speaker 2: straw and they suck that up and the honey goes
Speaker 2: in or the nectar goes into their honey stomach. So
Speaker 2: it's a secondary stomach that they have, okay, and they
Speaker 2: carry it in that and when they bring it back
Speaker 2: to the hive, they do this thing called trophylaxis, and
Speaker 2: it's they're regurgitating the nectar into another bee's mouth.
Speaker 1: What what what what?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: And they pass it back and forth and each time
Speaker 2: they do this they're adding enzymes to it. It reduces
Speaker 2: the moisture content of the nectar a little bit, because
Speaker 2: the nectar is very high in moisture, and so before
Speaker 2: it can become true honey, they have to bring that
Speaker 2: moisture content down quite a bit. So after they pass
Speaker 2: it back and forth, they'll put it into a little
Speaker 2: honeycomb cell and they fill that up and then they
Speaker 2: use their wings to sort of flap and get the
Speaker 2: air moving and reduce the moisture content. Ideally for harvested honey,
Speaker 2: seventeen percent is the most moisture that you'd want to
Speaker 2: have for it. Oh and then they cover it with
Speaker 2: wax and so it stays fresh forever.
Speaker 1: Really, now, when what are they using the honey for?
Speaker 1: How are they using that honey to feed a brood?
Speaker 2: They feed their brood pollen. Okay, so when they're collecting pollen.
Speaker 2: They're bringing that back to the hive and they're adding
Speaker 2: enzymes to it, just sort of ferment it. And it's
Speaker 2: called bee bread.
Speaker 1: Oh I didn't know that, Yes, bee bread.
Speaker 2: And so they'll feed that to their babies and it's
Speaker 2: a protein source.
Speaker 1: Got it. So then what's the honey used for for
Speaker 1: the adults.
Speaker 2: They eat it? Yeah, it gives them energy. It's to
Speaker 2: carbohydrate and it sustains them through the winter.
Speaker 1: Oh so are they collecting it more in spring and
Speaker 1: summer and then living off of it in the winter.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, and before a swarming event they fill up
Speaker 2: on it. Everybody fills up before they leave the hive
Speaker 2: because they need they need that energy for when they
Speaker 2: get to their new home location to build comb, you know,
Speaker 2: because they won't have any comb where they're going unless
Speaker 2: they're moving into an old bee hive, so they have
Speaker 2: to start from scratch.
Speaker 1: So they're carbo loading.
Speaker 2: They're carbo loading, yes, like.
Speaker 1: A week before a marathon. And so now where is
Speaker 1: the distinction between those who harvest honey in those in
Speaker 1: those who don't. And when you with the Portland urban beekeepers,
Speaker 1: do you do you guys have both We do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have a wide range of beekeeping you know,
Speaker 2: philosophies and practices within our organization. We at our teaching apiary,
Speaker 2: we have harvested honey from those hives and we have
Speaker 2: a honey extraction party, and some people do practice be
Speaker 2: keeping commercially. We're on a larger scale than say, like
Speaker 2: your average backyard beekeeper.
Speaker 1: And what was one of the first things they teach
Speaker 1: you and beekeeping classes? You mentioned that you sign up
Speaker 1: for some classes. Is it like how to suit up?
Speaker 1: Is it like how to be one with a bee
Speaker 1: and getting its zone?
Speaker 2: It was a lot of just real practical information. There's
Speaker 2: honeybee biology, understanding they're different working parts. The social structure
Speaker 2: of the hive is important to understand. It meant how
Speaker 2: to choose what kind of hive you're going to keep
Speaker 2: your bees in. Stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It is a dumb question, but why do some hives
Speaker 1: look like igloo domes and others are like white boxes.
Speaker 2: I think you're thinking of a skeep, Okay, the little
Speaker 2: igloo dome. Yes, so traditionally that is what bees were
Speaker 2: kind of kept in for a long time, These woven
Speaker 2: baskets and they're caked with mud, or cow dung on
Speaker 2: the outside. So they're this breathing not box, but a
Speaker 2: breathing atmosphere for the bees to live in. But it's
Speaker 2: also really insulated and it's the right size for them.
Speaker 2: It's not too big, not too small. They can maintain
Speaker 2: the heat, they can maintain the moisture inside of something
Speaker 2: like that. But the bee boxes, like the square boxes,
Speaker 2: that's kind of what people have been keeping bees in
Speaker 2: in America for a long time. That's what the like
Speaker 2: the industry standard, and it's what's widely available and a
Speaker 2: lot of people start with that because it's the easiest
Speaker 2: for the beekeeper. It's more beekeeper centric, got it.
Speaker 1: And because there are kind of like volumes almost like
Speaker 1: file folders you can take out right like, yes, I
Speaker 1: have a little bit of an idea, but can you explain,
Speaker 1: like what's going on, Like what's the box, Like what's
Speaker 1: happening in that box?
Speaker 2: So in the box, you'll have your frames of drawn
Speaker 2: out wax and they'll use it for storing honey pollen
Speaker 2: and also raising their babies. And generally you'll have two boxes.
Speaker 2: You'll have the one below, which is where it's called
Speaker 2: the brood chamber, So where the queen is hanging out
Speaker 2: and laying eggs, and that's where the brood is coming from.
Speaker 2: And then the box above generally would be for food stores,
Speaker 2: but sometimes, you know, the queen will go between the
Speaker 2: two and so you'll see brood in both boxes during
Speaker 2: the peak of the season.
Speaker 1: And there is a queen, there are the female workers,
Speaker 1: and then there are the drones, right, yes, and so
Speaker 1: how do they determine who is the queen?
Speaker 2: The queen is made a queen when she's still an
Speaker 2: egg three days old egg. And the change happens when
Speaker 2: they start feeding her. She's only fed royal jelly, so
Speaker 2: she doesn't get any bee bread. She's deprived of protein
Speaker 2: during her development, and that is what makes her a queen.
Speaker 2: Because she's deprived of she's given a totally different diet
Speaker 2: and so that somehow changes her. She grows differently than
Speaker 2: the worker bee.
Speaker 1: And what's royal jelly exactly?
Speaker 2: Royal jelly is this enzyme that the bees they have
Speaker 2: these glands that they oh, they screet it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that comes from a bee face and not
Speaker 1: from a bee face, and so do a lot of
Speaker 1: different workers like like contribute to that or is it.
Speaker 2: Nurse So what happens is, you know, if a bee
Speaker 2: lives out its full life cycle, it will achieve all
Speaker 2: of the different jobs within a colony. Oh, and they
Speaker 2: start out as nurse bees, so when they first are born,
Speaker 2: they come out and they start tending the young and
Speaker 2: the larvae. And then there's food processor bees. There's cleaning
Speaker 2: bees because they like to keep their hive really clean.
Speaker 2: And the last stage is the foraging bees. Those are
Speaker 2: the most experienced bees, and they go out and are
Speaker 2: the ones that we see in the gardens.
Speaker 1: I understand that when they make a queen, they'll make
Speaker 1: a couple of them.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just like a fight to the death, it is.
Speaker 2: And so let's say they make five queens and they
Speaker 2: all emerge around the same time. They will call each
Speaker 2: other out. They do this thing called piping, and so
Speaker 2: they it kind of sounds like a kazoo. They'll call
Speaker 2: to each other and then they'll fight side notes.
Speaker 1: So the first queen out starts roaming around making this
Speaker 1: noise in g sharp it's called piping or tooting. It's
Speaker 1: like me, me me. Now a few of her sisters
Speaker 1: who have also been raised to be queens but are
Speaker 1: still sleeping in. They're little cells. They're just snoozed a
Speaker 1: little longer. They respond with a noise called quacking. It
Speaker 1: sounds like a dot honk. It's kind of like Marco Polo,
Speaker 1: but with newborns. Now here's the thing. When the sleepy
Speaker 1: queens quack back at the first one, that first one's like, oh,
Speaker 1: there you are, and then goes and kills them. So
Speaker 1: she's essentially like, hey, hey, who's up? Anyone up? And
Speaker 1: then her sisters are like, hey, hey, what's up. I'm
Speaker 1: just about to get up. What's going on? What's up?
Speaker 1: And she's like, oh, hey, I kill you. I'm telling
Speaker 1: you this is a candyland of microdrama and so and
Speaker 1: then will the one who loses die? Yeah? And then
Speaker 1: whoever the strongest is is like I'm the queen now, bitch.
Speaker 2: Yes. And then she has to go out on her
Speaker 2: mating flight and hopefully, you know, doesn't get eaten by
Speaker 2: a bird. Oh god, Like, there are a lot of
Speaker 2: things that can happen. It's a very delicate.
Speaker 1: And does she have a stinger or does she because
Speaker 1: I know a stinger is a an over positive.
Speaker 2: She does have a stinger, but it's not barbed like
Speaker 2: a worker stinger, so she can use it in battle.
Speaker 2: But it's not like the workers stinger with the venom sack.
Speaker 4: Because the barb also rips it straight out your body, right, yes, yeah,
Speaker 4: but I have seen videos where the beekeeper kept their
Speaker 4: cool and let the bee work the stinger out themselves,
Speaker 4: and so.
Speaker 2: The bee is able to sting without losing its life.
Speaker 1: Generous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is so generous, like nerves of steel.
Speaker 1: Seriously. And so the mating flight m hm, tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about a lot.
Speaker 2: It's also called the nuptial flight. And so the queen
Speaker 2: goes up to the drone congregation zone. So all these
Speaker 2: drones are hanging out high up at the tree level waiting.
Speaker 2: It's like the singles bar. And so the queen goes
Speaker 2: to the drone congregation zone and flies as fast as
Speaker 2: she can because she wants the fastest malem you know,
Speaker 2: fast genetics. So sho'll mate with you know, maybe a
Speaker 2: dozen or so.
Speaker 1: Hello girl, Yeah, I love that. She's like going to
Speaker 1: the drone zone. Yeah, you know what happened, And so
Speaker 1: the fastest twelve or so will end up giving her sperm.
Speaker 1: And then she flies, she flies back and she's like,
Speaker 1: does she does she fertilize the eggs herself based on
Speaker 1: what she's gathered or it's amazing.
Speaker 2: So she holds all of the sperm and it has
Speaker 2: to be enough for her lifetime, which can be up
Speaker 2: to five years. Queens, wow, live a very long time.
Speaker 2: She holds fertilized and unfertilized, so the unfertilized eggs are drones.
Speaker 2: She makes drones from unfertilized eggs, which when I first
Speaker 2: learned that, it blew my mind because I'm thinking, wow,
Speaker 2: how does that work? The drone doesn't have a dad,
Speaker 2: but he has a grandfather.
Speaker 1: Whoa because he's what, Yes, that's crazy, that's crazy, so
Speaker 1: much family drama. There are a lot of skeletons in
Speaker 1: their closet, especially considering bees don't have skeletons. Well, they
Speaker 1: have excess skeletons, you know what I mean. And so
Speaker 1: she makes a smaller proportion that are drones because most
Speaker 1: of what she needs are female worker bees. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: does she have one nuptial flight her whole life?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So she gets it on and if she doesn't mate,
Speaker 2: well the colony, like we won't survive. So it's really
Speaker 2: important that she you.
Speaker 1: Know, it's a lot of pressure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is that.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine if they're like, here's the deal. You
Speaker 1: get one gangbang your whole life, and then you're celibate
Speaker 1: till you die, but you're never stop raising babies exactly.
Speaker 1: It's a different life.
Speaker 2: Lot of pressure.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. And so she can live for maybe
Speaker 1: up to five years. Oh, I didn't realize that they
Speaker 1: live so long. Yeah, and queens have a little bit
Speaker 1: longer abdomen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so once you can recognize the queen when you're
Speaker 2: doing your inspections, they're easy to find. They have the
Speaker 2: really long abdomen, so their wings are only coming down
Speaker 2: about halfway. And they're not as fuzzy as the workers
Speaker 2: are the drones, so their backs tend to be more shiny.
Speaker 1: Why are workers and drones fuzzy?
Speaker 2: It's my understanding that the workers have fuzz because it
Speaker 2: helps them to gather. The pollen will stick to them.
Speaker 2: They get a little bit staticky and sticky and it
Speaker 2: will stick to their fuzz and then they can clean
Speaker 2: it off and sort of push it into their little
Speaker 2: pollen packets.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's like glitter in a fur coat. Fancy when
Speaker 1: you first see a queen in a hive? Do you
Speaker 1: get really excited?
Speaker 2: Is it like it's like this my lucky day? Now?
Speaker 1: What about your family? Are they in to be keeping
Speaker 1: as well? You mentioned before we start a recording of
Speaker 1: two kids a partner. Do you do the boys? Do
Speaker 1: your sons like bees as well?
Speaker 2: They liked bees when I first got them. They're bee
Speaker 2: keeping suits because it was a new costume for them
Speaker 2: to put on.
Speaker 1: Do you will you be keeping suit whenever you tend
Speaker 1: the hives? Yeah? I do. I do. And there's a
Speaker 1: that involves kind of like a hazmat suit with a
Speaker 1: mesh hood.
Speaker 2: I wear a ventilated suit and it's three mesh layers
Speaker 2: that are breathable, but it still gets really hot in
Speaker 2: the summertime. I wear that. I wear my rubber boots,
Speaker 2: my leather gloves, and then I made my veil that
Speaker 2: I wear.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Custom.
Speaker 1: And now the smoke, you're essentially the smoke monster. You're like,
Speaker 1: they fall asleep, they get drowsy.
Speaker 2: So it confuses them. It masks their pheromones. So if
Speaker 2: they're really feisty, you can put a little smoke on
Speaker 2: them and it subdues their sense of smell. But It
Speaker 2: also tricks them into thinking the hives on fire. We
Speaker 2: got a load up on honey and get out of dodge.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: So beekeepers are like veiled ashton kutchers, gently punking this
Speaker 1: shit out of these bees. So do they kind of
Speaker 1: peace out for a little bit?
Speaker 2: They do. It's really interesting. And I don't always use smoke.
Speaker 2: It's not always required, but you can tell if they're
Speaker 2: cranky or just not feeling it. You can use a
Speaker 2: little bit of smoke and there's this immediate shift in
Speaker 2: the overall sound of the hive and the overall movement.
Speaker 2: It's really strange.
Speaker 1: And what exactly is it? Is it wood smoke? Is
Speaker 1: it vape juice? What is it? Fog machine? What's happening?
Speaker 2: So we're using like newspaper and wood chips. You can
Speaker 2: get little smoke or pellets to put in there, and
Speaker 2: really you don't have to put a lot of smoke
Speaker 2: on them. Just a couple puffs will do you.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Waggle dances, let's talk about it.
Speaker 2: Okay. I love the waggle dance.
Speaker 1: I mean, how do they know how to do it?
Speaker 1: What is it? Tell me everything?
Speaker 2: So with the waggle dance they are are they're communicating
Speaker 2: locations of food, water, or even in a new place
Speaker 2: to live. And the orientation of the direction that they're
Speaker 2: doing the dance in correlates with where the sun is
Speaker 2: at whoa, So they're following the sun and they're using
Speaker 2: their waggle dance to tell you which direction, Like if
Speaker 2: the sun is you know, doe east, they'll do their
Speaker 2: dance due east And the intensity of the waggle tells
Speaker 2: you how good of a source it is. What So
Speaker 2: like if you think about when they're swarming and they're
Speaker 2: looking for a new place to live, and there one
Speaker 2: bee finds an ideal spot and they go back and
Speaker 2: they waggle to a group of bees follow you know,
Speaker 2: follow this direction they go. They like it. They go
Speaker 2: back to the hive, waggle to a few more. So,
Speaker 2: like think about how long it take them to waggle
Speaker 2: to everybody?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Get that message across?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, what a crazy complicated in advanced form
Speaker 1: of credications.
Speaker 2: It's they're like, I'm just amazed at how intelligent they are.
Speaker 2: They're insects. I mean, they're so smart.
Speaker 1: I suck at charades. I don't understand how something that
Speaker 1: has a brain the size of a pinhead can be like,
Speaker 1: let me tell you, I can't I don't know where
Speaker 1: I parked my car most at the time, Like how
Speaker 1: did they do it?
Speaker 2: I call it BPS.
Speaker 1: GPS? But yeah, oh my god, I have so many
Speaker 1: questions from listeners. Can I borrow you? Okay? But before
Speaker 1: we take questions from you, our beloved listeners, we're going
Speaker 1: to take a quick break for sponsors of the show. Sponsors.
Speaker 1: Why sponsors? You know what they do? They help us
Speaker 1: give money to different charities every week. So if you
Speaker 1: want to know where Ologies gives our money, you can
Speaker 1: go to aliworduck and look for the tab Ologies gives back.
Speaker 1: There's like one hundred and fifty different charities that we've
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Speaker 1: of money but you're not sure where to go. Those
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Speaker 1: this ad break allows us to give a ton of
Speaker 1: money to them. So thanks for listening and thanks sponsors. Okay,
Speaker 1: your questions, so this is a rapid fire around. You
Speaker 1: can answer as quickly as you can as quickly as
Speaker 1: you want. I've never had so many questions before in
Speaker 1: any episode I've done. I'm not kidding. Zoe Teplik says
Speaker 1: my mom used to find dead bumblebees and keep them
Speaker 1: in a box under her bed when shows a kid.
Speaker 1: Not a question, just a creepy fact. I thought i'd
Speaker 1: share confession. I keep dead bees too, Ya Where do
Speaker 1: you keep them? I have a little.
Speaker 2: Compartmental tupperware thing that I keep them in, and when
Speaker 2: I go and you know, do a presentation at a
Speaker 2: preschool or something, I can show them some different bees
Speaker 2: to look at. Oh, yeah, do.
Speaker 1: You have different species in there?
Speaker 2: So mason bees and bees, leave, cutter bees, drones, queen,
Speaker 2: I have a queen and worker bees.
Speaker 1: If you too have a similar collection, feel free to
Speaker 1: tell me on social media, just use the hashtag my
Speaker 1: dead bees. Was it weird finding a dead queen?
Speaker 2: It was, yeah, because it was a swarm that I
Speaker 2: had just caught like a month before, and I went
Speaker 2: out to just sort of check on things and she
Speaker 2: was dead on their doorstep.
Speaker 1: WHOA.
Speaker 2: So in the time that they moved into their new home,
Speaker 2: they made a new queen killed the old one. So
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what her defect was. Because I have
Speaker 2: just they won't just make a new queen for the
Speaker 2: hell of it. Yeah, there's got to be something going
Speaker 2: on there that the current queen is not fulfilling for
Speaker 2: them to do it like that.
Speaker 1: So some mafia shit.
Speaker 2: You know what, It was weird and she was still soft.
Speaker 2: I mean it just happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that must have been a weird day.
Speaker 2: It was really strange.
Speaker 1: Did you sage the hive?
Speaker 2: You're like, whoa, I started chanting and dancing around it.
Speaker 1: For still Okay, Julia Rose wants to know, is there
Speaker 1: ever a situation where you'd need to kill off the
Speaker 1: queen and if.
Speaker 2: So, why, Sometimes beekeepers will kill the queen if they
Speaker 2: feel that she is not vital enough, if she's not
Speaker 2: laying enough eggs, if she's getting too old, they will
Speaker 2: kill her off and replace her with the new queen.
Speaker 2: Or if they feel like the genetics of the hive
Speaker 2: aren't good enough, they'll buy a queen that's been bred
Speaker 2: for certain traits and install her in the hive.
Speaker 1: How much does it cost to buy a new queen bee?
Speaker 2: It depends on where you're getting her from. You can
Speaker 2: get locally raised queens for forty fifty Bucks. But I've
Speaker 2: heard that you can order very very specifically bred hygienic
Speaker 2: queens for several hundred dollars, so.
Speaker 1: Like a pure red dog kind.
Speaker 2: Of Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: That's n I didn't even realize that the Emily Barnett
Speaker 1: wants to note. Do bees know they're going to die
Speaker 1: when they sting you? Or do they just sting people
Speaker 1: and then go oh, I'm nuts?
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not sure if they realize that that's
Speaker 2: the end for them. I think that they're more driven
Speaker 2: by that instinct to simply protect. But it also makes
Speaker 2: me wonder if drones know that they're going to die
Speaker 2: after they meet with the queen.
Speaker 1: They die after they mate? Yeah, they just drop dead.
Speaker 2: They're so similar to the way the stinger and the
Speaker 2: venom sack get ripped out of a worker bee, the
Speaker 2: penis and his innerds fall out. And I've found a
Speaker 2: drone on the ground, dead and spent, and you could
Speaker 2: see that he had made it because his little man
Speaker 2: parts were hanging out.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, so he made the cut, but it
Speaker 1: ripped his dick off.
Speaker 2: Yeah wow, that is yeah, beer, it's brutal.
Speaker 1: And I thought dating just an on Apps was bad
Speaker 1: that's rough. Oh you are so fly. I would rip
Speaker 1: my bicoff to father sixty thousand of your children. Eric
Speaker 1: Lonk wants to know, I want to help bees in
Speaker 1: the area. What's a good resource to find out the
Speaker 1: proper wildflowers to plant for them.
Speaker 2: I would go to the local extension department at the
Speaker 2: University Jersey Society has a lot of resources. Pollinator Partnership
Speaker 2: also has a lot of resources, so you can find
Speaker 2: what's growing in your area.
Speaker 1: Penguin Penguin and Carrie Steward both want to know have
Speaker 1: you seen the b movie and what are your opinions
Speaker 1: on it? Heavy sigh.
Speaker 2: I have seen it. Really, I think that it's fulfillment
Speaker 2: of raising awareness on the plight of the pollinators and
Speaker 2: raising awareness of bees in general. Yes, thank you for that,
Speaker 2: But there's some serious misinformation.
Speaker 1: What's the worst flim flam you'd like to debunk? The
Speaker 1: workers are not boys. I didn't realize that. I have
Speaker 1: never seen it. I didn't realize it's this off base.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the fact that they are so Jerry's bee character.
Speaker 2: It's been a few years since I've seen it, but
Speaker 2: I was seething with rage because of this. They he
Speaker 2: had to, like he wasn't born for the part of foraging,
Speaker 2: but he had to prove himself to be able to
Speaker 2: join the ranks of the foragers. Every bee, every worker,
Speaker 2: bea gets to be a forager.
Speaker 1: And they're not dudes.
Speaker 2: They're not dudes.
Speaker 1: And oh my god, actually like winds up as one.
Speaker 2: It does get to do it. But you know, they
Speaker 2: make him look different from the other foragers and he
Speaker 2: doesn't fit in. And it's.
Speaker 1: Come on, guys, they shouldn't show together.
Speaker 2: If you're going to put out a movie that's you know,
Speaker 2: a big, big movie like that that's going to reach
Speaker 2: millions of people, get some of that basic information, right,
Speaker 2: Is it just me?
Speaker 1: No, No, that's infuriating. They should have shown him with
Speaker 1: tending babies, doing some cleanup, doing some food prep yep,
Speaker 1: and then go out be a soldier. Yes, that's a
Speaker 1: fine lesson in and of itself. I understand why that
Speaker 1: would be annoying. Yeah, Victoria Patterson wants to know is
Speaker 1: it actually good to keep bees? And is there a
Speaker 1: type of bee that is best for keeping? So I
Speaker 1: think she's wondering, like is honey bees, Like are we
Speaker 1: doing a disservice to keeping them, But it sounds like
Speaker 1: you're giving them a place to live in some.
Speaker 2: Care if you can provide them a safe nest site
Speaker 2: and you help maintain that for them, because if you're
Speaker 2: going to put bees in a man made hive, they're
Speaker 2: going to need maintenance. You can't just throw them in
Speaker 2: there and walk away.
Speaker 1: Fun fact, if a bee's colony is naturally occurring, it's
Speaker 1: called a nest. If it's human made, it's a hive.
Speaker 2: But if you provide nesting for native pollinators, that's also
Speaker 2: really easy thing to do, and it's helping our native population.
Speaker 1: Oh that's good to know. I didn't realize that it
Speaker 1: was that maybe simple to keep, Like mason bees really easy.
Speaker 1: Carpenter bees kind of easy.
Speaker 2: I don't like keep them, but I see them, I
Speaker 2: know they're around.
Speaker 1: They're so huge. I love them. Now, if you've ever
Speaker 1: seen those huge black bees buzzing around in the summer,
Speaker 1: they're probably carpenter bees, which drill out these perfect little
Speaker 1: tunnels in wood to raise their young. And the females
Speaker 1: are black and glossy and they rarely sting, and the
Speaker 1: males are this golden blonde color, don't even have stingers
Speaker 1: of course, because they're dudes. Now, these facts are helpful
Speaker 1: conversational distractions. If you ever see one and everyone around
Speaker 1: you is shrieking, kill the beast because they are big.
Speaker 1: Greg wants to know what's the current situation for bee
Speaker 1: populations in America and the world. Last summer there was
Speaker 1: a break in colony collapses, and I was wondering how
Speaker 1: we're doing what we learned since then, where we're headed
Speaker 1: in the near future. Was there a break in colony
Speaker 1: collapses or was that just a.
Speaker 2: Pr I don't know about that, okay, And I think
Speaker 2: that generally the wild honeybee population is doing okay. It's
Speaker 2: the managed hives. It's the ones that are used in
Speaker 2: agricultural practices that we're seeing the big issues with the
Speaker 2: colony collapse.
Speaker 1: Dumb question, maybe do native bees make honey and bee
Speaker 1: bread and all of that or is it only social
Speaker 1: colonies to do it.
Speaker 2: So bum bees they're sort of social, sort of solitary.
Speaker 2: They work in really small colonies, maybe twenty.
Speaker 1: Bees or so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they will make a little bit of honey, okay,
Speaker 2: But generally native bees are solitary and they don't make honey.
Speaker 2: But they do, they do gather pollen to feed their young.
Speaker 2: So for a mason bee, for example, when they lay
Speaker 2: their egg, they'll put a little pollen packet right next
Speaker 2: to it, and then they mud off its chamber, so
Speaker 2: it's in its own little crib with this pollen packet.
Speaker 1: That wakes up and lunch is made.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so adorable. You see the mason bees flying
Speaker 2: into the tube with the big pack of pollen on
Speaker 2: their belly. You know, they're they're providing for their babies.
Speaker 1: That's so cute, like a little lunchibles. Yeah. Heather McCain, Oh,
Speaker 1: Heather McCain wants to know if you've ever seen a
Speaker 1: beehive like in an abandoned vehicle or something cool like that. No, No,
Speaker 1: I have not. Do you imagine You're like, that's a
Speaker 1: sweet old dots in and you're like it's covered in bees. No.
Speaker 2: I did get a swarm call, but this kind of
Speaker 2: has a very sad ending. But the guy was at
Speaker 2: Costco and a swarm landed on his car and he
Speaker 2: didn't know what to do, so he went through the
Speaker 2: car wash.
Speaker 1: Oh no, and.
Speaker 2: Then went through again and the bees were still. You know,
Speaker 2: obviously a lot of them had come up, but there
Speaker 2: was still some hanging on. So he drove home. He's
Speaker 2: like going on the freeway and the bees are still
Speaker 2: hanging on, and he gets home and there's this sad
Speaker 2: clump of bees and then he calls the Swarm hotline.
Speaker 2: And I got the call, and I knew when I
Speaker 2: saw the description of it that it wasn't going to
Speaker 2: be good. But I thought, okay, well this is I
Speaker 2: was looking as like a teaching opportunity. So I went
Speaker 2: and he told me what happened, and I'm just like
Speaker 2: my jaws on the floor. Really, guy, this is this
Speaker 2: is really sad. And he felt really awful when he
Speaker 2: realized had he called then, yeah, from the Costco parking lot,
Speaker 2: somebody would have shown up, Oh no and gotten them
Speaker 2: and they would have been fine.
Speaker 1: What kind of car was it?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Some sedan, some sedan. Her level of raw disdain is honestly,
Speaker 1: deeply endearing. Did the bee? Did the queen bee somehow
Speaker 1: get caught in his sedan? And ever followed?
Speaker 2: I don't know why they choose their their muster point.
Speaker 2: I don't know what the criteria is, but they happened
Speaker 2: to land there and maybe she had gotten stuck.
Speaker 1: She's like death by Camriy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Kimberly Brown wants to know how would I start up
Speaker 1: my own hive and are there better climates to have
Speaker 1: a hive. I have no idea where Kimberly Brown lives.
Speaker 2: I have beekeeper friends all over the place. I have
Speaker 2: a bee keeper friend in Rhode Island and their winters
Speaker 2: are really harsh. It can be done. I would just
Speaker 2: try and find bees that were raised locally. If you're
Speaker 2: going to buy bees and do your research ahead of time,
Speaker 2: take some B classes, join the local B club, make
Speaker 2: some be friends. You'll be fine.
Speaker 1: Our B friends pretty cool friends.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, totally. Be friends are the best friends.
Speaker 1: Have you made a lot of friends for the Portland
Speaker 1: Urban Y Yes?
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: How many members do you have?
Speaker 2: We have between two and three hundred members.
Speaker 1: WHOA, Yeah, that's a lot of people. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of people and you're law president. Jill Curswell wants to
Speaker 1: know is the human consumption of honey good or bad
Speaker 1: for bee populations? On the one hand, we're farming them
Speaker 1: and creating safe spaces for them to live. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, we're stealing all their magical juices so we
Speaker 1: can kind of cover this. If you're going to keep
Speaker 1: bees in your backyard, how is there is there a
Speaker 1: medium where let's say you want to use the honey,
Speaker 1: but you only take a little bit of it.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, certainly you could that. I would wait until
Speaker 2: you have experience reading the hive, because one year might
Speaker 2: be very prolific in honey a nectar gathering, the next
Speaker 2: year might be a total bust. It just depends. It
Speaker 2: depends so much on the weather and the health of
Speaker 2: the colony. So once you learn how to read those things,
Speaker 2: then you can make your own decision of O can
Speaker 2: I take a little bit without hurting them too bad?
Speaker 1: You're like, just do a waggle dance and be like,
Speaker 1: are you vegetarian or vegan at all?
Speaker 2: Or I'm not vegan, but my tattoo artist is a vegan.
Speaker 2: And we had this discussion about what about honey. I mean,
Speaker 2: the same thing applies to bees wax as well, because
Speaker 2: it's a byproduct. And her feeling was, I might eat
Speaker 2: honey from your bees because I know that they've been
Speaker 2: treated well, but buying honey from the grocery store definitely no.
Speaker 1: Okay, So know your sources. Yeah, and John Worster and
Speaker 1: Jessepo both had the same question, Well, eating honey that's
Speaker 1: been harvested locally help if you have seasonal allergies.
Speaker 2: Word on the street is that it does.
Speaker 1: So it gets your body used to maybe those pollens exactly.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm not an allergist, but yes, it's like you're
Speaker 2: inoculating yourself with the irritant and your immune system adjusted
Speaker 2: to that, rather than taking an antihistamine to just suppress
Speaker 2: any kind of response.
Speaker 1: Right, that's good to know. I looked up some studies
Speaker 1: on the National Institutes of Health, and yes, apparently this
Speaker 1: does have merit. The control subjects were given honey flavored
Speaker 1: corn syrup and they had more allergic rhinitis symptoms than
Speaker 1: those given local honey, which, in terms of being in
Speaker 1: like a test subject in a medical lab, I had
Speaker 1: to say, like, eating honey seems like you lucked out.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of worse things someone could do to
Speaker 1: you in a medical lab. You know. Katie Grant wants
Speaker 1: to know are bees actually more attracted to bright yellow clothing?
Speaker 1: I wear a safety vest for work and was told
Speaker 1: that an orange vest won't attract bees like a yellow
Speaker 1: one does. This is true.
Speaker 2: In my own personal experience. When I wear my bright
Speaker 2: yellow coat, I do have bees land on me.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's because you look like pollen and I don't know. Well, okay,
Speaker 2: so there's some I think there is something to that.
Speaker 1: Apparently, yes, it's just because you look like a flower. Folks.
Speaker 1: So a yellow shirt around a bee is kind of
Speaker 1: like wearing a salmon outfit and being like, what are
Speaker 1: all these bear staring at? Jared wants to know. I've
Speaker 1: read that bee species will gather in a ball and
Speaker 1: increase the local temperature in order to cook wasps and
Speaker 1: other invaders. Yes, Japanese hornets. So what is that mechanism
Speaker 1: and how do they not cook themselves in the process.
Speaker 2: It's called bawling boom, Yeah, appropriate, And so they they'll
Speaker 2: use their body heat to cook the predator. They will
Speaker 2: also use this technique if they are trying to kill
Speaker 2: a new queen that's been introduced. If they don't like her,
Speaker 2: they will ball her. And I don't know how they
Speaker 2: don't cook each other. I imagine it's because they're moving around
Speaker 2: and they're not in the center of that heat sphere.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, ball so hard. That is extreme. They
Speaker 1: cook them. They cook them and then they put them
Speaker 1: on the doorstep.
Speaker 2: They're like out ow.
Speaker 1: I've heard that Japanese hornets, that's one way that these
Speaker 1: can kill them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen them do it to yellow jackets in
Speaker 2: my own yard.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about wasps in general?
Speaker 2: There are wasps that I like, when paper wasps. I
Speaker 2: have a few nests around my yard and under the
Speaker 2: eaves of my house. They generally stay very small, and
Speaker 2: they pollinate and they also eat aphids, so I find
Speaker 2: them to be very beneficial. But when it comes to
Speaker 2: yellow jackets, I draw the line.
Speaker 1: Yeah, are they mean?
Speaker 2: They're mean? They're not pollinating. They go after the beehive,
Speaker 2: and they will go in in numbers and they can
Speaker 2: wipe out a hive that's weak, oh dix. So yeah,
Speaker 2: And that's that's a hard thing because as a beekeeper
Speaker 2: you hear all these stories from people, Oh I hate bees.
Speaker 2: You know, they were at my picnic and they were
Speaker 2: stinging everybody. Those were yellow jackets. I could just say,
Speaker 2: hands down, I don't even need to see it. I
Speaker 2: know just from that account it's not a bee. It's
Speaker 2: a yellow jacket and it's two I think it confused.
Speaker 1: A lot right stripes yellow.
Speaker 2: Yes, they're about the same size. They sting, But the
Speaker 2: reality is that they are enemies. Wow, they are enemies
Speaker 2: to each other.
Speaker 1: It's like two women on the boucher who look alike,
Speaker 1: but they hate each other. Now, yellow jackets tend to
Speaker 1: go for like proteins and sugars and stuff. Yes, but
Speaker 1: bees are out there for the flowers.
Speaker 2: They're out for the flowers. They don't eat meat. They're
Speaker 2: just plant loving insects.
Speaker 1: I was a caterer for TV when I first moved
Speaker 1: to La and I learned this pickannick trick. So if yellowjackets,
Speaker 1: who are mostly carnivores, are trying to eat your food,
Speaker 1: it can help to lob a slice of lunch meat
Speaker 1: off to the side so that they all swarm that
Speaker 1: and then they leave your lunch alone. But you do
Speaker 1: have to look over from time to time and just
Speaker 1: to like check on this piece of bologny writhing with them.
Speaker 1: It's like a miniature asshole convention. Oh, speaking miniatures, Amanda
Speaker 1: became interested in bees and other insects later in her life,
Speaker 1: partly because as a kid she loved miniatures and bees
Speaker 1: are pretty small. She works in a winery during the
Speaker 1: day when she's not busy being the president of the
Speaker 1: Beekeepers Club, and she also loves making art and ceramics.
Speaker 2: I have an artist, so when I have spare time,
Speaker 2: I disappear in my art studio and make things.
Speaker 1: Do you make a lot of bee art? I do?
Speaker 2: And I have my tree hive is right outside of
Speaker 2: my art studio, so I can sit there and stare
Speaker 2: at it.
Speaker 1: And she sent me a photo and it's amazing. It's
Speaker 1: just like a tree with this hollow, the edges of
Speaker 1: which are softly carpeted in bees. Her Portland life sounds idyllic?
Speaker 1: Is there a downside to all of this? And now,
Speaker 1: what do you find is the most annoying thing about bees,
Speaker 1: or about beekeeping, or about your role as president of
Speaker 1: the beekeepers?
Speaker 2: If there was something super annoying about beekeeping, it would
Speaker 2: be that it just gets so hot in those bee suits.
Speaker 2: There is no other time that I sweat except for
Speaker 2: when I'm keeping bees in the summertime and I've got
Speaker 2: all my gear on. I have yet to be bold
Speaker 2: enough or comfortable enough to just, you know, go out
Speaker 2: and be topless with my.
Speaker 1: Bees, my new beekeeping and maybe maybe in years and years,
Speaker 1: but it takes a while, I'm sure to navigate psychologically.
Speaker 1: What puts you in a little bit of danger? Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Do people ever put ice packs in their be outfits?
Speaker 2: I've heard of this. Yeah, I haven't tried it.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe I should just like strap yourself
Speaker 1: with their ice vest underneath. And what is your favorite
Speaker 1: thing about bees?
Speaker 2: I love this thing that they do called festooning.
Speaker 3: What.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sorry, I don't know why I made that noise.
Speaker 1: I was surprised. What is it?
Speaker 2: Festooning is when they're building new comb, so they have
Speaker 2: to work together to do this. And what they do
Speaker 2: is they join hands and they make this lovely little chain.
Speaker 2: And then bees gather together in the chain and they
Speaker 2: excrete the wax from their abdomen and they pass it
Speaker 2: up to the bees up top. So they are working together,
Speaker 2: while in contact with each other to make this calm.
Speaker 3: What.
Speaker 2: And they make the chain so that it's plumbed to
Speaker 2: the earth so it's straight so they know and it's
Speaker 2: just and and the calm when it's brand new is beautiful.
Speaker 2: It's very translucent. It's so delicate and perfect. Oh, they
Speaker 2: make it perfect.
Speaker 1: In the wild. The honeycombs are the architectural really oddly
Speaker 1: shaped looks like draped fabric.
Speaker 2: Yes, like, what is that called?
Speaker 1: What is that call it?
Speaker 2: It's it's just the way that they it's because of
Speaker 2: their their chain, their a little best that they make,
Speaker 2: so they use that to guide the shape. Now, in
Speaker 2: the b boxes that we keep bees in when they're
Speaker 2: building their calm, it does start out at that way,
Speaker 2: but then they end up filling in the extra spaces,
Speaker 2: so it doesn't keep that nice draped shape.
Speaker 1: I always wonder about that. And inside of a say
Speaker 1: a tree hive, though it might be.
Speaker 2: They can make it however they want. Yeah, there are
Speaker 2: no rules, that is, no rules in the tree.
Speaker 1: I did not know if festooning was even a word.
Speaker 1: Just look this up and if the stuone is a
Speaker 1: chain or a garland of flowers or ribbons hung in
Speaker 1: a curve like a decoration. So if you google image
Speaker 1: search it, a bunch of Pinterestee photos of cute twinkly
Speaker 1: lights hung on patios comes up. And I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: Twinkly lights and bees are like my favorite things. This
Speaker 1: episode couldn't be more my jam. Okay, speaking of favorite words.
Speaker 1: Amanda's beekeeping consultation company she runs on the side is
Speaker 1: called You're for this Waggle Works. How did you pick
Speaker 1: that name?
Speaker 2: I love the waggle dance, and I think of myself.
Speaker 2: I'm not a queen bee. I think of myself as
Speaker 2: a worker bee.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you.
Speaker 1: Think of people in your life in terms of kind
Speaker 1: of like different social structures of bees?
Speaker 2: Sure or other insects. That guy's a total caterpillar?
Speaker 1: Does that mean that get better with age? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Cute.
Speaker 1: I hope you don't encounter too many wasps. To find
Speaker 1: out more about Amanda and her bees, go to WAGGLEWORKSPDX
Speaker 1: dot com, or you can find Waggleworks on Facebook. And
Speaker 1: to learn more about beekeeping, both native and honeybeekeeping, definitely
Speaker 1: look around for a local club or try to connect
Speaker 1: to some other beekeepers online. And as always, links from
Speaker 1: this episode are up at aliward dot com, slash ologies,
Speaker 1: and you can follow the podcast ologies on Instagram and Twitter.
Speaker 1: It's just at Ologies. I'm on there too at Aliward
Speaker 1: with one l. There's also plenty of amazing t shirts
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Speaker 1: ologiesmerch dot com. Thank you Shannon Feltas and Bonnie Dutch
Speaker 1: for helping so much with that and to support even
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Speaker 1: dot com slash Ologies. This is an entirely independently made
Speaker 1: podcast and it's funded just by listeners like you to
Speaker 1: help pay folks to make it happen each week. I
Speaker 1: could not do this without the incredible Stephen Ray Morris,
Speaker 1: who works so hard to cut it all up. He
Speaker 1: edit its all together based on a twenty five page
Speaker 1: annotated transcript I send him at like two am on
Speaker 1: a Thursday night. Now, the theme song was written and performed
Speaker 1: by Nick Thorburn of the band Islands. And thank you
Speaker 1: Aaron Talbert and New Boston resident Hannah Lippo for adminting
Speaker 1: the Ologies podcast facebook group where all the chill folks
Speaker 1: post off kinds of cool links and chat about episodes. Now,
Speaker 1: if this is not your first Ologies rodeo, you know
Speaker 1: that I tell a secret at the end of each episode.
Speaker 1: If you made it through the credits as thank you,
Speaker 1: and this week, I'm here to tell you that I
Speaker 1: went on a trip three weeks ago, just a weekend
Speaker 1: trip to Palm Springs celebrated a friend's birthday.
Speaker 2: I have not.
Speaker 1: Unpacked that bag. I'm staring at it. It has been
Speaker 1: packed for almost a month. I don't know what's in there.
Speaker 1: Apparently I can live without it, And every single day
Speaker 1: I look at that Duffel bag and I'm like, God,
Speaker 1: damn it. I like, just unpack that Duffel bag. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, not today, Maybe tomorrow, Okay, breyebye, pack
Speaker 1: of germantology, homeology or doo zoology, lithology. Yeah, duology, meteorology, paradology, anthology, zeriology, elithology.
Speaker 1: I'm the queen. Now match