No, not yet.
Oh, yes, we are.
Hello, and welcome to Invertecast.
I am Leah from Dorech Leah and Invertecast.
Of course, with me is Simon from the Mantis Garden.
Hello, Simon.
Shader's Promote.
Yes, absolutely.
I mean, we do it every episode.
But today, we are going to be discussing bees and all about
bees.
So that includes bubble bees, honeybees, wasps,
and yellowjackets, Africanized killer bees,
where we're going to talk about them all.
So we should, let's see, what do you want to get started with?
Maybe.
Types of bees?
Yeah, let's do it.
OK.
Yeah, there are so many types of bees.
I know that there are 20,000 different species of bees
throughout the entire world.
And specifically, there are approximately 4,000
that live here in the US and Canada.
And then, yeah, so there are a lot of species of bees.
But most people probably only really
think about like bubble bees or honey bees,
maybe a little bit of wasps, things like that.
But those are just like a tiny little glimpse
into the world of bees.
Yeah, there's 2,000 species of bees in Europe.
So you've got to be like double in the Americas.
Definitely.
That's amazing.
Although we do, I mean, that's probably
due to the fact that we have a bit larger of a land mass.
But Europe is pretty big, so I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know what that's including.
I don't know if that's including Scandinavia and, you know,
extra Europe, Eastern Europe, and other aspects.
And that makes us a big land mass.
But I think you've got more of the climate for things,
as you have all the books that we've done over here.
And Europe.
I think that's true.
Hello, Shady.
Shady says, good evening.
Good evening, Shady.
Good evening.
All right, so I don't know like the specifics
of each different kind of species of bees,
but I do know that I would say that the most popular one
or the most recognized one is definitely the honeybee.
And there are so many species of those as well that, I mean,
it's hard to be like, oh, just one honeybee.
No, there are so many honeybees.
It's not even funny.
So you got, you know, sorry.
You got, you know, your Japanese honeybees,
American honeybees, there's European honeybees,
African honeybees.
So there's honeybees.
They pretty much live all throughout the world, of course,
except for like Antarctica, because nothing really lives
there, except for penguin.
That was pretty excited.
Yeah, right.
That's about it.
OK, so yeah.
Do you have anything else to add to what kind of bees
there are in the world?
Or?
Well, obviously, honeybees.
We can obviously see this, that you've done more
squatting than I have about bees.
Yes.
I know about the standard bees, like, you know,
you cap into bees and mason bees, et cetera,
which are extremely interesting.
The difference is the way they make the nests.
Because when you think of a bee, most people
think of a beehive, a tree branch,
or even in your house somewhere, you know, under your gutter.
Yeah.
But there's lots of different ways.
I mean, there's lots of bees.
Some bees are actually just on their own,
and they'll just dig a burrow into the ground
and stay alive on their own sort of thing,
and do it the self.
And there are other bees that make nests underground,
with like a fuller on the top, with clay,
and they actually build it up like a termite would build it up,
coming out of the ground.
So you have little stalagmites, stalagmites type structures
coming up with a hole down there.
Yeah, a vinturite type.
Yeah, they use the saliva and mud to make like clay
that's even more interesting.
It's actually waterproof.
Bees' saliva is waterproof, which is awesome.
So it rains, it just comes off like it does on a duck's back,
which I think is interesting.
That's incredible.
I didn't know that.
It is really cool.
I mean, bees are pretty fascinating.
So I know that here in the States we have paper wasps,
which we call them paper wasps, but I'm
going to guess that they're similar to the carpenter wasps,
and they will build these big intricate honeycomb-looking
hives, definitely in attics and kind of up high.
Whereas like you were saying with the Tourette building guys
or bees, we have bumblebees that they actually burrow
underground, and they live in like in the shrubbery and stuff
that accumulates around forest floor
or around the ground of trees and whatnot.
And so they'll just kind of burrow into that,
and that's where they live.
So that's definitely a fascinating thing about how
they survive, essentially.
So Carrie has asked if wasps actually
have a good purpose outside of warning off children
from parks.
And that's true.
The wasps are just horrible.
Yeah, yeah.
But it's like saying, do cats or tigers
have a purpose about them just killing things?
Wasps are pretty much a clean up group
because they eat a lot of dead insects as well.
They also catch a lot of things like flies and other annoying
things like mosquitoes' residence.
So in the era, particularly in our predator,
but they're just annoying because they stingles
and we don't like them.
They're right.
They're spooked in the ecosystem.
But like mosquitoes, they're annoying.
To us, so therefore, we don't see them as a useful creature
because we don't find them particularly
comfortable to live with.
And that's just down to humans.
It's not down to the ecosystem or the animal world.
That's my opinion.
Right.
No, I think you're absolutely right.
They do serve a purpose, even though we definitely
see wasps as kind of a pest.
They do tend to build their nest around our houses
and can be very intimidating as far as that goes
because you don't want to be stung by them.
It is actually a pretty painful sting, more so than a regular bee.
But I mean, it's not as bad as you might think.
I mean, it's kind of a sting, for sure.
It hurts.
There's a lot of pain isolated at the sting site
and they're swelling.
I'm sorry, Simon.
You don't need to.
That's just wrong.
We have, when we moved in this house,
we had because it's bright to my mind that we have a nest
in an outside shed that was here.
A paper wasp, European paper wasp.
And I got suited up with everything,
mask on and all that from where I was getting everything.
And I put a woolly hat on my head thinking it was on the tent.
And unfortunately not.
And I went out with a CO2 fire extinguisher
and froze some to get rid of it.
They stung all the top of my head.
Oh, no.
There were 50 stings on the top of my head.
Oh, goodness.
Seriously gave me a really, really bad headache.
But apart from that, I mean, I said, they're not killer wasps.
But you do have some more dangerous ones.
When you go in that territory, painful and dangerous,
you're sliding towards hornets rather than wasps, I think.
Absolutely.
If you get stung enough, it's definitely a dangerous thing
because they can send you to a hospital
and then you'd have to be treated probably
with a lot of Benadryl and anti-inflammatories.
But yeah, wasps actually do serve a pretty important purpose.
They are incidental pollinators.
So because they're carnivorous, so they
hunt and attack like other flying insects.
And that's basically what they eat.
And they will also attack big cicadas.
And they will bring it back to the hive
and feed that to their larvae or the baby wasps.
And the queen, of course.
And so because of that, they are actually
really great as far as keeping the pest populations down
and keeping them in control.
And a lot of farmers here in the States
actually really like to use wasps as that kind of pesticide
like a natural pesticide for their crops, which
makes a lot of sense to me.
It kind of hits back on that lady bugs,
harvesting lady bugs and using them as pesticides.
Again, it just makes a lot of sense to do that.
So I think that's a good point.
Even.
Sorry.
Yeah.
Well, it's finished.
Yeah, no, I'm pretty finished with the wasps.
I think.
I'll just tail you off there by putting in.
I am sorry about that.
Oh, you're totally fine.
There's something you do that we don't seem to do as much,
which is rent bees.
Right.
And then put them in your fields to pollinate.
Yeah.
Yeah, that is definitely something that is done here in the States.
I know for sure that here we have, I've mentioned them before
on the podcast quite a few times, but the butterfly pavilion here
is a really huge, basically bee superpower.
They will rent like little hives that you can take to,
like if you have a greenhouse or a garden in your house or again,
like a farm and basically just allow the bees to do what they do.
And yeah, and everybody kind of benefits from that because the
butterfly pavilion, you know, you're helping them and their
program as far as conservation because they have a pretty good
program for that.
And then you're also helping your own garden in your crops that
you're trying to protect from other pests and critters that can
really damage those plants.
So speaking of conservation, I thought that that would be,
this is a good segue to talk about the conservation efforts
that you read about recently.
Well, it's actually not a recent one.
This has been going on for quite a while, but in the UK or in
Britain, at least not in the UK.
There's something called a bee wine, which is where we have
what they call a nature setting, a wildlife setting.
It's quite different from the States.
We have been to the cities in dots here and there across the
landscape.
And in between that, we've got lots and lots of countryside.
So what they've done is connect the areas, you know, one nature
area to another area, a nature area.
We've got a transport system for bees, which is literally a
strip of land that connects between the countryside areas and
nature areas of flowers that bees love, basically.
And it's an amazing network of flowers that go in line to
connect the bees to other places they've got to go.
It's a fantastic idea and I'd love to see every other country do it.
I agree.
I think that's really, really something because as we know,
you know, bee populations across the whole world have been
declining in recent years.
Actually, for a couple of decades now.
And so that program actually sounds really, really great for the
bees because I'm sure that you're probably also starting to see
like a boom in some of the populations of the bees there in
the UK.
I can imagine that that's just, I mean, that's some of the best
things that we can do.
I mean, even here in the States, a lot of people like to plant
that are attractive, more attractive to honey bees and bees in
general.
So like lavender is a good one.
Mary Golds is another great one.
I think sunflowers to an extent, I don't know if sunflowers are
really that great.
But I do know that like that is something that we can do here at
home that will also help bee populations and help to keep them
from starving.
You know, because without those flowers, they starve.
But without when they're when they have the gardens is like, if
you've got big enough garden, you know, save a bit, save a little
corner.
Keep that little corner as wild as possible with wild flowers,
everything, little corner, because it doesn't have a lot of
insects.
And if it helps insects, it helps other animals, etc, etc.
It's a knock on effect, isn't it?
That's what it is really.
But yeah, if you've got a garden that's big enough, please keep a
bit that's wild, just absolutely wild.
Absolutely.
No wild flowers there, let the weeds grow as well, because a lot of
the weeds that we don't like and pull out of our garden.
They're actually really beneficial.
We're pulling them up.
So right, right.
I believe sunflowers here are also kind of considered a weed,
but they are super beneficial.
They can be very like invasive.
So if you are planting sunflowers, be aware of that.
They are an invasive plant.
But they are pretty beneficial because again, they provide a bit
of pollen for the bees.
I think that's kind of, I'm playing on a stereotype here.
You see those pretty pictures of little bees and stuff.
It's usually on a sunflower.
But I do know that Mary Golds lavender, anything purple, any
kind of purple flowers.
We have a flower here in Colorado that's native to Colorado called
the Columbine.
And it is an absolutely beautiful flower, but very high in like
pollen.
And so pollinators absolutely love Columbines.
So if you get your hands on some Columbines, plant those, but I
agree on keeping the garden wild or to those wild native species
of plants and whatnot is actually the most, is the best thing
you can possibly do for those bees.
Very, very cool.
The sunflowers, I've tried to grow sunflowers in my garden for
10 years.
They won't grow.
We won't grow at all.
So it's like, you know, you're considering weeds and I can't
get them to grow, putting fertilizer on the look after.
So it's, you know, it's a good thing that you've got your
perspective over there.
And is this, I mean, the rest of you would probably okay.
I'll go up in that.
It's probably awesome Scandinavia.
I've got to say that.
But yeah, to see the different perspectives where you're saying,
you know, just plant this, just plant that, and thinking, yeah,
you can.
But for us, it's a little more difficult.
Well, it's difficult.
You guys don't get quite as much sunlight as we do.
Is that pretty accurate? Yeah.
I think so.
I think the heat.
Possibly.
I mean, it's like summer.
We get a winter.
Sorry.
We have more sunshine than we have in summer.
But it's that cold.
So, so nothing grows.
Yeah.
But we, you know, it's probably why we're so green really and
rather than colorful, like Ireland, it's the same sort of thing.
It's, it's, it's damp.
Yeah.
A lot of plants don't like that.
So it's, that's why I'm saying about the corner with the wild stuff.
And because I'm here anyway.
So, you know, it's going to grow.
Whereas if you, if you think of the planting, some flowers or
anything else that these are going to love.
Your chances are pretty slim.
Unless you've, you know, got your green house and all the rest of
stuff, your chances are slim.
Sure.
Yeah.
Climate does.
Wild flowers look fantastic.
You ever seen wild flowers in a, in a, in a, in a, in a pot?
I've got quite a big patch where I keep absolutely completely wild.
And I've got logs stacked up and all sorts of books and, and
baby birds and things.
Awesome.
And that actually normally looks better than the part that I've,
I've got planted out.
So we say properly.
Yeah.
Planted out properly, but the wild part when it, when it's at its
height and everything, all the different things that you've got
cornflowers growing at marigolds and all and poppies and all sorts of
things that will grow here naturally.
Naintively, sorry.
Sure.
They look absolutely fantastic.
They look better than the rest.
Oh, I love that.
That's amazing.
I can only imagine how, how wonderful that must be.
Fantastic.
Yeah.
I mean, I live, living in the city, I don't, it's hard to, to have a
really nice garden because they do take a lot of time to, you know,
procure and make sure that they're doing well.
But I do definitely enjoy seeing more native and wild species of
flowers and plants and stuff coming, coming into other people's
yards.
And I think that's actually right now in the States, that's
actually becoming a more popularized method of, of grooming a
yard is I'm starting to see a lot more people doing that exact
thing where they're just allowing for the native and natural species
of plants and stuff kind of overthrow their yard, essentially,
which makes a lot of sense because then you have a lot less
maintenance, you're not having to go out and mow your yard every,
you know, week or so.
You're not having to water quite as much because again, these
native species, they're, they're going to thrive where they are
from.
So when it rains, that's the perfect thing.
So yeah, I'm really hoping that I see a lot more of that, but I
definitely have noticed that it's definitely a really good trend.
Okay, so.
Fantastic.
I think my wife is from Africa.
So living here, when she sees weeds that I would consider like
horrible, pull it off and get rid of them.
She's like, no, no, leave that.
They're beautiful.
I know.
So it has a completely different perspective.
It's the States, what you use, weeds, I might find really attractive
and think that as a beautiful flower, you know, or whatever.
It's a difference when you go to different countries, what one
considers a weed and other one is cultivating to put in the gardens
on purpose.
That's what you seem to find around the world.
Certainly.
I mean, I think it's really fascinating the differences and
what we consider something that is awesome and beautiful and that
we want to cultivate a lot more of them and, you know, what some
people consider weeds.
I think that's a very interesting, like a signal of kind of what
culturally, like the differences that we all have.
I think that's a really, really good point for sure.
So let's talk about why bees are such important pollinators in the
world and why conservation efforts are so important in keeping these
bees around and making sure that they don't ever go extinct,
obviously.
So you mentioned this actually backstage or earlier we were
discussing why these were so important and we read a statistic,
we know of a statistic that says that bees are and pollinators in
general are responsible for one in three bites of food for like
worldwide for people.
And that's a pretty big statistic if you think about it.
That's a third of all of the food that's ever produced throughout
the world and that bees and pollinators are responsible for
that third of food.
So I think that's probably the biggest reason that they're so
important is because of that food production and that pollination
that creates that food production, obviously, because food is
actually an essential for humans, like we can't survive without food.
Clearly, same with water, we can't survive without water.
So what are your thoughts on that, Simon?
Like what do you think, why else do you think that these bees are
so important for pollinators?
Well, 90% of the world's food crops are pollinated by insects.
That's a lot.
90% is a lot.
So if you think about it, if you say there's people in the world now
starving to death, imagine taking another 90% of the world's food
away.
It would be devastating.
That's what would happen if we start squashing all the bugs we see.
This is why insects in general are so important, but the vast majority
about 90% is bees that are actually doing all the pollinating.
Like I said before, there's a massive, massive amount of bees.
Some bees only go for red flowers, some only go for yellow flowers,
some for purple flowers.
I don't know about the eyesight of bees, unfortunately.
I'm pretty lacking on that information, but if anybody else knows,
please let us know why that is.
I do know that their eyesight is very similar to almost like infrared,
so the brighter purple and blue hues tend to be the ones that they're
more attracted to, so that looks a lot brighter to them.
And of course, I think yellow and some orange hues are also very vibrant
for them, but yeah, their eyesight is kind of a mystery to me as well.
Just picking certain colors, so for one species, being like, I only eat red flowers.
That was the hard work flying around, looking for the red flowers only.
Did you know, just talking about flowers, did you know there's actually a bee
that makes a burrow in the ground and it wallpapers its entire burrow
with petals and flowers?
Oh wow, no, I had no idea, that's amazing.
It cuts off little petals, little bits of petal, flies back up in the burrow
and glues them to the inside of the burrow with saliva, and out again it goes
and gets more.
Wow, that's incredible, I had no idea.
I was just like, right, yeah, I agree.
I couldn't find a reason for them doing it, nobody seems to have studied that,
but they don't know why they do it.
I'm wondering if they do it because possibly there might be a chemical or something
within the flower petal itself that provides some kind of sustenance for them,
possibly, or I'm wondering if it also might have to do with keeping predators away,
because you know that there are some plants that are actually really, really good,
like insecticide essentially, like pine here for instance.
Yeah, pine, yeah.
You know, pine is something that we know that spiders and bees are just, they're put off of.
They don't like it, it's very off-putting to them, so they avoid it.
You know, same with peppermint and these are known to be plants.
So I'm wondering if that specific bee or that specific flower has some kind of, you know,
that kind of attribute that helps them to stay away from other carnivorous insects.
It could be, but I prefer to think they just like the color.
Maybe so.
It's nice on the wall.
You never know.
I'll keep that in mind until somebody actually writes the paper on it and says,
why, but I'm going to keep that in my mind because I think that's a much more romantic view of it.
I agree.
We'll go with that, that it's much more aesthetically pleasing to them than...
That's the word I was looking for.
I couldn't think of the word.
All right.
I love that though.
That's some pretty interesting information about certain species.
They each have their own, like qualities that are just like so much cooler,
more interesting than the next, I would say.
And I think that's another reason that, you know, they're just such a cool, interesting little invert, you know.
So we are also going to talk about bees that kill other bees.
And I think a great example of that would be the...
In Japan, the Japanese honeybees, there's a type of wasp that actually will attack the Japanese honeybee hives.
And so, you know, and I know that there are some yellow jackets and wasps and whatnot that will attack other bee hives and things like that.
We also have tarantula hawks that will attack and kill a tarantula and then lay their eggs in the tarantula's body so that when the larvae hatch, they have something to munch on.
So yeah, let's, you know, kind of delve into bees that eat and kill or kill and eat other bees.
What do you think the purpose of that is?
Like what?
Lunch.
Lunch?
Right?
What's the purpose of anything?
I don't think there's any real purpose. I mean, it's just the way they've evolved.
It's just gone, this is an easy meal, you know.
Yeah.
It's an easy meal.
We've got this sauce.
The laddies will, you know, will snack on this.
It's...
Sure.
Probably just how they, you know, evolved in general.
Right, right, right.
Lunches, you think, why do they eat that? It's just because it's easy, I suppose.
Like pandas giving up on chasing things and they can just sit there and chew on bamboo.
This is easy. I'm going to do this instead.
That's how bees have evolved.
And the hornets you talked about in Japan, I cannot remember the name for life for me.
I did know the Latin name for them as well.
But those are absolutely fascinating the way they go and the amount of bees they can kill.
I think it's something like, is it 20 minutes? Something like that?
Oh, wow.
No, I don't know.
Yeah, just like crunching them.
And then the only defense the bees have when we get into the hive is by swarming them into the bottom.
Flapping their wings really hard and rising the temperature within the bowl.
And it kills the wasp because the bees can handle the temperature.
It gets over 40 degrees centigrade in there, which is, I think that's nearly 100 degrees far and right.
I believe it.
And it gets so hot, it kills the wasp and the bees are like, they're all right now.
The bees can handle it, the wasps can't, but that's how they see them off to the best of the ability.
They have to get swarmed by the wasps, as you said, by the...
Yeah, they're doomed.
They're doomed for.
They're done for, yeah, for sure.
I think it's pretty interesting and very impressive how they interact with one another and are able to work as a team like that.
It's almost, you know, that hive mind.
I think we've talked about this before when we were talking about ants.
They all just kind of have that one mission, they know what it is, they, you know, they go for it.
And Japanese honeybees are no exception to that.
So I think they do actually, they raise the temperatures to like close to 120 degrees.
Is it?
Which, yeah, I believe so.
I think it's like 115, 120 somewhere in that range.
And which is, you know, obviously detrimental to the wasp.
But like you said, those honeybees are able to withstand that kind of a temperature, which also raises the CO2 levels in the hive.
So they basically boil and suffocate the wasp to death, which is pretty fascinating.
And then I can imagine that they probably just use the dead wasp as some kind of sustenance or, you know, maybe a part of the hive eventually.
I mean, it all breaks down, of course, but that's, it's pretty fascinating stuff.
So yeah, most, most like honeybees and like bumblebees and those kinds of bees are actually stingless.
So they don't have stingers meaning that, you know, they, they can't sting you.
So they're not quite as defensive.
They're also not quite as aggressive as some wasps and yellow jackets can be.
So speaking of aggressive bees, Carrie asks, do killer bees make honey?
So this is a really great question and a really great segue into killer bees.
What are they?
Are they really that bad?
And I actually did a whole bunch of research on killer bees and come to find out that killer bees are also known as Africanized honeybees.
So they, yes, do produce honey, but the reason they exist is because of us.
So back in the 1950s, some scientists or people, you know, brought these African honeybees into Brazil and hybridized them with the Brazilian honeybees in an effort to create more honey production.
So they wanted to produce a lot more honey.
Unfortunately, some of those bees escaped the laboratories where they were being cultivated, essentially, and have pretty much scattered and spread throughout the entire world, including like the southern most parts of the United States.
But they, you can find them pretty much in Africa, South America, Central America.
Any place that's pretty warm, you're probably going to find some Africanized honeybees.
The funniest thing about them, though, I think is that, you know, we've been, people have been trying to control them for decades and decades, but unfortunately it's just they're very, very tricky to control.
And the reason that they have been given the name of killer bees is because they are much more aggressive and much quicker than any other bees.
So if you disturb a hive, one of their hives or something like that, they're going to be much more quick to attack you and there's going to be a lot more of them and they are incredibly aggressive.
So because of that, they have been known to kill people, which is a shame, but Africanized honeybees, so they do produce honey. Good question.
Very good, very good question. They're also very good for movies.
Oh, absolutely. They make really great inspiration for movie antagonists, scary monsters, right?
I think a lot of the movies put things into people's heads and make things worse than they are now.
Spiders are a good example of that, where people are afraid of spiders.
Young people are afraid of spiders in general, so they make them bigger, they make them area, they make them more aggressive, put them on the screen.
And if you don't really know much about something and you're being shown this, that's what you believe.
And that's what you're going to have.
They're not as aggressive, obviously, they're much more aggressive than the other bees, but they're not going to chase you down like in the cities and then go on to the next person and murder you.
This is the sort of mentality that Hollywood has produced rather than scientists.
But again, humans bring in this problem around. It's always humans every time you look at something.
It's always people, always.
We did that.
No, I absolutely agree. It's so true.
And the Africanized honeybees are, they're honestly, yeah, they're more aggressive than regular bees.
But if you're not going out of your way to like mess with them, you're kind of be fine.
They're probably not going to come after you.
So I appreciate that you mentioned that Hollywood and sometimes the media really likes to make things a lot scarier and more outlandish than they actually are.
I think, unfortunately, like bees, spiders and snakes really get the worst of it, to be honest.
I think spiders get the worst.
And then you got bees that, well, I don't know for you because it might be snakes for you.
For us, we don't add in.
So it's like, wow, I didn't know that.
So I just think here, there's particular dangerous, we have no tarantulas, nothing like that.
The spiders about, I'm going to have to do this about an inch and a half, maybe an inch and a half.
Sure.
Every year, in September conveniently, the newspapers will come out with, oh, it's spider time and there are going to be massive giant spiders running across your floor.
It's just the usual media rubbish where they're trying to terrify people.
Right.
Whatever.
And it's the same with every country, whatever they've got the most of, that's what the media comes up and says, this is terrifying.
Absolutely.
It's just publicity stunt, isn't it, really?
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, I think it's really kind of an unfortunate side of kind of humanity and just how we kind of function, if you will.
Because we, I mean, we know that fear is a really great motivator.
So there's a lot of things in the media and sometimes here in the States, like we know this firsthand is, you know, you dredge up a bit of fear about one thing.
Then that means that people are going to go out and, you know, be buying things to help prevent that one thing or they're going to be buying things to help, like, prepare for that one thing.
You know, I think that that's just a part of the world and just kind of how we work together, if you will.
But it's very unfortunate.
I do agree.
I feel like if people were maybe a little more educated on, you know, what the purpose of bees are wasps or even the Africanized honey bees, you know, then they probably wouldn't be quite as fearful.
And we probably have a lot better environment happening, you know, a better ecosystem because then things would be a lot more copacetic.
Hopefully people would be a lot more relaxed and not quite as fearful because, let's be honest, who wants to live in fear?
It's not a fun time.
Oh, really?
I mean, it's not like that.
Because of the fear factor, because it's only a bug.
Yeah.
You kill them and it's like, you know, you just killed somebody's lunch there.
Right, exactly.
But if you look at it like that, you said that every time you kill a bee, you're just killing somebody's lunch.
Somebody's going on great because you kill a lot of bees.
Right.
Rather than, you know, catching it, releasing it outside of your house or wherever you found it, like, you know, that that was a wasp's lunch.
Like they were going to take care of it for you rather than you doing it on your own.
It just kind of sucks.
So I definitely hear you.
It's not like that. It falls down and something's going to eat them.
So it's all not kind of that.
Rather than you just flatten it on your window.
Yeah, yeah.
Just make sure it's on your window.
Shoot it out.
You know, it's part of the chain, essentially.
Everything is eaten by something else.
So there's, you know, there's big fish eat the little fish, but then there's a much bigger fish that's going to eat that other big fish.
You know, so it's just kind of.
I feel like it's just kind of weird and redundant.
It's just a weird part of society that we play on our own fears and that way.
And it's detrimental to a lot of bee species and, you know, other input species, especially like spiders, you know, of elder beetles boxed or the box elders, you know, it's.
They have a purpose and even if that purpose is just being food for another invert, like it's important.
Okay, so the last topic that I have is parasites and pets.
So what kind of parasites and pest do bees also have to navigate?
What is the word I'm looking for?
Mitigate?
No.
Navigate would do is like, you know, navigate away from.
Yeah.
I know because I read wax worms.
And when I got into this long time ago and researching because I was like, okay, wax worms.
I know you're getting at the pet shop, but I didn't, you know, where did they come from in reality?
Where did they live in nature?
And that was very surprised that they actually live in bee hives.
And the reason they call wax worms is because he eats bees wax.
So that's amazing.
Which is actually nightmare.
It can actually collapse a complete hive, killing off the entire colony.
Oh, wow.
Tiny little moth larva can do that.
I find that completely amazing.
Sorry, I've got cramp in my head.
Oh, no.
It's turning the back of my thigh.
Oh, no.
I can imagine.
Yeah.
But yeah, it's, I think that's, well, I think it's a bit of a big back worm.
Because everybody that buys wax worms, but very few people, I think meal worms are another one.
And he's like, he really sits down when he buys these food for their animals and goes, I wonder where this comes from in nature.
I wonder where it turns into.
But there you go.
Wax worms are a nightmare for beekeepers.
So, and be like, wow, I have a friend who was a beekeeper.
He said, goes for a writing club with her.
And she, she wrote the book on bees surprise, surprise.
And she keeps bees in the nearest city's cathedral.
She keeps them in, in on the top on the roof of the old bell tower.
Oh, wow.
It's just, and it's right in the middle of the city.
And it is like, the I've some on the top of this, on top of the bell tower, which I think is a fascinating weird thing anyway.
But yeah, she's telling me about wax worms.
I can, can, can completely ruin a colony just, just for a month getting in there and laying its eggs can be a disease.
Wow.
And then you've got the other parasites, which we've well know, because we've seen them on ants, we've seen them on wasps, which is the zombies.
When you get the zombie fungi, it's a real act of the bee.
If it gets coming in, so it's, it's, that's another one, that's another parasite.
It's not parasite, I think it was it.
Well, yeah.
Yeah, because it's a zombie fungus, it uses the a bee body, basically to, to procreate and to create more of that zombie zombie fungus.
So I definitely think it would be a parasite.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I know.
But the science is any sciences or entomologists watching and say, no, that's not a parasite.
That's a, you know, it's a fungus site.
I don't know.
It should be named for, it always got me weird name for everything out in the late hours.
I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure it classifies as a parasite.
Absolutely.
Because it's, it's using another life form for its own life.
Right.
I mean, that's essentially the, the, what a parasite is.
So it makes sense.
I mean, they can also be affected by nematodes.
And, you know, other things like that.
So it describes you things to, to mother bees, you know, dreaded nematodes man.
Yeah.
No, they're all things, but sort of a beneficial.
So there you go.
But bees are not in the structural and you know, the, you see a bee and you think, oh, look at that.
People, big, it might contain a hair worm, for instance, with another nasty thing that
infects animals, makes them go into the water and drown themselves.
Which is, you know, again, nobody knows how they're assuming there's some kind of neural
interface that the parasite has with the bug's brain.
Lattice get it also hair worms where you'll get to a certain size when you need to come
out to get into the water and they'll send the bug into the water to drown itself and
then we'll just come out when you take the water.
So, wow.
That's a yet another one that can affect bees.
Absolutely.
As a, as a, as a, as a, as a, as a, as a, as a, as a, as a parasite, the oil beavel.
Oh, yep.
People, absolutely.
Oil beavel.
Oh, the oil beetle.
Okay.
That actually can climb up to the top of the plant and sit on the flowers to allow the
loads of them to sit on the flowers, wait for a bee to arrive like taxi, crawl on the bee
and then fly off to another flower.
And that's basically how they get around, which is, which is quite, you know, if you think
about how that could have evolved, this is crazy ideas that this beetle lab has gone.
Anyway, we'll go up to the top of the plant, wait on the flowers, jump on the next green
and then we'll move on to the next place.
We'll get a lift off the bee basically.
I think that's, that's quite, quite amusing.
But she said that's fascinating.
Fascinating.
I'm from Greece all of a sudden, right?
But yeah, one of the most fascinating ones is, is one you mentioned, and you'll know more
about it than I do because you have them and we don't.
It's just a, a tarantula wasp.
Oh, right.
The opposite of par, it's a parasite basically, isn't it really?
It's, it's, well, yeah, again, there's a word for that.
But parasite, I think we'll do because it's, it's praying on another creature, but in a
weird way.
I mean, great, it just stings it, paralyzing keeps the spider alive for months.
Yep.
While the larva eats the inside of the spider.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
It's, it's disgusting.
It's gross.
Absolutely.
The fact that it's stoned it and paralyzed it, the lady said to it, but to keep it alive
so it's fresh.
Well, it's, yeah, that's next level.
That's the next level.
I don't think it's, it's, it's, it's out, but it eats it alive.
Yeah.
But it takes them about five minutes.
Right.
Not like a few months.
Plus the life from inside out, but it's tiny, tiny little worms, which is basically
our worms that are larvae.
Yeah.
It's slowly, but it's alive and it must be.
And the inside out too, like that's, that's gotta be excruciating.
Right.
I mean,
horrible.
The thing about books with the pain because I read conflicting papers on pain in inverts
groups.
I believe they both come up with a decent amount of proof on both sides that there is pain.
And what they're saying is some, some books actually, all books don't register pain.
They register damage.
Oh, that's the reason why things like crickets and whatnot, when you pick up what your tweezers
do, just say, just lose a leg and run off.
They don't care.
Don't bleed to death.
They, they prepare to accept that damage.
I wear some vanses, the vanses most badly, let's say a leg.
Quite aptly.
It'll chew its own leg off if it's in the way.
You know, if it's dragging this on me, it'll chew its own leg off and carry on.
That's amazing.
Pain versus damage registration.
So instead of, so instead of pain, it's the damage.
Yeah.
So it's brains going, okay.
That, that, that legs got something wrong with it.
I don't need that leg or body is, I don't know how that affects like, if you have a,
if you ever seen, well, you've seen it, when you look up, the spider and the spider bites
it, yeah, doesn't act like it's in terrible pain.
It just looks like it wants to get away because it's been grabbed over like as if you picked
up, it doesn't seem to be an excuse to pain.
It's not flailing or anything.
No, I can imagine like that.
That's why we, I think that's why we associate those kind of reactions from, from say, you
know, the trench light bite with the cockroach.
That's probably why we associate that with a pain response is because you're absolutely
right.
They kind of look like they're just trying to get away, moving their legs around.
You know, in an, in an effort to run away.
So that makes a lot more sense that they are just registering, oh, I'm damaged.
Whatever damaged me.
I've got to get away from the damage, right?
That's fascinating.
That's sort of, if that's the case, then the tarantula wasp when it's eggs in there.
Now it becomes a different sort of scenario.
It's that as bad as what we can imagine if somebody laid eggs in, or they was eating
us from the inside bit by bit, you know, right?
Is it as bad?
I wonder if it's the same kind of neuro receptors, you know what I mean?
Like, because when we are in pain, then that's essentially what it is is also damaged for
sure.
Because then our body will go and heal whatever it is that's causing us pain.
But at the same time, the nerves and the neurons are sending that message to our brain saying,
okay, this is pain, this is pain, there's something wrong.
I'm wondering if it's almost, if they're similar in that, in that way.
That's really fascinating.
I don't know.
The one of the papers said to get the message that something's wrong in an area and didn't
know what the area is, whereas we need pain in that area for us to know where it is.
Does that make sense?
No, it does.
Total sense.
Like a broken finger.
Their brain, a lot of them don't even have, a lot of things don't actually have brains
as really calm brains.
The other neuroganglia.
Like when sales have a neural ganglia, they don't actually have a brain, what we would
see as a brain.
So it makes sense that less information would get there and need to be processed, whereas
ours is very complicated with that nervous system.
Total system.
You know, we have different kinds of pain as well.
Yeah.
We know when we've been burnt, we know we've been pricked, we know we're trapped or bang.
We know the difference between the pains, whereas the insects, are they noticing the
difference, or are they just noticing that leg has got damage?
Right.
So it comes out of life feed and all sorts of things.
Is it both or is it both, it's been life fed?
Does it just keep going?
Oh, that leg's got damage.
Oh, the other leg's got damage.
That's very fascinating.
Or is it really screaming in agony silently?
Right.
I don't know how we would ever be able to discern that.
I would assume there needs to be a lot of research into it if it's something that was
interesting.
Tiny little droves.
Yeah, right?
Tiny little droves.
I think it's kind of digressed there for bees.
A little bit, but that's okay.
That's okay because bees can inflict a lot of damage and pain.
So it works.
It's a good point actually.
I wonder when a bee stings, let's say a wasp for instance is attacking it, it stings it.
A wasp feels anything.
Well, you know, that's a really great question because they do, like when they sting, they
do have a venom that comes with their stinger.
So I'm, yeah, I agree.
I wonder if, you know, a wasp that's been stung by, you know, a yellow jacket or something,
if it's a painful, it could be a painful experience, maybe something similar to what we experience.
I don't think so, but I wonder if it's more like neurotoxin to where maybe it kind of paralyzes
them or just kind of shuts down their, you know, their central nervous system or something
like that.
So that's, that's a really good question, Simon.
With the pain thing, I could probably go on our day and come up with examples to get off
that project quickly because I've got loads of them in my head now whizzing round, which
are just, you know, not, you're completely off topic.
So yeah, stick to bees.
No, you're doing, you're awesome.
I appreciate everything today.
You've done a fantastic job with information about bees and pain receptors.
It's, it's awesome.
Very, very cool.
We're actually rounding out to the end of our podcast.
So Simon, do you have anything that you would like to plug for this week?
What you got going on?
The shameless plug.
Nothing the same as usual.
Go to my channel, give us a subscribe, give you videos.
Yeah, like it if you want.
I'm not really, yeah, just do that.
All right.
Yeah, you said you've been breeding a lot of mantises this week, right?
Because the heat wave that you guys had.
So a lot of them are ready for that.
Yeah, I got a lot of them knocking around, but waiting to be bred.
Yeah.
It goes to be doing a stream one day this week, hopefully with Shady again.
Yeah.
We did go last week, but hopefully we'll do one again this week.
Oh, I hope so too.
I'm going to attempt to pair a mantis because she just bought some mantis.
Oh, awesome.
And I have the same mantis that are ready to pair.
So I was hoping we could pair it on the stream and she could watch me pair them.
And when she comes to do hers, it'll be to have something there.
Yeah.
But we tried last week and was unsuccessful.
So we'll have to wait until this week to see if we'll try again.
Did you happen to find the spiny flower mantis female?
I did.
I found several of them.
Yes.
So I know three females there and one male who's very traumatized.
It's got PTSD on the thread at the moment.
Oh, no.
We've got to give him a few days and try him again because they're very, very aggressive.
Oh, I can imagine.
Yes.
It's one of the most aggressive mantis.
Wow.
Yeah.
As soon as the male gets home, nine times out of 10, she's trying to kill him.
So yeah, stick your finger in there and intervene.
Otherwise he'd be lunched.
So yeah, he's got trouble at the moment.
He's at three of them and he's eating.
So we're going to break.
Now we'll try him again.
Oh, poor guy.
I'm sure he'll be fine.
Let's see.
What I've got going on.
I've got baby Phytopis audex that I'm trying to find people who want them here, obviously.
In Denver, I can't really ship because I'm just, I'm low level.
I'm not even a breeder really.
But yeah, I've got a whole bunch of little baby spools that are absolutely ready for new homes.
And this week I will, I just released my Hall of Outstanding Longa Peas, Rehouse and Species Spotlight video yesterday.
And then this upcoming week, I had a couple of little slings that are now, well, they're still pretty slingish, if you will.
But a couple of Old World Cool Little Baboon Tarantula Species that I've rehoused.
So be looking forward to that video and it'll be a lot of fun.
And Tiny Plastic Babies.
That's like a thing for me now.
I've put these in every little enclosure that I've got.
So look out for the Tiny Plastic Babies.
And yeah, that's it.
Yeah, so it was good.
It's been a good week.
Simon, as always, it's a pleasure to talk with you and doing our, our invert chat.
And I really enjoyed talking about these and thank you so much for being here.
And yeah.
Anytime.
All right.
Thank you guys so much for watching.
We are going to sign off.
As always, you can find us on YouTube and obviously Facebook and other cool places.
So yeah, bye guys.
See you later.
Bye.