Bees are such fascinating creatures. I read a book that likened the individual bees to the neurons of a human brain and showed how much discrimination swarming broods displayed as they looked for a new home.
A bit off the topic, but wild bees deserve some love too! Although they don't produce honey for us, local native bee species are often vital and rapidly disappearing parts of ecosystems. For those that would like to support their local wild bees, consider growing plants that are native to your area in your garden. Wild bees (and other pollinators) are often better adapted to local plants, and these plants are well adapted to local conditions and need less care. If you're in Minnesota, check out the Lawns to Legumes program, which provides grants to residents to establish pollinator gardens and lawns.
I am a beekeeper and when I feed my bees, getting them prepared for winter, I feed them using jars inside the hives. I also leave out a birdbath filled with sugar water, for not just my bees, but all the other pollinators in the neighborhood. Everyone gets a free meal. :)
Good job Guy! Diabetes ended my days of eating honey but I still enjoy the love of the girls being around. I provide them homes and watch over them to see that it's kept in proper working order. They do their thing, keep their honey and multiply in spring to populate the wild population. My biggest and strongest hive this season is one of those swarms that came back to me and took up shop in an empty hive behind my home. One of Gods amazing little creatures that have made my life better by being a part of it.
As a beekeeper I really enjoyed this video. It fun to keep the traditions alive and pass your knowledge on to the next generation. Beekeeping is VERY addictive.
What most people don't know is that modern bee keeping in wooden magazine boxes is incredibly bad for the bees and for the environments. There are many reason for this and a scientist wrote a book about it. Very interesting. The main problem is humans are turning the 100 million year old honey bees into pets right now by interfering, in all the wrong ways, with their natural selection, habitats and behaviour and at the same time these artificially large hives suck up all the nectar in the area on a massive scale (and still need extra sugar as feed) depriving other insects of their food source. The detailed explanations why this is so is too long for a youtube comment but it's utterly fascinating and a massive shame what we are doing right now. Traditional beekeeping in logs or self made straw skeps on the other hand is almost unproblematic.
Lance had to comb through a lot of history for this episode. He truly waxed poetically over this sticky subject. I'm glad no one told him to mind his own beeswax or he wouldn't have shared this video with us!
Really nice summary! I’ve done so much reading during my own apicultural career, and I can’t think of anything significant that you left out! They’re truly amazing creatures
Loved it! Enjoyed the video, while partaking of my morning coffee with honey (as per usual). While not a beekeeper, I've taken an apiculture class, and would love to bee a beekeeper one day. For anyone interested, they might want to seek out the author Sue Hubbell and her books about beeing a beekeeper. Loved all the history - especially from other lands. Didn't know or remember about other removeable frames prior to Dr. Langstroth! One thing not mentioned is that honey should not be given to children less than one year old - generally this warning is on jars of honey. While I don't remember the details, I think it has to do with the infants' gut biome not being developed enough to handle honey. Also should mention, that I think honey is the only liquid sold as weight and not volume (at least in U.S.A., I don't know in other countries). It would be interesting to know how this came about.
"if sugar, was as sweet as you honey, sugar just couldn't be bought". A song by the band Rockpile. There must be hundreds of songs that reference "honey" in the lyrics, from Van Morrison" "she's as sweet as Tupelo honey" to " Honey pie "by The Beatles.
I love bees ! The reveal the beauty of Nature working in HARMONY. The colony works as a TEAM. They are beautiful and purposeful creatures. As a child I was allergic to their stings. I'd run a fever. After graduating from College and desiring to escape the city and join a past navy friend in South Dakota to aid in his beekeeping tending, I spent the Fall in this very remote area. A soulful experience. He taught me much about bees. It started a respect and admiration for their TEAM purpose. We are ALL connected, respect NATURE. Bees are beautiful creatures. - sometimes a Mountain Man (sMM) Stephen Skinner
I am a bee keeper, and have noticed that there are almost no honeybees in the city of Edmonton Alberta. I have ween watching the flowering trees and plants and have only seen bumblebees pollinating.
All the feral bees have been wiped out because of Varroa. If you do see honeybees, it's because there is a beekeeper nearby managing them. If you live in Edmonton, try working some Russian bees. I have them here in Minnesota and they do well in our cold temps. :)
The bees owned by Queen Elizabeth were told when she died. The beekeeper went to each hive and knocked on it and said, "The mistress is dead, but don't you go." If I recall correctly, black mourning ribbons were then tied around each hive.
A seemingly baffling tradition.. until you find yourself standing in the garden and talking to your bees (aka the girls) 😊 It’s nice to be part of something that has been around for so long
People talk to their cats, dog, birds,, plants, etc., why not bees? This was an interesting tradition and I'm glad to learn about it. It exemplifies respect for the bees and their work.
@@richf5967I talk to the bees when they visit my fruit trees and flowers. When my lemon tree blooms it is full of bees. Twice we have had a colony overnight in our elm tree, and our elm is over fifty years old and has a very large crown. Baffling, oh yes, the buzzing (a hum, really) is strangely calming. 🐝🐝
@@richf5967 Over the years I have detected what I call a bee language. Which is made up of different different vibrations . Some we can hear. Some transmitted through the comb. Seen as in dances. And smelt. We can use orders to attract swarms. Each hive has its own smell. When my daughter got married she went out and in her wedding and bare foot 'told the bees'. When a local keeper passed I had the honor of telling his bees.
I love bees (I love honey, too). Bees polinate our fruit trees and flowers in our garden. A couple of seasons ago I was removing the last lemons from the blooming tree, and the tree blooms were full of bees. I was awed by how gentle the bees were, they went about their business while I removed lemons around them.
My birthday is May 20. I have always asked my wife for fried chicken for my present. She has always taken me to a chicken restaurant, where they serve honey with the meal. OH, did I mention I live in Kentucky? Thank you. God Bless and stay safe.
This is why I so enjoy The History Guy. Something that is always around and always been around but you just don't think about. A history that is not forgotten or ignored but, just not thought about or remembered
@@davidparrish1133 _The ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture_ is another good one. The two leading beekeeping magazines (in the U.S.) are "American Bee Journal," published by Dadant and Sons and "Bee Culture," published by A. I. Root.
What most people don't know is that modern bee keeping in wooden magazine boxes is incredibly bad for the bees and for the environments. There are many reason for this and a scientist wrote a book about it. Very interesting. The main problem is humans are turning the 100 million year old honey bees into pets right now by interfering, in all the wrong ways, with their natural selection, habitats and behaviour and at the same time these artificially large hives suck up all the nectar in the area on a massive scale (and still need extra sugar as feed) depriving other insects of their food source. The detailed explanations why this is so is too long for a youtube comment but it's utterly fascinating and a massive shame what we are doing right now. Traditional beekeeping in logs or self made straw skeps on the other hand is almost unproblematic.
No one can argue that pigs have been domesticated, and yet they, too, can go feral in one generation. Bees, too! Horses, cows and dogs take a little longer, but in the end they don't need us. We need them! Our bees especially! The tragedy of this time in earth's history is the rate at which agri-farming practices are poisoning them, along with our planet. We can stop it, but everyone needs to be concerned and onboard.
Quite familiar with bees. At one time, my father had as many as thirty hives. In the 90s, the last hive died out from mites. Since there's no row cropping in my area, only cattle grazing and pine forests, pesticides are an unlikely cause. A super (a shallow upper box used to collect honey) has ten frames that can have two to four pounds on wax and honey each. A hive may have as many as four supers or more. Multiply that by thirty hives. The three of us worked up a LOT of honey.
@@tomtheplummer7322 Tossing waste wax on the ground near hives is said to draw Small Hive Beetles. Better to collect it in a bucket and render it down like any other wax.
That is very true. My bees do the same thing. but you have to be close to their hives almost daily. They will recognize person. I've had bees land on my arm to lick off the sweat. They do recognize people.
Ah beekeeping. Here is a true story. Back in the early 1990s, Hillary Clinton was on an around the world tour(without Bill BTW). Winding up the tour she stopped in New Zealand. At a meeting, she impressed the audience by admitting that she was named after New Zealand's favorite son,,,,Sir Edmund Hillary. The problem was,,,,Hillary was born in 1946 and Edmund Hillary climbed Mt. Everest in 1953. In 1946, Sir Edmund Hillary was an obscure bee keeper in Auckland , N.Z. Then she made it to NYC to end the trip,,,,and this was another event in the life of Hillary. Hillary arrived in NYC and DEMANDED the PRESIDENTIAL suite at the Waldorf. She did not make reservations btw. She demanded that they put her in and kick out the person who reserved the room. The hotel called and asked the person if he would let Hillary have his room. His answer was,,,,,,"I earn my money, I work for a living." His name,,, Dale Earnhart #3. As a shear coincidence,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Dale #3 is my 7th cousin.
"She was a rare thing/ as fine as a BeesWing/ so fine a breath of air might blow her away..." from BeesWing by Richard Thompson, a song about the Big Love that got away, and sung in Richard's *mellifluous* baritone. ( I could have simply written "first", as some people do, but that's for lazy people; and there are better ways to stoke the algorithm in THG's favor).
@@eloiseharbeson2483 , for the others here who aren't familiar with it, the song you reference is "1952 Vincent Black Lightning": a motorcycle, an outlaw, and a red-headed girl, the most dangerous combination imaginable! Another favorite of mine from Thompson's back catalog is "Al Bowlly's in Heaven (and I'm in Limbo now)". And then there's the insane electric-guitar freakout of "Shoot Out the Lights"......
Carl Sagan: "If all insect life on earth were to end, in 75 years there would be no life on earth. If all human life on earth were to end, in 75 years life would flourish on earth."
Playlist inspired by this episode: Honey I Miss You Honey Don't A Taste Of Honey Honey Pie Wild Honey Pie Honeycomb Honey, Honey Honey Bee Honey Child I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)
Honey Hush (Albert Collins). Tupelo Honey (Van Morrison). King Bee (Slim Harpo). Wild Mountain Honey (Steve Miller). Money, Honey (Ry Cooder). House at Pooh Corner ( Loggins and Messina). Last but not least, BeesWing (Richard Thompson): "She was a rare thing/ as fine as a bee's wing/ so fine a breath of wind might blow her away/ she was a lost child/ she was just running wild/ she said 'as long as there's no price on love I'll stay/ and you wouldn't want me any other way'....."
Check out the Kirkhoff Hive. I have a few. They are museum pieces. The are more efficient then Langstroth hive, but more expensive to build then the Langstroth hive.
There's also "House at Pooh Corner" by Loggins and Messina: " I've got to get back to Pooh Corner by one/ you'd be surprised, there's so much to be done/ count all the bees in the hive/ chase all the clouds from the sky..."
The bee wax is made into a sculpture then the wax sculpture is covered in plaster then the plaster is heated. Then the wax melts out then you have a cavity where you pour in the bronze
A great tribute to and historical accout of the HONEYBEE. Ah, creamed honey. Stored properly, it will never spoil and "never" crystallize beyond the micro-crystallization process that is "creamed honey". There is no "cream" involved. It may be used the same as liquid (runny) honey (baking, cereal, tea, etc.) but is spreadable at room temperature. I buy honey in bulk, cream it and gift it. It's always appreciated. I don't have the facilities for beekeeping but I greatly appreciate and support the apiarists.
Been bee keeping for six years now excited to see what this video says about bee keeping! I also do live removals. I have five gallon buckets of honey lol
What most people don't know is that modern bee keeping in wooden magazine boxes is incredibly bad for the bees and for the environments. There are many reason for this and a scientist wrote a book about it. Very interesting. The main problem is humans are turning the 100 million year old honey bees into pets right now by interfering, in all the wrong ways, with their natural selection, habitats and behaviour and at the same time these artificially large hives suck up all the nectar in the area on a massive scale (and still need extra sugar as feed) depriving other insects of their food source. The detailed explanations why this is so is too long for a youtube comment but it's utterly fascinating and a massive shame what we are doing right now. Traditional beekeeping in logs or self made straw skeps on the other hand is almost unproblematic.
I knew this video would BEE! great to watch and interesting, How ever you might need a part two for this one hahaha I think you totally missed out the most knowledgable bee keepers of Ancient times? The Vikings where the first to be able to harvest honey with out killing the bees and invented the cloth method to filter the honey to make Mead. and the Celts and Bee Lore
You could release "the history of the telephone book" and i would still listen just as intently and still be jist as entertained. The true mark of a great narrator.
What, no mention of that hairdo sometimes referred to as the beehive? By the way, there is a bird in Africa that is reputed to lead people to wild beehives, and it reportedly eats the bee larvae after the hunter gatherers take the honey.
😄👍🏻. Right, the dome shape of those early pots and such. Funny how in cartoons that shape is still used. Boxes just won’t make good animation or hairdos. 🤷♂️😉
'Winnie the Pooh' bear says: "Bears 🐻❤🍯.....So, PLEASE keep the bee's 🐝 knees's 🦵 a going n' a growing'......bee 🐝 cause its time for something sweet"‼️ 💟 🐝🍯🏳️😉❤️
My wife’s grandfather kept bees. When he got old he would hold a few and make them string his hands help his arthritis. Not sure how well it worked but he swore by it.
Anecdotal evidence by people who were stung by scorpions and found that chronic back pain was reduced has led to research into using venom for this type of medical purpose.
Having lived my whole life in an agricultural area, it's just taken as a given that if an orchard is in bloom, there are going to be beehives by the side of the road. The beekeeper brings them in and when they're done pollinating that orchard they move them to the next one.
My dad lined the roads on his farm with all sorts of fruit trees. After a few years he got his first hive. The bees pollinated the trees, the garden, and the pastures. Their money crop was a pecan orchard. Don't know if bees pollinated Pecan trees or not.
When my wife makes peanut butter balls, sort of a better version of Reese's peanut butter cups, she melts a little beeswax into the melted chocolate so that it will firm up and stay solid at room temperature without easily melting the second you touch it.
Very interesting. Sadly, one of the bee problems we have now is of our own making, domesticated European honey bees are basically out-competing local varieties which is a bit of a problem since they don't pollinate all flowers, they have their likes and dislikes and the local bees tend to focus on local plants more. The wild bees are important, but the mix of us planting specific (and usually not varied) crops everywhere and us setting out domesticated European honey bees everywhere isn't great. There are many kinds of bees that produce honey, but no one ever gets close to the regular honey bee so they have taken over most of the world due to that. So plant some local flowers in your garden, support your local wild bees. :)
@@lizj5740 Depends a bit on the type of bee. The wild bumblebees in my garden for instance prefer blue flowers for some reason. They really love some kind of wild flower that grows in spots in my lawn so I leave as many of those as I can but they first go for any blue, secondary purple and after that they take anything But I have other types of wild bees too and they seems to have their own favorites (and it is Scandinavian wild bumblebees, your local ones can have different preferences. Note that this is just based on my own garden and that smell also seem to matter a lot, basically all the bees and the butterflies love anything that smells really sweet (which seems pretty obvious). I have at least 5 different types of wild bees but it could be a lot more, I am hardly an expert and many bees look pretty similar to me. And in early spring, they go for anything. It seems that at least the bumblebees just have a couple of hour to get some nectar and find a place for their hive or they will die so my krokus are very popular with everything then and I haven't noticed any particular preference then, just anything close. The bee man probably knows what he is talking about, but it is likely just for honey bees. Mixing colors a little is generally the best way to go if you want both wild bees and butterflies but you could certainly just go for purple or purple and blue if you have a bee hive.
@@loke6664 Well, I was wrong, and you are right. You have jogged my memory, and the bee man did say blue not purple. (Red face, here.) Thank you for adding your knowledge and gently correcting me.
@@lizj5740 Lol, that is just based on my personal experience in my garden and at least the bumble bees seems to like purple flowers as well although not exactly as much as the blue. There is also the smell of the specific flowers in question and the type of the bumble bees themselves so it isn't a simple question. I also noted that most of the butterflies I have seems to prefer the red flowers but I have less of those and besides the tulips all of them are very sweet smelling so I am a bit careful drawing any conclusions there, could be they just love sweet smell most and that my red flowers smell most. So there is certainly no need to state what is happening in my garden is some kind of insect gospel, I have less then 50 different flowers in it, 5 or maybe a few more bee species and a few different kinds of butterflies. Not enough for any kind of scientific study to say the least. And of course, purple and blue kinda goes together somewhere, it is also possible that I would identify a flower as blue and someone else would say it is purple, some of my flowers are super blue but others have a bit of other colors in them too. I try to have a mixed variety of flowers in many shades since it looks nice and our pollinating insects can pick whatever they like (not to mention that they bloom from Mars to late September). I am rather certain they really like some variations and having more kinds of flowers is the best way to go.
Bees also appear on British Sanitary wear. It was the logo on Napoleon. So during the Napolieonic wars, sanitary wear with a Bee emblem was introduced and you were invitide to take 'Apis' on Napoleon.
As an apiarist, I salute your efforts on behalf of our long and noble profession. Thank you!
🙏🐝☯️
I'll second that!!! Northern Californian beekeeper for 13 years.
@@GeorgeCMcRae SoCal Beek - 4th year.
Bees are such fascinating creatures. I read a book that likened the individual bees to the neurons of a human brain and showed how much discrimination swarming broods displayed as they looked for a new home.
Southern Missouri and NW Arkansas 10 years. 👍
I've kept bees for fifty years. this is a brilliant and accurate video. Well done.
The Langstroth hive was the first major modern advancement in beekeeping. The second was the centrifugal extractor.
A bit off the topic, but wild bees deserve some love too! Although they don't produce honey for us, local native bee species are often vital and rapidly disappearing parts of ecosystems. For those that would like to support their local wild bees, consider growing plants that are native to your area in your garden. Wild bees (and other pollinators) are often better adapted to local plants, and these plants are well adapted to local conditions and need less care. If you're in Minnesota, check out the Lawns to Legumes program, which provides grants to residents to establish pollinator gardens and lawns.
I am a beekeeper and when I feed my bees, getting them prepared for winter, I feed them using jars inside the hives. I also leave out a birdbath filled with sugar water, for not just my bees, but all the other pollinators in the neighborhood. Everyone gets a free meal. :)
Good job Guy!
Diabetes ended my days of eating honey but I still enjoy the love of the girls being around. I provide them homes and watch over them to see that it's kept in proper working order. They do their thing, keep their honey and multiply in spring to populate the wild population. My biggest and strongest hive this season is one of those swarms that came back to me and took up shop in an empty hive behind my home. One of Gods amazing little creatures that have made my life better by being a part of it.
As a beekeeper I really enjoyed this video. It fun to keep the traditions alive and pass your knowledge on to the next generation. Beekeeping is VERY addictive.
What most people don't know is that modern bee keeping in wooden magazine boxes is incredibly bad for the bees and for the environments.
There are many reason for this and a scientist wrote a book about it. Very interesting.
The main problem is humans are turning the 100 million year old honey bees into pets right now by interfering, in all the wrong ways, with their natural selection, habitats and behaviour and at the same time these artificially large hives suck up all the nectar in the area on a massive scale (and still need extra sugar as feed) depriving other insects of their food source.
The detailed explanations why this is so is too long for a youtube comment but it's utterly fascinating and a massive shame what we are doing right now.
Traditional beekeeping in logs or self made straw skeps on the other hand is almost unproblematic.
Lance had to comb through a lot of history for this episode. He truly waxed poetically over this sticky subject. I'm glad no one told him to mind his own beeswax or he wouldn't have shared this video with us!
🐝🐝🐝
He who would pun would pick a pocket.
Buzz off!
And such sweet result for such a worker bee.
@@charlotteemerson5050 The History Guy goes by the old saying, "never let 'em see you sweet"!😆
History that deserves to Bee remembered 😆
Billy - I certainly BEElieve that.
🐝 Bee True To Oneself 🐝
Come on, surely you can do better than the most obvious pun imaginable.
But...that's what he always says, classic.
@@jppatterson7142 This is a honey of a presentation of happy culture and we can apidae-t they are anthophilic creatures.
I was a beekeeper for five years. Fascinating but rather expensive hobby. I miss my thousands of fuzzy friends. 🐝🌼
As Beekeepers ourselves this was quite interesting to watch. Thanks for putting this together!
Obey the bees. Brew more mead.
As an amateur meadmaker I fully appreciate the hard work our little black and yellow friends perform.
My favorite Bee was Aunt Bee. She was the nicest old lady in Mayberry.
Stay busy as a bee and that will make you bee happy
Thanks for the inspiration... I'm gonna go out any work my neglected hives today...
Really nice summary! I’ve done so much reading during my own apicultural career, and I can’t think of anything significant that you left out! They’re truly amazing creatures
What a great bit of history and entertainment. Thank you.
Loved it! Enjoyed the video, while partaking of my morning coffee with honey (as per usual). While not a beekeeper, I've taken an apiculture class, and would love to bee a beekeeper one day. For anyone interested, they might want to seek out the author Sue Hubbell and her books about beeing a beekeeper. Loved all the history - especially from other lands. Didn't know or remember about other removeable frames prior to Dr. Langstroth! One thing not mentioned is that honey should not be given to children less than one year old - generally this warning is on jars of honey. While I don't remember the details, I think it has to do with the infants' gut biome not being developed enough to handle honey. Also should mention, that I think honey is the only liquid sold as weight and not volume (at least in U.S.A., I don't know in other countries). It would be interesting to know how this came about.
thanks
"if sugar, was as sweet as you honey, sugar just couldn't be bought". A song by the band Rockpile. There must be hundreds of songs that reference "honey" in the lyrics, from Van Morrison" "she's as sweet as Tupelo honey" to " Honey pie "by The Beatles.
I love bees ! The reveal the beauty of Nature working in HARMONY. The colony works as a TEAM. They are beautiful and purposeful creatures. As a child I was allergic to their stings. I'd run a fever. After graduating from College and desiring to escape the city and join a past navy friend in South Dakota to aid in his beekeeping tending, I spent the Fall in this very remote area. A soulful experience. He taught me much about bees. It started a respect and admiration for their TEAM purpose. We are ALL connected, respect NATURE. Bees are beautiful creatures. - sometimes a Mountain Man (sMM) Stephen Skinner
Thank you
Here in Greece, our neighbourhood is full of bee trees! They never bother us, as they are busy bee's . 🐝
Thank you for turning down the outro volume!
the keeper's quandry: to bee or not to bee.....
I am a bee keeper, and have noticed that there are almost no honeybees in the city of Edmonton Alberta. I have ween watching the flowering trees and plants and have only seen bumblebees pollinating.
All the feral bees have been wiped out because of Varroa. If you do see honeybees, it's because there is a beekeeper nearby managing them. If you live in Edmonton, try working some Russian bees. I have them here in Minnesota and they do well in our cold temps. :)
The bees owned by Queen Elizabeth were told when she died. The beekeeper went to each hive and knocked on it and said, "The mistress is dead, but don't you go." If I recall correctly, black mourning ribbons were then tied around each hive.
I came here to say this. Traditions like this baffle me. 😂
A seemingly baffling tradition.. until you find yourself standing in the garden and talking to your bees (aka the girls)
😊
It’s nice to be part of something that has been around for so long
People talk to their cats, dog, birds,, plants, etc., why not bees? This was an interesting tradition and I'm glad to learn about it. It exemplifies respect for the bees and their work.
@@richf5967I talk to the bees when they visit my fruit trees and flowers. When my lemon tree blooms it is full of bees. Twice we have had a colony overnight in our elm tree, and our elm is over fifty years old and has a very large crown. Baffling, oh yes, the buzzing (a hum, really) is strangely calming. 🐝🐝
@@richf5967 Over the years I have detected what I call a bee language. Which is made up of different different vibrations . Some we can hear. Some transmitted through the comb. Seen as in dances. And smelt. We can use orders to attract swarms. Each hive has its own smell.
When my daughter got married she went out and in her wedding and bare foot 'told the bees'. When a local keeper passed I had the honor of telling his bees.
What do bees chew? Bumble gum
I love bees (I love honey, too). Bees polinate our fruit trees and flowers in our garden. A couple of seasons ago I was removing the last lemons from the blooming tree, and the tree blooms were full of bees. I was awed by how gentle the bees were, they went about their business while I removed lemons around them.
"None of your Bee's Wax"!!!!! 🤣
Don't forget Xenophon's description of the use of "mad honey" as a weapon.
thank you for sharing
Thanks THG for the historic buzz.
Must admit...I do like the effort you put into each intro. Thanks :)
My birthday is May 20. I have always asked my wife for fried chicken for my present. She has always taken me to a chicken restaurant, where they serve honey with the meal. OH, did I mention I live in Kentucky? Thank you. God Bless and stay safe.
🐝 kind 🐝 loving 🐝 grateful
I love all your videos, but this one was especially both broad and deep. You manage to put sooo much into just several minutes!
Great video, Bee Keeping has been my most rewarding hobby.
Have been fascinated by apiculture since I first started home brewing, mead is delicious
This is why I so enjoy The History Guy. Something that is always around and always been around but you just don't think about. A history that is not forgotten or ignored but, just not thought about or remembered
I had no idea how much history you can learn when studying simple everyday things until I discovered this channel.
Thank you 😊
Have been a beekeeper for almost five years. The research that is needed is substantial. THG you did a great job putting this together. 👏 👍 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝
I was recently thinking of studying beekeeping as a hobby, so the upload of this video is a very nice coincidence.
🐝🎨🐝
The Hive and the Honey Bee is a good book on bees.
@@davidparrish1133 _The ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture_ is another good one.
The two leading beekeeping magazines (in the U.S.) are "American Bee Journal," published by Dadant and Sons and "Bee Culture," published by A. I. Root.
What most people don't know is that modern bee keeping in wooden magazine boxes is incredibly bad for the bees and for the environments.
There are many reason for this and a scientist wrote a book about it. Very interesting.
The main problem is humans are turning the 100 million year old honey bees into pets right now by interfering, in all the wrong ways, with their natural selection, habitats and behaviour and at the same time these artificially large hives suck up all the nectar in the area on a massive scale (and still need extra sugar as feed) depriving other insects of their food source.
The detailed explanations why this is so is too long for a youtube comment but it's utterly fascinating and a massive shame what we are doing right now.
Traditional beekeeping in logs or self made straw skeps on the other hand is almost unproblematic.
do it..... now the time to buy bees if any local bee keepers still have them for sale. I got some new colonies last week.
"What's the buzz, tell me whats'a happenin'/ what's the buzz, tell me what'sa happenin'...."
WHY should you wanna know
@@steveoh9025 , you're probably too young to recognize the song....
@@goodun2974 nah that's the next line in the song ;)
No one can argue that pigs have been domesticated, and yet they, too, can go feral in one generation. Bees, too! Horses, cows and dogs take a little longer, but in the end they don't need us. We need them! Our bees especially! The tragedy of this time in earth's history is the rate at which agri-farming practices are poisoning them, along with our planet. We can stop it, but everyone needs to be concerned and onboard.
Happy Bee Day everyone! Thanks for another great episode with a fascinating topic.
Hey a Bee🐝 day Reminds me of France 🇫🇷 Cest Le Vie
Quite familiar with bees. At one time, my father had as many as thirty hives. In the 90s, the last hive died out from mites. Since there's no row cropping in my area, only cattle grazing and pine forests, pesticides are an unlikely cause.
A super (a shallow upper box used to collect honey) has ten frames that can have two to four pounds on wax and honey each. A hive may have as many as four supers or more. Multiply that by thirty hives. The three of us worked up a LOT of honey.
Beetles and mites are a scourge. A healthy hive can control beetles to an extent. Mites are a hives bane.
@@tomtheplummer7322 Tossing waste wax on the ground near hives is said to draw Small Hive Beetles. Better to collect it in a bucket and render it down like any other wax.
My grand father raised bee's he could go out with no protection and the bees wouldn't bother him much because he said they would get to know him.
That is very true. My bees do the same thing. but you have to be close to their hives almost daily. They will recognize person. I've had bees land on my arm to lick off the sweat. They do recognize people.
"None of your beeswax Nelly Olson!"
Ah beekeeping.
Here is a true story. Back in the early 1990s, Hillary Clinton was on an around the world tour(without Bill BTW). Winding up the tour she stopped in New Zealand. At a meeting, she impressed the audience by admitting that she was named after New Zealand's favorite son,,,,Sir Edmund Hillary. The problem was,,,,Hillary was born in 1946 and Edmund Hillary climbed Mt. Everest in 1953.
In 1946, Sir Edmund Hillary was an obscure bee keeper in Auckland , N.Z. Then she made it to NYC to end the trip,,,,and this was another event in the life of Hillary.
Hillary arrived in NYC and DEMANDED the PRESIDENTIAL suite at the Waldorf. She did not make reservations btw. She demanded that they put her in and kick out the person who reserved the room. The hotel called and asked the person if he would let Hillary have his room.
His answer was,,,,,,"I earn my money, I work for a living."
His name,,,
Dale Earnhart #3.
As a shear coincidence,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Dale #3 is my 7th cousin.
"She was a rare thing/ as fine as a BeesWing/ so fine a breath of air might blow her away..." from BeesWing by Richard Thompson, a song about the Big Love that got away, and sung in Richard's *mellifluous* baritone. ( I could have simply written "first", as some people do, but that's for lazy people; and there are better ways to stoke the algorithm in THG's favor).
That song always brings tears to my eyes. "52 Vincent" will always be my favorite RT song, but that one's number two.
@@eloiseharbeson2483 , for the others here who aren't familiar with it, the song you reference is "1952 Vincent Black Lightning": a motorcycle, an outlaw, and a red-headed girl, the most dangerous combination imaginable! Another favorite of mine from Thompson's back catalog is "Al Bowlly's in Heaven (and I'm in Limbo now)". And then there's the insane electric-guitar freakout of "Shoot Out the Lights"......
It’s a great day of saving the beeeez
-Erika Thompson, Texas Beeworks
Thank you!
Interesting summary of bee keeping.
Hey J.H
North Carolina's state insect is the honey bee!
Carl Sagan: "If all insect life on earth were to end, in 75 years there would be no life on earth. If all human life on earth were to end, in 75 years life would flourish on earth."
Playlist inspired by this episode:
Honey I Miss You
Honey Don't
A Taste Of Honey
Honey Pie
Wild Honey Pie
Honeycomb
Honey, Honey
Honey Bee
Honey Child
I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)
Honey Hush (Albert Collins). Tupelo Honey (Van Morrison). King Bee (Slim Harpo). Wild Mountain Honey (Steve Miller). Money, Honey (Ry Cooder). House at Pooh Corner ( Loggins and Messina). Last but not least, BeesWing (Richard Thompson): "She was a rare thing/ as fine as a bee's wing/ so fine a breath of wind might blow her away/ she was a lost child/ she was just running wild/ she said 'as long as there's no price on love I'll stay/ and you wouldn't want me any other way'....."
Check out the Kirkhoff Hive. I have a few. They are museum pieces. The are more efficient then Langstroth hive, but more expensive to build then the Langstroth hive.
Didn’t know my job as Hunny-Hunter-Gatherer is pretty old.
🍯
Thank You for covering the topic of "Honeybees"! I kept bees in my youth and it was always enjoyable as well as intellectually stimulating!!!
Me too. Well actually the bees were my dads. I was just a worker bee.
World bee day is on May 20th because that's Anton Janša's birth date (the same one mentioned in the video).
Back in the Saddle Again Naturally!
To use a historical comparison, 618M pounds of honey is just over ten Edmund Fitzgerald loads...
Sweet video! Thank you for waxing on this subject!
Thanks for this video.
Happy Bee Day!
the stingless bees of the mayans are also interesting.
it tastes great
I'm just a little black rain cloud
Hovering under the honey-tree.
I'm just a little black rain cloud
Pay no attention to me...
Winnie the Pooh
There's also "House at Pooh Corner" by Loggins and Messina: " I've got to get back to Pooh Corner by one/ you'd be surprised, there's so much to be done/ count all the bees in the hive/ chase all the clouds from the sky..."
Backyard Beekeeping Nuevo approves the content of this video.😊
The bee wax is made into a sculpture then the wax sculpture is covered in plaster then the plaster is heated. Then the wax melts out then you have a cavity where you pour in the bronze
Utah's has a State insect - the honey bee.
"I'm just a little black raincloud...."
I will Bee🐝 lieve it when I See 👀 it!
Worth noting that infants under the age of a year and a half or so, as I recall, are not supposed to ever be given honey.
Yes, mentioned this myself. Only omit I noticed. :)
A great tribute to and historical accout of the HONEYBEE. Ah, creamed honey. Stored properly, it will never spoil and "never" crystallize beyond the micro-crystallization process that is "creamed honey". There is no "cream" involved. It may be used the same as liquid (runny) honey (baking, cereal, tea, etc.) but is spreadable at room temperature. I buy honey in bulk, cream it and gift it. It's always appreciated. I don't have the facilities for beekeeping but I greatly appreciate and support the apiarists.
My bees didn't make it through winter this year. I didn't get more. Maybe take a break for a year.
Concentrate on my grapevines instead.
I'll bee keenly waiting for the next episode of the The History Guy. Sorry.
Is that a THG bobblehead on the shelf behind THG ?
I wonder which animal species is actually busier, beavers or bee-vers....
Thanks bee's ❤
This history lesson is the Bee's knees
Good evening
Been bee keeping for six years now excited to see what this video says about bee keeping! I also do live removals. I have five gallon buckets of honey lol
🙏🐝☯️
Neat.
Big buckets of honey are perfect to preserve the heads of your slain enemies!
What most people don't know is that modern bee keeping in wooden magazine boxes is incredibly bad for the bees and for the environments.
There are many reason for this and a scientist wrote a book about it. Very interesting.
The main problem is humans are turning the 100 million year old honey bees into pets right now by interfering, in all the wrong ways, with their natural selection, habitats and behaviour and at the same time these artificially large hives suck up all the nectar in the area on a massive scale (and still need extra sugar as feed) depriving other insects of their food source.
The detailed explanations why this is so is too long for a youtube comment but it's utterly fascinating and a massive shame what we are doing right now.
Traditional beekeeping in logs or self made straw skeps on the other hand is almost unproblematic.
I knew this video would BEE! great to watch and interesting, How ever you might need a part two for this one hahaha I think you totally missed out the most knowledgable bee keepers of Ancient times? The Vikings where the first to be able to harvest honey with out killing the bees and invented the cloth method to filter the honey to make Mead. and the Celts and Bee Lore
I love the cartoonesk bee-men with ancient Egyptian headdresses
You could release "the history of the telephone book" and i would still listen just as intently and still be jist as entertained. The true mark of a great narrator.
What, no mention of that hairdo sometimes referred to as the beehive? By the way, there is a bird in Africa that is reputed to lead people to wild beehives, and it reportedly eats the bee larvae after the hunter gatherers take the honey.
😄👍🏻. Right, the dome shape of those early pots and such. Funny how in cartoons that shape is still used. Boxes just won’t make good animation or hairdos. 🤷♂️😉
The bee eater birds are gorgeous creatures! Amazing to watch too.
'Winnie the Pooh' bear says: "Bears 🐻❤🍯.....So, PLEASE keep the bee's 🐝 knees's 🦵 a going n' a growing'......bee 🐝 cause its time for something sweet"‼️ 💟 🐝🍯🏳️😉❤️
My wife’s grandfather kept bees. When he got old he would hold a few and make them string his hands help his arthritis. Not sure how well it worked but he swore by it.
Anecdotal evidence by people who were stung by scorpions and found that chronic back pain was reduced has led to research into using venom for this type of medical purpose.
I have heard of that. Never knew anyone who did it. Not sure I could do it even though I'm not very sensitive to bee stings.
Another great vid. Many thanks.
A mention of Deseret, the Beehive State, and it's people would have been nice. 🐝
I'm dubious, Langstroth used the metric system?
Having lived my whole life in an agricultural area, it's just taken as a given that if an orchard is in bloom, there are going to be beehives by the side of the road. The beekeeper brings them in and when they're done pollinating that orchard they move them to the next one.
My dad lined the roads on his farm with all sorts of fruit trees. After a few years he got his first hive. The bees pollinated the trees, the garden, and the pastures. Their money crop was a pecan orchard. Don't know if bees pollinated Pecan trees or not.
When my wife makes peanut butter balls, sort of a better version of Reese's peanut butter cups, she melts a little beeswax into the melted chocolate so that it will firm up and stay solid at room temperature without easily melting the second you touch it.
Funny, isn't it, how many of us refer to our significant other as a one-word substitute for "bee barf"!
It isn’t actually barf. They have two “stomachs”. Only one digests 😏
When I was in high school one of our janitors was a beekeeper and one day showed us how he extracted the honey from the frames.
May is Dont Mow Your Lawn Month. It's better for all pollinators, bees included.
Very interesting. Sadly, one of the bee problems we have now is of our own making, domesticated European honey bees are basically out-competing local varieties which is a bit of a problem since they don't pollinate all flowers, they have their likes and dislikes and the local bees tend to focus on local plants more. The wild bees are important, but the mix of us planting specific (and usually not varied) crops everywhere and us setting out domesticated European honey bees everywhere isn't great.
There are many kinds of bees that produce honey, but no one ever gets close to the regular honey bee so they have taken over most of the world due to that. So plant some local flowers in your garden, support your local wild bees. :)
At the recent garden show, a bee-man gave a talk about bees. He said they love borage and prefer purple flowers.
@@lizj5740 Depends a bit on the type of bee. The wild bumblebees in my garden for instance prefer blue flowers for some reason. They really love some kind of wild flower that grows in spots in my lawn so I leave as many of those as I can but they first go for any blue, secondary purple and after that they take anything
But I have other types of wild bees too and they seems to have their own favorites (and it is Scandinavian wild bumblebees, your local ones can have different preferences.
Note that this is just based on my own garden and that smell also seem to matter a lot, basically all the bees and the butterflies love anything that smells really sweet (which seems pretty obvious).
I have at least 5 different types of wild bees but it could be a lot more, I am hardly an expert and many bees look pretty similar to me.
And in early spring, they go for anything. It seems that at least the bumblebees just have a couple of hour to get some nectar and find a place for their hive or they will die so my krokus are very popular with everything then and I haven't noticed any particular preference then, just anything close.
The bee man probably knows what he is talking about, but it is likely just for honey bees. Mixing colors a little is generally the best way to go if you want both wild bees and butterflies but you could certainly just go for purple or purple and blue if you have a bee hive.
@@loke6664 Well, I was wrong, and you are right. You have jogged my memory, and the bee man did say blue not purple. (Red face, here.) Thank you for adding your knowledge and gently correcting me.
@@lizj5740 Lol, that is just based on my personal experience in my garden and at least the bumble bees seems to like purple flowers as well although not exactly as much as the blue.
There is also the smell of the specific flowers in question and the type of the bumble bees themselves so it isn't a simple question.
I also noted that most of the butterflies I have seems to prefer the red flowers but I have less of those and besides the tulips all of them are very sweet smelling so I am a bit careful drawing any conclusions there, could be they just love sweet smell most and that my red flowers smell most.
So there is certainly no need to state what is happening in my garden is some kind of insect gospel, I have less then 50 different flowers in it, 5 or maybe a few more bee species and a few different kinds of butterflies. Not enough for any kind of scientific study to say the least.
And of course, purple and blue kinda goes together somewhere, it is also possible that I would identify a flower as blue and someone else would say it is purple, some of my flowers are super blue but others have a bit of other colors in them too.
I try to have a mixed variety of flowers in many shades since it looks nice and our pollinating insects can pick whatever they like (not to mention that they bloom from Mars to late September). I am rather certain they really like some variations and having more kinds of flowers is the best way to go.
Oh, please do a story on Cassius Clay. The abolishonist?
Hexagon is the Bestagon.
Bees also appear on British Sanitary wear. It was the logo on Napoleon. So during the Napolieonic wars, sanitary wear with a Bee emblem was introduced and you were invitide to take 'Apis' on Napoleon.