What's All The Buzz About?

Bees Provide Humans With More Than Just Painful Stings

(CBS)  Without bees, there would be no pumpkins, no apples, no oranges and no onions — to name just a few of the crops that wouldn't exist if bees didn't accumulate pollen from male flowers and deposit it in female flowers.

David Hackenberg has been a beekeeper for more than 40 years.

"People don't understand how important this honey bee is to, you know, the survival of us," he says. "One-third of all the food we eat is derived from honeybee pollination. It actually amounts to about $14.5 billion a year in the United States, what the value of food that is produced from pollination of honeybees," he tells CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Martha Teichner.

If those statistics surprise you, be prepared to be amazed. Holley Bishop is the author of "Robbing The Bees" and an amateur beekeeper.

"A bee lives for six weeks, that's it," she says. "And in that entire lifetime she'll make about a twelfth of a teaspoon of honey."

In addition to nerve, a beekeeper needs two things: a willingness to make a fashion statement, and a smoker. Puff smoke at agitated bees, and they'll go back in the hive and calm down.

"Bees eat honey," Bishop says. "That is why honey exists. Bees take nectar from the landscape they'll gather from about two million flowers to make one pound of honey. Nectar is about 80 percent water. They'll bring it back to the hive and dry it out, until it's about 16 percent water, and then it's honey."

A drawing of a rock painting from around 6000 B.C. is an indication of how long people have been robbing the bees in one way or another. The ancient Egyptians did it. The medieval Europeans did it — at times with a vengeance against their enemies. You've heard of dive-bombing? How about hive-bombing?

"Bees are typically, habitually gentle," Bishop says. "But if they're, you know, thrown through the air in a catapult, by the time they landed they were furious, and they would just sting whoever, you know, wherever they landed. That was a pretty effective weapon."

Before the pilgrims brought them to Plymouth Rock, there were no honey bees in North America. Supposedly, the Indians called them "white man's flies."

There are something like 60,000 bees in a healthy hive, almost all of them female. The males, or drones, have one job: to mate with the queen and then die. You can actually see it in "Tales From the Hive," shown on the PBS program Nova. The documentary also shows how bees communicate by dancing.

David Hackenberg is one of about 1,600 commercial beekeepers in the U.S., compared to more than 200,000 amateurs.

We're some of the last cowboys of the West," he says. "Instead of roundin' up cows, we're roundin' up bees and moving them around the country."

Hackenberg averages 5,500 miles a year renting his 3,000 hives to farmers from Florida to Maine to pollinate their crops because there aren't enough wild bees to do the job.

The honey produced along the way takes on the taste of whatever is being pollinated. Hackenberg processes a quarter of a million pounds of honey a year, extracting it with a big centrifuge.

What's astonishing is watching how nonchalant the people who work around bees are about getting stung.

"I'd rather get stung by a bee that a mosquito," Hackenberg says.

[cweenbee-2009]

I missed your show, but I was told from a friend in Austin how educational and informative it was. I logged on and they were right! Thank-you for such a good job! I just so happen to be an apitherapist! Yes I have an active practice in the Laurel Highlands region of southwestern PA. I combine apitherapy (which is bee sting therapy combined with the use of the hive products such as honey, pollen, etc. for healing purposes) with shiatsu, which is a type of acupressure massage. My mission is education and promotion of natural healing. Questions welcome! - CJ [e-mail]

[mtnhoney]

Honey is mankind's oldest sweetener. 2 Million flowers to make just 1 pound of honey, WOW. When we talk about busy as a bee, I don't think we had any idea how much work this tiny little honeybee does to help pollinate our fruit and vegetables.

Here in America we have the best honey in the world. Clover from the west, buckwheat from the plains, tulip poplar and blackberry from the north, orange blossom from Florida and California and Sourwood Honey from the southern Appalachians.

My husband and I are life long beekeepers. We work hard to product the best product we can, 100% pure raw and natural honey. Today many honeys are adulterated with corn syrup or mixed with imported honey from other counties. Consumers should bee aware of products saying they have honey in their name, but read the ingredients %u2013 you may not fine one drop of real honey in the product.

Thank you CBS Morning Show for bring to light this wonderful program on honeybees and all the wonderful things we get from the honeybee.

Virginia Webb
349 Gastley Road
Clarkesville, GA 30523
MtnHoney.com

[dslayden-2009]

I have an interior beehive at our Science center and the kiosk has a video furnished by our local Beekeeper association.Your CBS Sunday Morning video was excellent and I would really like to use it in my exhibit. How can I get a copy of this to use?

[fdwt950]

I WOULD LIKE TO GET INFOMATION ON PAIN MANAGEMENT DOCTOR THAT'S USING BEE STINGS. I HAVE A FRIEND IN WEST TEXAS THAS SUFFER FROM SHINGLES. I THINK THIS COULD HELP HIM THANK YOU

[pollparker]

I did not see this story about the healing properties of bee stings, but my brother did in Boulder, Colorado.. Our dear mother (83)has been experiencing post herpetic neuralgia(nerve pain) for 3 months and living with me. Does any one know where I could go to find a bee keeper that could help my mom?
Polly Parker
[e-mail]
W. Simsbury, CT.

[shirttale1]

I have written and copyrighted a book entitled The Little Bee that Lost It's Buzz(C)which expresses through honeybees, faires, gnomes and animals the tremendous empact clearing of land for residential & commercial use,humans replanting the same plants, shrubs, trees and ground cover in their landscaping vs those provide by nature,insecticides and so on.

It is written for people of all ages in hopes of bring awareness through education, and encourage all to check with one's county extension agents for info on plantlife which provide food for bees, butterflys, lady bugs and other helpful insects.

If we do not help we will pay the price literally and see foods that we currently enjoy
possibly disapear.

Thank you so very much for this informative and entertaining HELLO from the Bees and their Keepers...which is all of us.

Sherra C. Jarrells
[e-mail]

[buffybee]

David says;
Thank you for doing this program on honey bees.
You did an excellent job of showing the honey bees role in nature in providing food. Also a good tool for education.

[masterblair-2009]

A great stroy as usual. But my first posting on a slight mistake in reference (I guess I am a geek that I am posting for such a thing). At the end of the story the reporter Marcia Tysner (not sure if that is the correct spelling) says... "So if you should find yourself in Gothom, look up. It's a bird. It's a plane. No, it's a bee keeper".

Well obviously she is trying to use the Superman Quote. Trouble is that Gotham (City) is the home of Batman. Superman's home was Metropolis, USA.

I know it is a minor point. I myself am a minor geek. But this one stuck out large to me and I had to spring into action to save all humanity from this small oversite. I am sure by the end of the day this will really matter a great deal.

Toodles.

[tapstonebees]

Thank You CBS!!!

I have always enjoyed CBS this Sunday Morning, and today, I realize what a value education has for so many. You helped to provide informative insight to the life of bees, the beekeepers, and how important they are to the survival of us, Humans.

The extra bit about pain management is such a relief for so many. you have opened a door of hope, for those who had none left. Making people aware of the intrinsic value of Bees, and all that they offer, is a very valuable service. Thank You for making people more educated.

I have been keeping bees for a little over a year now, and what I am learning about nature, is amazing, keep sharing the knowledge.

TapStoneBees
[e-mail]

[beekeeper6]

How can I obtain a copy of :What's All The Buzz About?" Excellent presentation.

[ieg34jr]

I missed viewing "What's All the Buzz About". How can I get a copy to view that segment of the show or will it be shown again in the near future?

Beekeeping is my hobby and my wife tells me there are a couple of extraordinary scenes in the show.

I believe the written copy on the internet has a typing error near the end. I find it highly inprobable that 14 hives could produce 2,000 lbs of honey in one year in NYC. I would expect that type production in the Upper Midwest where there is ample sweet clover but not in a city.

Isaac Grove

[bunnygriffin]

I watched the show this morning with the Bees. Great Sunday Morning Eye Opener. I know when I was a Teenager my mother and I used to go and visit a friend of hers who was a bee/honey man.
(sorry don't know the actual job name)
He was in the town of Windsor Locks. It was great then to get all natural fresh honey from the town next door!

I was especially influenced by your Doctor who uses the bees stings to help with pain. I for one am glad I'm not in a lot of pain to try that I do have just a bit of a reaction to bee sting. When I get stung say in the foot my whole leg swells up and does not go down for at least 3 weeks with medicine. This though I think is because of my circulation.
I do have allergies and would like to get some information from you if I could. Do you have a Doctor who is around in my area or on the internet who cells the honey from Pine Trees, Rag Weed. I do mostly suffer from Mold in and out of the home. I would like to see if I could get some help from honey if possibly in a pill form? Or in my coffee?

Can you direct me to a good source of a honey seller/or Doctor who uses the honey as you mentioned for Allergies?

Thank You

Florence Griffin
384 Taylor Road
Enfield, CT 06082
[e-mail]

[d10pdoyl]

Thank you for your superb story about the much-maligned honeybee in "What's All The Buzz About?"
As amateur beekeepers, it breaks our hearts to hear people burning trees with wild hives just because they are ignorantly afraid. If it wasn't for the bee we wouldn't have much of the food we humans enjoy---as pointed out in your story. Please note though, one omission to the necessity of honeybees: if it weren't for honeybees the world would have no almonds. They enjoy a necessary symbiotic relationship.
Thank you again for your wonderful accurate reporting on the honeybee!