Bees Are Awesome for Kids

Howdy cowboys and cowgirls. I'm Cowboy Jack and today I'm really excited. Do you see where we are? We're at Bee Weaver Honey Farm in Navasota, Texas. It's gonna be so fun. Do you guys like bees? I love bees. I'm actually a little bit scared of them because they can sting but today we're working in their world. We're gonna go inside some hives and see what bees do and how they make us honey. Honey is a really tasty treat. You know what's unique about honey? It's a food that never spoils. Even in Egypt they found honey in the pyramids that's thousands of years old and it's even still edible today. Isn't that cool? Well let's go see some hives and let's go look at some bees. Come on. All right cowboys and cowgirls. We're about to go check out some actual beehives. It's going to be a whole lot of fun but you have to be safe when you're going to go into a beehive. In fact I would never recommend that you go into a beehive by yourself. Today I'm with a trained professional and you know what we have? We have safety gear to keep us safe from the bees. The bees don't really want to harm you but we are going into their home so we need to protect ourselves just in case they were to get a little bit aggravated. I can't go in there wearing my cowboy hat right? So I'm going to go ahead and put on this special beekeeper hat and it'll protect my face and my neck. All right. So long cowboy hat. Wait a second. Are you guys laughing at my hair again? Stop laughing at my hair. I'm going to put this other hat on and then you won't be able to laugh at me anymore. All right. Now you see what this does? This is going all over my face so it's not going to let any bees get to my face at all. And then there's these strings here that I need to tie behind my back. See how coordinated I am. All right. Well now that I've got my special beekeeping hat on we can go ahead and go meet my buddy Roosevelt right in the hives. He's going to teach us all about safety in the hives and what the bees do to make that delicious honey. Come on guys let's go check it out. Now see guys here at Bee Weaver Honey Farm they actually have an observation deck. If you don't feel comfortable getting in the bees or getting in a bee suit you can go in this screened in porch and no bees can get to you but you can see exactly what our All right. Come on. Boy I'm already seeing a whole lot of bees. All right. Well hey Roosevelt I'm Cowboy Jack. Very nice to meet you. So what are we going to look at today? Okay so we're going to get into a beehive and kind of show you what's going on into a beehive and so what we first thing we want to do we want to make sure see this is their entrance where they go in and out. Wow you guys see that? That's exactly where the bees go in and out of the hive. That's really neat. This is their hive. I wouldn't dare go into this beehive unless I smoke it first. This is a home and like I say you do not go into a home unless you knock on the door or ring the doorbell. That's so cool. You better smoke the beehive before you go into it. Okay can I take a look at that? Guys look at this. This is a tool of the trade. This is called a bee smoker. That's a clever name right? And so what this is is a device to put smoke into the hive and that way the bees know we're coming we're here and they know not to get mad at us okay. That calms them down. Now when when you go into the beehive you always want to go into it very slowly. All right guys so we're going to move real slowly and the bees already know we're here because of the smoke. And most of the time the queen does most of the laying down right in the bottom wall and that's why they put the honey in the top part. So guys there's three different types of bees we're going to see today. We're going to see worker bees. Those are the ones you see buzzing all around. We're going to see drones which are responsible for breeding with the queen. And then of course we're going to get to see the queen bee. That's so cool. Wow look inside that hive. There's bees all over the place but we are only getting started right now. This is so exciting. Can you guys hear them? They're really getting to buzzing. Yeah I feel like every so often you're gonna see we put smoke on about every 30 seconds. I'm gonna put some more smoke on them. Okay keep them under control. See he said he's gonna put smoke on them every 30 seconds to keep them calm. Wow and yeah you bring the frame out very slowly. So that's called a frame. Wow so the bees live on these frames and that's where they make their comb and their honey and even lay their eggs. Wow that's a whole lot of bees. So all of these are just worker bees right? Yeah these are worker bees. And see this brown here? This is what we call a brood. That's why the queen laid eggs. Okay so where it looks flat and it's not open that's a brood. That's where an egg has not hatched yet. They give a little bit of bubble looking seal. There's a bee in there. A bee gonna hatch out. Oh wow so bees will hatch right out of there. Right. They're gonna be sealed up just at last stage. See the queen lays up to 2,000 eggs in one day. 2,000 eggs in one day? That's insane. It'll take 21 days before that egg hatches into a bee. Wow so the queen lays eggs and then 21 days later you get little baby bees hatched out. That's so neat. I'm glad I have this mask on my face because these bees are wanting to come all around me and smell me and see what's going on. Right now you know these hives only have one queen and one queen only. Now I want to see can I find you some drones. A drone is the worker bee. He doesn't make any honey and he cannot sting. His only job is to mate with the queen. Sounds like I'd probably really like the drone because he can't sting. Here's the drone here. Oh wow. Catch him with your fingertips. Catch him by the wings. All right I got him. You got him? Yeah. Wow so this is a drone bee guys and he can't sting. He doesn't have any stinger on him. His whole job is to breed with the queen. I don't think he's real excited that I'm holding him right now so I'm gonna go ahead and put him back in his hive with his friends but I'm so glad we got to meet this drone and learn about his job in the hive. That's so cool. See and there he goes back with his friends back into the hive. Okay so anyway that's how and then all these bees you look in here the queen is the mother of all of these bees. The queen is the big mama. She's responsible for all these baby bees. That's so cool. Wow. Okay now what we're gonna do we're gonna okay most of the queen does all her laying in the bottom here. Okay. And they put honey in the top so we're gonna let you look at some of the honey they put in. Oh yeah let's take a look at that honey. That sounds real exciting. Like I said before honey is one of the only foods in the entire world that never spoils. Even the ancient Egyptians preserved some of that honey and you could still eat it today. I think scientists are actually using it to do tests to find out about the pollen and the plants of that period of time but it's really exciting that this honey just never goes bad. Now we're gonna take out the comb of honey but I have I have people coming in every day and uh and I always take out a comb of honey and let them taste it but we're gonna show you some frame of honey here. So I guess you would say like the bottom box would be the bee's nursery where they make all the babies and up here that's where they make their food the honey. That's why they put their mostly see right here we're looking at honey right here. Oh wow. Wow guys you see how that just opens right up and you can actually see the honey in there. Oh wow that looks like really dark rich honey. Liquid gold. Liquid gold that's what I call it too. That looks fantastic. All right guys I'm gonna taste some of this honey. I can't come here and look at all this honey and not give it a taste. Let's open it up right there. Wow that's amazing honey. Wow these bees worked really hard to make me a super tasty treat. That's so cool. All these bees are working so hard to do their individual jobs and they all have a unique role within the colony. Yep so that's why I see these bees that's why we call them busy bees. Busy bees. That's so cool. Wow and it looks like you have a whole lot of different boxes of bees here. I mean there's a lot of bees. Wow so those bees were really nice to us and they invited us into their home to look around and learn about what they do. But we got to go ahead and close it back up because you don't want to keep a bee out too long. It might be his nap time and he might get grumpy if you keep him awake too long. I don't like grumpy bees. This is what we call a nook. What you got here is a miniature beehive. A miniature beehive? Miniature beehive already established. Okay. You got a laying queen in here. Oh okay so this is like a temporary home for the bees until they get to their new home. Laying queen here and everything. Okay. This is a miniature beehive ready. Wow that's so neat and look there's all these air holes in it. There's entry holes. You know what's unique about bees is they get so busy and they move around so much they actually generate a lot of heat. So if you ever had a bee infestation in your house you could go up to the wall and feel it and it would actually be warm to the touch. Then you'd have to get a professional to come move those bees back to a hive somewhere. Wow hi new hive bees. You guys look like you're having a great day. Wow there are so many bees here. This hive got a yeah you know here the queen right here. Where's that? Just a minute that's she right there. Oh yeah I see the queen right there. Yeah that's her. You guys see right on the end of his tool right there she looks a bit different. Yeah she does. Boy she's really pretty and she's a busy lady. She's got a lot of babies to take care of. Yeah that's one laid at 2,000 eggs. Wow I bet she's tired from laying 2,000 eggs. That's a big big job. You know in a queen life of a queen you're gonna live average around about four about four years. Wow a queen can live four years guys. That's one, two, three, four. That's older than cowboy Caden. That's so neat. You guys know what bees are really good at? Geometry. They lay everything in a hexagon shape and they keep everything real tight together so they can maximize the space that they have for as much babies they can make and as many as much honey as they can make. It's really cool. Who knew bees were great at geometry but they are. They're really good at geometry. So this part here is called the brood and these are actually bee eggs underneath that flat part you see and after about 12 days the baby will chew its way out of that covering and come out and get to work in the colony. There's no time for sleeping in a bee colony. Once you're out of the egg it's time to get to work. Hey how far does a bee travel from its hive? Bee gonna travel up to two miles. Two miles? All direction. Two miles on those little bitty wings. That is really exciting. Wow. I had no idea bees could go two miles. I mean cowboy Jack's got these big legs and boots for walking and I don't even go that far very often. That's so unique and cool. Wow. So these busy bees during the busy season only have a life expectancy of about three weeks. It takes them 21 days from egg to hatch to getting in the colony and then a lifespan of three weeks isn't very long for all that work they've done but everything they do keeps the colony going and keeps us really happy because all the plants and vegetables and fruits that we like to eat need bees to pollinate them. They're a very important part of our environment. All right guys well I'm so glad we got to meet our friend Roosevelt today and he showed us all about these bees. I'm about buzzed out. That's when you've had too much bee time on your plate. So I'm gonna go ahead and let Roosevelt get back to his job but thank you so much for your time today. It was my pleasure meeting you and I really appreciate it. All right bye. All right guys well we looked all around those hives and we saw them hanging out in these boxes but here's some boxes that aren't full of bees yet so we can take a closer look. So this is like a typical beehive box. If you want to take a look down in it it's really just an empty box but they put those different frames in there and the bees will build a honeycomb that goes all across here and that's where they lay their eggs that's where they make their honey. There's a lot going on inside these boxes and my buddy Roosevelt told me that once these are full of bees a box about this size could weigh 35 pounds and then the bigger boxes I don't see any of them right here those can weigh up to 60 pounds. That's a whole lot of weight of bees and honey isn't it? That's really cool. Oh here's one of the bigger boxes right here. Here's one of these bigger boxes just take a look at that. So once the bees were to fill this up and make their hive in here this would weigh almost 60 pounds. Isn't that crazy? Oh my goodness and see like before when he was opening those up and they were full of bees as soon as he opened up this lid there was all kinds of bees coming out. I know this one's empty so I don't feel nervous taking the lid off. I just wanted to take a look inside. That was really neat. All right let's go check out some other stuff. All right guys let's go in and take a look around. Hey look at this sign. It says welcome to our hive. We've seen a lot of hives today. We're about to go see a couple more. Come on inside. Right inside the front door they've actually got a hive going so you can see all the worker bees all running around and this is a good place for us to take a look at them because they're behind this sheet of glass and cowboy jack doesn't have to be all scared anymore. That's really neat and if you come look around the back side you can see that there's actually a tube going to the outside so the bees get to go inside and outside right to their hive. That's really neat. Do you guys like candy? I like candy a lot. I mean you don't get to be cowboy jack sized by not liking candy. Well they actually have a lot of candy here at the store that's sweetened with honey. Look at all these different kinds. It's caramel and it's sweetened with honey. This one's strawberry lemonade. Wow strawberry lemonade. That's a lot of flavors mashed into one and we've got pecan pearl, almond coconut. I mean if it's made out of honey they've likely got it here. Come on let's keep looking around. So right over here is where they actually sell their honey at. So if you look I mean this is a big old jar of honey and you see that right there? Bee honey made by Bee Weaver here in Navasota Texas. That's so neat. Wow I mean this thing weighs a lot. Honey isn't light. You think honey weighs more than water? Yeah I bet it does. Just take a look and look at all these honey. Oh I want to show you this. This is an actual honey comb right here. So remember what we saw inside those frames? This is cut up so you could actually eat it at home because you can eat the whole thing and it's really really tasty. Wow that's really neat. Look at the bottom of it there. That's all really good honey. Whoa they even have flavored honeys. Did you know that honey can be flavored and infused with different types of flavors? Like this right here. This is Texas pecan coffee honey. So this is honey but it tastes like coffee and pecans. This one is reaper pepper. Do you guys know about reaper peppers? Reaper peppers are the hottest peppers in the world. You don't want to put those in your mouth because they're really really really spicy. But this honey has it in there so I bet it sweetens it up a little bit. So it's really tasty. That's so nice that they make this. Wow and they've got all these different kinds of goods. I mean there's chocolate peanut butter honey, hazelnut honey, and they even have shortbread cookies that are made from honey made right here at Bee Weaver. That's so cool. Hey I heard they have an even bigger hive in the back. Let's go check it out. Come on. Whoa even more honey. They even have a couple of great books about honey. They got books and keychains and all kinds of fun stuff for you to look at here. But look right here. Come here. Wow another really big hive. So this is a really great visual hive where we can take a look at all of these worker bees doing their thing. They're working really really hard to fill up these frames with honey. So the actual part that we're looking through here you see some parts of it you can see through and other parts you can't. That's the honeycomb like we just saw for sale over there. And these bees are trying to fill it up with honey. That's so neat. And if you look on the back side of it there's another tube going to the outside so the bees can come in and out of the building with ease. If you get up real close to these bees you might even be able to hear them buzzing. Just kidding that was me buzzing. That wasn't the bees. The bees make a really soft hum. But if there wasn't this piece of glass here you'd hear them really loud. Boy this was a whole lot of fun checking out the store here at Bee Weaver. Hey guys I had to take off my cowboy hat because I've got a friend here that's a little bit scared of hats. But she is so so cute. You want to meet the dog named Honey Bee? Look at her there she is. Hey Honey Bee how are you doing sweetie? Wow look at her. Isn't she sweet? Boy she loves bees almost as much as everybody else here. And this is her owner Mitzi. She's the manager here at the store. Hey Honey Bee. Hey thanks for letting Cowboy Jack come and talk to you today. I'm going to shake your hand. That was really fun. I'm so glad I got to show you Honey Bee. She's a really great dog. Wow all right get my cowboy hat back on. I told you guys not to laugh at my hair. Come on. All right guys wow we've had so much fun here today at Bee Weaver Honey Farm in Navasota Texas. We've learned so much about all the different types of bees and you always got to remember whenever you see a bee and you're out by yourself or with an adult you just want to leave bees alone. They don't like to sting you but that's their defense mechanism. So if they get scared they may just sting you. So you got to be really careful. I was with the professionals here at Bee Weaver and so I knew I was safe and I also had a mask on so I knew the bees couldn't get my face. It was so fun learning about the worker bees and the drones and even the queen. There's a whole lot of every bee in the colony has its own job and we learned all about that today and then we got to see all the cool stuff that they have here in the store. It's been a lot of fun so if you had a good time today go ahead and subscribe. See hit the subscribe button. Yeah that way you'll see all of my latest videos because we take it a different adventure every single week. All right guys well I've had fun you've had fun until next time.