The Good Road

Funding for The Good Road has been provided by-- There's a whole lot of good out there, wherever you look, in our towns, in our communities, in the world.

And Toyota engineers vehicles to help you discover more of it.

With off road machines designed to explore off the beaten path like Sequoia, 4Runner, and Tundra I-Force Max, all of which feature traction technology that goes the distance.

So the next time you head out looking for more good, Toyota can take you there.

Toyota, let's go places.

Can looking back push us forward?

Ladies and gentlemen, Ms Billie Holliday.

Will our voice be heard through time?

Can our past inspire our future?

[music playing] [clapping] I didn't know much about bees when I fell in love with them.

And there is a lot to know.

I've been keeping bees on the Peninsula of Charleston for some time now, but the more you know and understand, the more you realize you don't understand.

And whatever Earl knew about bees, I knew less.

I knew that they made honey and that they could sting.

But I didn't know how they made honey or why you use smoke to pacify them or that they mostly don't mind us being around.

And I didn't know how critical they were to our food system.

Bees and other pollinators are required for over 80% of flowering plants to reproduce.

And they contribute to about one third of our food production in the US.

And for decades now, bee populations have been declining.

The bees are dying.

[music playing] A worldwide decline in bee populations has been baffling scientists and beekeepers for years.

The Center for Honeybee Research in Asheville, NC, is a nonprofit that aims to remedy that.

Executive Director Carl Chesick takes us on a tour of their grounds and the 12 year study they are undertaking with an all volunteer staff to discover more about why we are losing so many bees.

And if they make their way inside of your suit or your bonnet?

There you go, you already broke it.

Oh-oh You're never getting out of it.

That's good.

We've been doing a 12 year study comparison and collecting data on the two yards, upper yard up the hill here and the lower yard.

We still don't know what's killing the bees.

I mean, we're losing an amazing amount of bees every year, and it's been going on for a decade.

And we're barely hanging on keeping the number of bees we have so we're trying to find out what it is.

Our farming system has now relied so much on herbicides and chemicals.

They've killed all the pollinators and the big mono farms, they don't get their crops pollinated unless they bring in semis of honeybees.

So I don't think people realize that without bees, they're not going to have a crop.

We're having to raise new colonies to make up for each year's loss, so we are just one disaster away from having a major problem.

And people are like, well, we're not going to starve or whatever but what you may see is cherries' $55 a pound, watermelons' $20 each, that kind of thing.

They say 2/3 of everything we eat is bees' work so it's pretty important.

Yeah.

I got to be on me?

You do.

Well, that's perfect.

Alice.

Hey, Alice.

How you doing?

What are we going to see when we open up one of the hives?

You're going to see the bees home.

Yeah.

The nursery where they're raising more bees, you're going to see foragers coming and going.

We may get to see the queen.

95% of the bees that are in there right now are female, which are the ones that can sting.

The males don't have a stinger.

So explain the difference in the colors.

The yellow is basically the bees' home.

Everything that's in there belongs to them.

The blue boxes, that's where we collect the rent, the honey.

We'll let Earl fire it up since he's a pro.

It's funny, y'all do it a little differently than we do it down in Charleston.

Number one, and we don't have electric fences around our hives.

We have a resident bear we've named Little Grunt.

And it was a cold November, did his thing, had a leisurely dinner.

And when he left, he went straight up to the camera like six inches off and went [grant] and the breath kind of wafted up in the air and-- Everything you've ever learned on a cartoon is true.

Yeah, yeah.

What's really happening when we're smoking bees?

There's a couple of theories on what the smoke does.

Some say it mimics a forest fire and that the bees panic and think that they might have to abandon their nest so they gorge up on honey.

And when they're that full, it's hard for them to turn their abdomen around and plant a stinger.

And the other theory is that since most of their communication is by smell pheromones, that the smoke kind of confuses their chemical signals.

If we get a good bed of coals underneath, it stays lit.

Let's go say good morning to the girls.

And you've already turned that off.

Well, if it isn't blinking, it's a good sign.

I like your test.

You're testing system seems fine.

So these girls look like they're up and awake.

Generally if we're behind the flight path, are we pretty safe?

Yeah, generally you don't want to stand in front because all the returning bees will come and then suddenly there's a mountain in front of their door that wasn't there when they left in the morning.

And they're like-- they're up here.

That's a good thing.

You want to give them a little bit right in there, say hello.

OK, girls.

So they're not-- they don't have a lot of honey up here yet.

Better safe than sorry.

Yep.

What are you looking for typically as a researcher when you're getting into these?

Well, throughout the season we want to make sure that their queen is still in there.

And 90% of the time everything is fine but if something goes wrong and you don't check, the colony can die out.

At Carl's prompting, we undertook a side quest to find the queen.

Wow, that is capped.

That's all honey so they're going to be in the bottom box.

That's why they're honey supers are empty.

What does that mean, cap?

So this that looks like water in the bottom of the cells, that's nectar that hasn't gotten the water evaporated out.

They'll fan their wings and evaporate the water down to less than 20%.

Then they put a wax coating on it to keep it from absorbing moisture if it's a humid day.

So this colony has decided they're going to deprive the slim landlord of his honey.

I've got nothing to extract in my boxes because they kept it all in this top box here.

A lot of times they should have brewed all the way up in this box.

I could just tell as you were pulling it off, Carl, that that thing seemed a lot heavier.

It is.

That's about 80 pounds.

80 pounds of honey, wow.

Just amazing.

One trick is to get some space here.

Wow, that thing is teeming with bees.

Now in here, this white is actually the larva.

And they'll go like this for about seven days, and they'll put a capping on it.

This kind of felt looking capping, it was different from the honey that we looked at here, this color is actually worker brood.

These are bees that are going through metamorphosis.

So they're becoming adult bees and they'll chew their way out and be fresh.

And that was just our first frame.

Yeah, I didn't see the queen on that.

We'll just go a little faster because-- how many cells do you think are on one of these frames?

Boy, good question.

Let's see 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60.

I'm going to say 150.

Is he close, Carl?

No.

300.

No, 3,200 cells on this face and 3,200 over here.

So the last frame that was solid brood on both sides, over 5,000 bees are going to hatch in the next 10 days.

We're doing kind of quick because we're hoping to see the queen.

I saw the queen on the other side.

You did?

I thought I saw the yellow.

I thought I saw a yellow.

All right.

Now you put your reputation.

I know, right.

And I'm wrong.

I don't see it anymore.

I thought it was-- There's yellow pollen.

That's pollen on the back legs.

They have a saddlebag on their back legs.

And the pollen is what they make the baby bees out of, the honey is basically the gasoline for the motor.

I don't see her on this one.

How many volunteers do you guys get coming through here?

On the rolls we've got 100 volunteers maybe.

So we have seasoned beekeepers that are the team leaders that would go through and make sure we get the data collected.

It kind of becomes a bee school and a tour.

Why is it important for you guys to have people involved in the research?

We're trying to get the public to open up.

There's the thing, a lot of them got stung when they were kids and they hated bees ever since.

And they don't understand and they don't know bees are absolutely fascinating.

If you learn a little bit, you might get hooked.

They don't have a central plan.

The queen's not in charge.

They just kind of know what needs to be done and they just take it up and do it.

So I think that's a really good model for humans.

That piece of garbage is there, instead of going, somebody should pick that up, no, you go over there and pick it up.

It's something you can do, it doesn't take that much time and it's good for the whole planet.

Carl, how long have you been doing this?

20 something years.

Wow, OK. After scouring several frames in the bee boxes, we didn't find the queen but we were given a consolation prize.

There's a little drop of honey here for somebody if they want to taste.

This is some of the best honey I've ever tasted.

You know what kind it was?

You have to ask them what they've been gathering.

What do you usually get around here?

That tastes like locust to me.

Locust?

We've got a locust tree on the-- we got them all over but there's one on the corner there.

After a taste of honey, Carl took us up to see their Wi-Fi monitored hives and explained how technology is changing bee-search-- I mean, research.

These hives are live on internet, so every five minutes they're sending data.

So things like that underneath our digital scale so we know minute by minute how much it weighs.

And that can actually show us in the morning when the bees go out, the weight goes down.

So in this case, we're sending to the house over there, we've got an antenna.

So every five minutes it sends all of the data to our website.

So you're doing it on the-- putting it on the internet.

Can people-- Yeah, anybody can look at the hives.

For as long as we've had bees around, with human civilization and cultivated and stuff like that, it feels like we're still learning.

They say they've written more about bees than any other insect in 5,000 years of keeping bees.

For us, the high tech, being able to have cameras and microphones, bee counters, being able to really look at it, we'll be able to see things with beekeepers for 5,000 years have never noticed.

Once you guys are able to collect the data, then what do you feel like we learn?

I don't know what we're going to learn but everything you learn brings more questions and the questions need more answers.

As humans we're just trying to get super fast to the answer, and sometimes we don't even know what the question is, right?

And it kind of confines what we could possibly learn.

When you've probably decided this is what we're going to answer, you're not looking for anything else.

And just know that there's darkness, I'm going to try to bring a candle in and see what we can see.

Yeah.

Before we left, we got to meet Samantha Fox Winship, bee mother of mother's finest bees and one of the few women of color to be in the bee space.

She was in town for Honey Fest and one of the judges for the Black Jar Honey Tasting.

This is my first time beekeeping with some other women.

It's fun, right?

It's normally a solo dolo thing.

Yeah, it is fun.

Can y'all come move to Winston-Salem?

Or I'll move to Asheville.

We are in a bee yard.

Guess what, I like to be in the bee yard as a beekeeper.

It's fun for me.

Well, I mean, and I am interested because you've got an interesting story, but how did you get into this whole beekeeping business?

I saw a place that needed some representation.

And what better than somebody with a crown red lipstick and sprinkling some Black girl magic out here amongst the bees in the world?

Yeah, I hate to interrupt but I just got stung.

He's still stinging me.

Cool.

Where are you?

In his head.

Yeah, you want to pull the stinger out.

Is it in there?

I can't see it.

You should-- I'm about to get stung again.

Now he's going to start probably getting-- You're getting nailed again.

Unfortunately, the bees couldn't get enough of Craig, so we moved out into the yard.

So, Samantha, what was it about beekeeping that drew you in.

The labor of love.

I like reaping the harvest after putting in some work and working for it.

And is there an important part of being a woman in being a beekeeper?

And they just bring something special like a goddess energy that just exudes from bees.

And the queen bee, look at how much life that she brings to that hive.

It's generations of her that one queen inside of one hive.

And only a woman can essentially do that.

So I think the representation is awesome.

I've heard a lot in the beekeeping world where they say, you get in for the honey, you stay for the bees.

That's a true statement.

Yeah.

I like that.

They say 5 million beekeepers worldwide.

So every place that has flowers is going to have honey bees and there's going to be honey.

And all that honey is going to be different depending on what kind of plants they're visiting.

And I got stung, but not everybody gets stung.

Not everybody gets stung.

Only the people who have the sweet smelling hair and cologne on.

We'll come back to Asheville for Honey Fest in a bit.

But first, we want you to meet honey man.

Bees are kept all over the world, and we were lucky enough to find their leader in Saint Croix Vi.

Honey man, we're on your property.

Where are we heading down to now?

We're heading down to holy grounds.

One of the blessed places on this island.

Your father started the beekeeping, and you're continuing in that same tradition.

Second generation.

And I got some little third generation behind me.

On this property, how many hives are you maintaining?

Totally say about 70.

But you're constantly you're catching swarms and splitting hives.

I have total about 270 hives right now.

20 different locations on island.

So we're all-- you do some bees, is that a lot of hives?

Two hives.

And I do two small hives.

Welcome to my girls.

So they start bouncing against you that means they will start-- no, no, you don't need to worry at all right now.

OK.

This is just the top bar.

Yeah, you're not a frame at all.

Wow, that's amazing.

Are you not worried about them stinging you?

Nah.

[laughing] Let me see if I'm going to find mommy.

This is a skill I have not yet gotten good at.

For real?

I can't find the queen.

Hold this, I'm going to show you the queen.

All right.

Let's see.

Where is mommy?

She's not in here.

How did the bees come to you?

There's a science called voodoo.

I'm a voodoo bee god.

You got to study the bees and let them come to you.

That's right.

This honeycomb came out of the wild.

You started with honeycomb.

That's right.

See, if I captured it out of someone's house to remove, I would take the honeycomb and tie it up on top of this with this piece of wire.

I used to take the telephone wire and tie it on top of this.

And the reason why, for the bees to give me a call.

[laughter] Let me taste some of the honey first.

OK. Oh my gosh.

Do you want to dig in?

Yeah.

I'll have some as well.

That tastes very different from the Teddy bear.

Go ahead and hold it.

Hold it.

You got it?

I got it.

All right.

Again, they don't seem that bothered by me.

They love you, that's why.

They don't really know me.

[laughter] Can you see the queen?

Yep.

But only because it's obvious.

She's got a little dot on the head.

That's her here.

That's awesome.

So this queen is a Hawaiian queen.

So you're supposed to be saying Aloha.

Aloha.

Aloha.

The yellow mark tells you the year the queen was born.

So this was born in 2022, yellow color.

So how important is the bee industry to the agricultural scene of Saint Croix?

Honey bees pollinate at least 70% to 75% of the crops that we eat.

There's no bees, are you willing to come and pollinate all of these cucumbers for me?

No bees, no food.

No bees, no food, right?

That's right.

OK, girls.

I can hear them now.

That's right.

That's a good time to smoke it.

That's starting to sound like a horror film.

You want to hold this one?

Go ahead.

So you were saying you're not necessarily a religious person.

When he asked me if I'm a Rasta, well, by faith you could say yes, but I'm human.

That's right.

That's first and foremost, the most important thing.

This is beautiful out here.

And the bees are just fascinating.

If I'm not in a hive, I'm in the garden.

Pollen basket-- Yeah.

And it's so-- --so you can tell what type of flower she's in, but you can look around, there's no orange flowers.

She's traveling far.

So the distance that bees will go.

Three to seven miles radius.

The queen last three to five years.

Worker bees, the one that makes honey, 35 days.

And that 35 days, they have a job from their birth.

They start to clean out all of these holes that is clean to get it prepared for the queen to start laying more eggs.

Just to clean up their own-- Start grooming, that's right.

Now, the younger bees is who produce more royal jelly.

So that's the second job they're going to be doing.

The third job, they're going to be going out to be foraging.

The last job before they die is to stay in front of the entrance and start guarding as guard bees.

Do you remember how I showed you sometime I put it empty?

Yeah.

This is how I put it empty, and they just built it.

They do it themselves.

They do it theyself.

The same thing with this, if I just put this top empty in the middle, they do it theyself.

There's lots of ways to do it but it's all the bees do bee things.

A Rasta is a Rasta no matter where he goes.

A lion is a lion and a bee is a bee.

Here's mommy.

Yep.

Yeah, she's huge.

Yeah, I see you there.

The color of the honey will change throughout the year.

When the bees make honey, they make it this color first.

The wax, they make it this color first, white.

Age, the darker it gets.

I was going to ask you about the dark color because I've only ever seen that color.

This one actually is one of the oldest honeycomb in this hive.

Can you hear the tone of the bees?

I hear.

Once you hear that, you give them a little smoke.

I wasn't going to suggest it, but it's not bad to start the smoking.

When they're angry or grumpy, I'm going to say let's go.

Out of here.

And I'm going to say, follow me.

Hot girls.

Number one, I'm a person that just love to get in tune with nature.

This is me.

I think it's in my blood.

As we headed back, he shared some fresh papaya with us and one last piece of advice.

I listened to my elders.

The elder said the papaya seeds is good for the process.

So I'm a man and I want to live a little extra longer.

So you got to eat healthier.

Well, I'm making sure I'm eating all the seeds.

Well, really, thank you for what you're doing is for the whole community.

The work that you're doing, the farming, the beekeeping, you can tell that you love your island.

I don't think I have plans to be leaving anytime.

We appreciate you taking the time with us today.

And helping me get over my fears of opening up a hive.

I'm going to do that from now on.

Exactly.

You just got to know the voodoo of the bees.

Speaking of the voodoo of the bees, it's time to get back to Honey Fest.

Honey Fest is held every year in Asheville and brings together beekeepers from all over the world.

There are a lot of reasons to come.

Not the least of which is the black jar honey contest where honey is judged on its taste alone, hence the opaque jars.

And where yours truly is a celebrity judge.

Hey, everybody.

I'm assuming you all have come into this vast space to learn who our winner is for the 12th annual black jar international honey tasting contest.

Today, our judges tasted 30 finalists, and of those 30, they picked winners in 10 different categories from around the world.

So all of those category winners after they got selected were retasted by the same judges.

And the one that they consider the very finest honey is Jose Messeguer from Costello, Spain.

That is the world's best tasting honey this year.

Thank you all for coming to the festival.

Hope you're having a good time.

So next time you fly in terror from a striped pollinator or consider smashing her in place, just remember how critical they are to our food supply and that they've got it pretty hard already.

And where would we be without them?

Just remember, you get into it for the honey, but you stay for the bees.

Funding for The Good Road has been provided by-- Can looking back push us forward?

Ladies and gentlemen, Ms Billie Holliday.

Will our voice be heard through time?

Can our past inspire our future?

What makes a good road?

Blazing a trail, making a difference, being unafraid to take the path of most resistance.

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Toyota is all about paving good roads.

Toyota, let's go places.

[music playing]