- I will not reference Wicker Man.
I will not reference Wicker Man.
I will not reference Wicker Man.
I will not reference.
- Oh no, not the bees, not the bees!
(screaming)
- In Egyptian legend, bees were created
when the tears of the sun god Ra
landed on the desert sand.
In the creation story of the
San people of the Kalahari,
the seed that a bee plants in a mantis
grows into the very first human.
These myths are pretty wild,
but here are five bee truths
that are truly terrific.
(lively instrumental music)
Bees evolved from
prehistoric carnivorous wasps
that laid their eggs in
the body of their prey.
As flowering plants evolved, bees became
gentle herbivores and began using hives
and nests as nurseries
instead of the corpses
of their insect enemies.
But, bees retained their
stabby reproductive organs
and replaced the eggs with
venom for defensive purposes.
These stingers evolved from
female reproductive organs
which means that only
female bees can sting.
Which brings us to our next point.
Female bees are pretty sexist,
or at least, female bees
are by far the dominant sex.
In nearly every every species,
a male bee's only job is
to mate with a female.
Most male bees lack even
the structures necessary
to carry pollen or make wax.
In some species, the mating process
is deadly for the males.
They leave their endophallus
in the female's body
fatally injuring
themselves in the process.
And yes, endophallus, male bees
don't have external genitalia,
instead hiding a secret
penis inside their bodies.
Male bees are so
extraneous to the hive life
of social species like honey bees
that female honey bees
usually force the males
out of the nest before winter,
or whenever food becomes scarce.
Speaking of food, honey
has been regurgitated
by bees hundreds of times.
Yes, delicious honey starts
out as flower nectar,
the sugary fluid that
gives flowers their scents
and attracts pollinators.
Foraging honey bees collect it
in a specialized organ
called the honey stomach
and carry it back to their hive
in wee little 40-milligram loads.
Once there, they regurgitate the nectar
and pass it to the worker bees.
They transform the thin nectar
into energy-dense honey by evaporating
out the water content.
Bees reduce the moisture content in nectar
by up to 50% in order to create honey,
and they do it by
swallowing and regurgitating
the nectar over and over again.
As a bonus, this also adds enzymes
from the bees' mouths which give honey
its antimicrobial properties.
Bees can navigate by the
sun even when it's cloudy.
That's because structures in bees' eyes
allow them to see ultraviolet light,
and to tell the difference between
polarized and unpolarized light.
Bees detect a sun obscured by clouds
by looking for the part of the sky
with the least amount
of ultraviolet light.
Speaking of someone who's gotten a sunburn
on a cloudy day, I can personally attest
that UV light is not blocked by clouds.
And OK, a light is
polarized if its wavelengths
are traveling parallel to one another.
Sunlight is unpolarized when
it hits earth's atmosphere,
but then it starts refracting through
all the particles in the
atmosphere at particular angles.
So, bees can confirm the position
of a hidden sun by looking
at 90 degrees azimuth
from the part of the sky with
the strongest polarization.
Bees can also navigate by the arcs
of the earth's magnetic field,
and science isn't entirely sure how,
but it probably has something to do
with the iron granules containing
super-paramagnetic
magnetite that can be found
in the front of their abdomens.
Special cells in all kinds of organisms
can build mineral structures.
It's how we get our bones,
and how birds grow their beaks.
While bees are alive,
their bodies keep them
with a fresh supply.
Honey bees use their magnetoreception
to orient themselves
while building honeycomb,
and telling their fellow workers
where food can be found.
Oh, and hey, if you're wondering
why researchers keep talking
about bees disappearing,
I actually did a video on that,
and you can watch it by clicking
sort of right here.
Yes, over there someplace.
And if you'd like to learn
lots more about bees,
check out the excellent article
that I based this video
upon, How Bees Work,
at howstuffworks.com.
