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The History of Honey — The Food That Never Dies — Transcript

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0:00In 1922, archaeologist Howard Carter
0:03broke through a sealed doorway in
0:05[music] the Valley of the Kings near
0:06Luxor, Egypt. Inside the tomb of the
0:09pharaoh Tutankhamun, he found gold,
0:12jewels, and furniture untouched for over
0:143,000 years. But among all that
0:17treasure, his team found something
0:19stranger. Sealed inside alabaster jars,
0:22buried beside a dead king as if it were
0:25as precious as gold, was honey. And when
0:28they opened those jars, the honey was
0:30still perfectly edible. 3,000 years old,
0:33[music] and you could have spread it on
0:35toast. Every other food on the planet
0:37rots. Bread molds. Meat decays. Fruit
0:41turns to mush within weeks. But honey
0:44just sits there, centuries passing,
0:46empires collapsing around it, and it
0:49refuses to go bad. So, how does a
0:51substance made by insects [music]
0:53outlast entire civilizations? And how
0:56did this sticky golden liquid become one
0:59of the most valued [music] substances in
1:01human history?
1:02That answer starts long before the
1:04pharaohs.
1:06Long before Egypt even existed as a
1:08civilization. In 1921,
1:11a year before Carter found Tutankhamun's
1:13tomb, a group of researchers exploring a
1:16limestone cave [music] near Valencia,
1:18Spain, found something painted on the
1:21rock wall.
1:21>> [music]
1:22>> The painting showed a human figure
1:23clinging to the side of a cliff,
1:25reaching into a hole in the rock face,
1:27while a swarm of bees circled around
1:29them. In their other hand, they held a
1:32basket. They were collecting honeycomb,
1:34and they had clearly climbed a very long
1:36way to get it. That cave painting, found
1:39at a site called Cueva de la Araña,
1:42which translates to cave of the spider,
1:44is roughly 8,000 [music]
1:46years old. It is one of the earliest
1:48known depictions of humans interacting
1:50with bees.
1:51And it [music] tells us something
1:53important. Before we had agriculture,
1:55before we had writing, before we had
1:57metal tools, or pottery, or permanent
2:00settlements, we were already risking
2:02[music] our lives climbing cliff faces
2:04for honey. Similar rock art has been
2:06found in Southern Africa, in India, and
2:09in Australia.
2:11Across every continent [music] where
2:12bees existed, early humans figured out
2:15the same thing independently. Whatever
2:17was inside those hives was worth the
2:20pain of getting stung dozens, sometimes
2:23hundreds, of times.
2:24And humans were not species that
2:27recognized honey's [music] value. Across
2:29sub-Saharan Africa, a small brown bird
2:32called the greater honeyguide developed
2:34one of the strangest partnerships in the
2:36animal kingdom. A partnership that
2:38lasted tens of thousands of years. The
2:40bird would locate a wild beehive high in
2:43a tree, or inside a rock crevice. Then
2:45it would deliberately seek out a human.
2:47It would call [music] out with a
2:49specific chattering sound, flutter from
2:51branch to branch, and lead the person
2:53directly to the hive. The human would
2:56follow, build a fire, use the smoke to
2:59calm the bees, crack open the hive, and
3:02[music] take the honey.
3:03Then they would leave the wax and larvae
3:05behind for the bird.
3:07This was [music] not trained behavior.
3:09It was a relationship that evolved
3:11through natural selection over an
3:13enormous span of time [music] between
3:15two completely different species built
3:17entirely around one substance. Honey was
3:20so valuable that it literally shaped the
3:22evolution of another animal. For early
3:25humans, honey was quite literally
3:27irreplaceable. It was the only
3:29concentrated source of sweetness
3:31available anywhere in the natural world.
3:34Ripe [music] fruit offered some sugar,
3:36but it was seasonal, unpredictable, and
3:39diluted with water and fiber. Roots and
3:42tubers provided starch that the body
3:44could convert to glucose, but the
3:46process [music]
3:47was slow and inefficient. Honey was
3:49different. It delivered pure,
3:51concentrated, immediately available
3:54energy in a compact package that did not
3:56spoil. It could be found year-round in
3:59tropical and temperate climates, and it
4:01stored safely for months [music] without
4:03any preservation effort. It provided an
4:06incredibly dense burst of [music]
4:07calories, and the effort required to
4:09harvest it, climbing trees and cliff
4:12faces, enduring hundreds of stings,
4:14smoking out aggressive colonies,
4:16>> [music]
4:16>> was worth every second of pain.
4:19Anthropologists believe that honey may
4:21have played a direct role in human brain
4:23development. Our brains consume [music]
4:25roughly 20% of our total daily caloric
4:27intake, despite making up only about 2%
4:30[music] of our body weight. The glucose
4:32in honey would have been one of the most
4:34efficient fuel sources available to
4:36early hominids. Some researchers have
4:39even proposed that reliable access to
4:41honey helped push our ancestors toward
4:44larger, more energy-demanding brains
4:47over hundreds of thousands of years. If
4:49that theory holds up, honey did not just
4:52feed us. It may have helped make us who
4:54we are. But collecting wild honey was
4:56dangerous and unpredictable work. You
4:59had to find the hive first, then figure
5:01out how to reach it, then endure the
5:04fury of thousands of defensive bees. And
5:06at some [music] point, someone figured
5:08out there had to be a better way. The
5:10ancient Egyptians were the ones who
5:12cracked it roughly 4,500 [music]
5:15years ago. Along the fertile banks of
5:17the Nile River, Egyptian beekeepers
5:19built cylindrical [music] clay hives,
5:21stacking them horizontally in rows that
5:23looked almost like wine racks or clay
5:25pipes. These hives were designed to
5:28mimic the hollow logs and rock crevices
5:30[music]
5:30where wild bees naturally nested, and
5:33the bees moved in willingly.
5:35What made the Egyptian approach
5:37remarkable was its scale and
5:39sophistication. Some beekeepers loaded
5:41their hives onto barges [music] and
5:43floated them up and down the Nile,
5:45following the seasonal bloom of
5:47wildflowers, so their bees always had
5:49fresh pollen to work with. This was
5:51organized, deliberate, commercial
5:54beekeeping, [music] and it was happening
5:56more than 2,000 years before the Roman
5:58Empire existed. Honey in Egypt was not
6:01just food. It operated as currency,
6:04medicine, and sacred offering all at
6:06once.
6:07Workers at construction sites, including
6:09the laborers who built the Great
6:11Pyramids at Giza, were sometimes paid in
6:13jars of honey. Egyptian physicians used
6:16it to treat wounds, mixing it with
6:17[music] animal grease and plant fibers
6:20to create bandages that modern
6:21researchers have confirmed were
6:23surprisingly effective. Medical texts,
6:25[music] written on papyrus scrolls, some
6:28dating back to roughly 1,500 years
6:30before the common [music] era, list
6:32honey as an ingredient in over 500
6:35different remedies. They prescribed
6:36[music] it for eye infections, stomach
6:39ailments, burns, skin diseases, and
6:41surgical [music] wounds. And here is the
6:43thing that gets you. Modern science has
6:46validated many of these treatments.
6:48Honey has genuine, measurable
6:50antibacterial properties. The Egyptians
6:53figured this out through trial, error,
6:55and observation, thousands of years
6:58before anyone understood what a
6:59bacterium even was. Then, there was the
7:02religious dimension. Egyptians offered
7:05jars of honey to their gods,
7:07particularly to Min, the god of
7:09fertility, and to Ra, the sun god. The
7:12bee itself became a royal symbol, woven
7:15into the fabric of Egyptian identity.
7:17The pharaoh's formal title [music]
7:19included the phrase, "He of the sedge
7:21and the bee," linking the ruler of all
7:24Egypt directly to this tiny insect. When
7:27a pharaoh died, honey was placed in the
7:29burial tomb alongside [music] gold,
7:32precious stones, and weapons, because
7:34the Egyptians believed the afterlife
7:36required sustenance. And if you [music]
7:38were going to eat for eternity, you
7:40wanted something that would last
7:42forever.
7:43>> [music]
7:43>> As it turns out, they chose the one food
7:45on Earth that actually could. Egypt was
7:48far from the only ancient civilization
7:51captivated [music] by honey. Travel east
7:53to ancient India, and honey appears
7:55throughout the Vedas, sacred Hindu texts
7:58dating back roughly 3,000 years.
8:01Ayurvedic [music] practitioners
8:03prescribed honey for digestive problems,
8:05respiratory infections, and wound care.
8:08In Hindu mythology, [music] the god
8:10Vishnu was often depicted as a bee
8:13resting on a lotus flower, and the god
8:15Krishna was frequently associated with
8:18the color of dark honey. Travel further
8:20east to China, and honey shows up in
8:22medical texts from the Han Dynasty,
8:25roughly 2,000 years ago, recommended as
8:27[music] a treatment for fatigue, chronic
8:29pain, and poisoning. The legendary
8:32Chinese physician Shen Nong reportedly
8:34classified honey as a superior medicine,
8:37[music] meaning it could be taken
8:39long-term without harmful side effects.
8:41But, it was in ancient Greece where the
8:43cultural obsession with honey reached
8:45its peak. The Greeks believed bees were
8:48messengers from the gods. They called
8:50honey the food of the divine, and
8:51associated it with wisdom, [music]
8:53eloquence, and immortality. The Oracle
8:56at Delphi, the most important religious
8:58site in the entire Greek world, was
9:00sometimes referred to as the bee.
9:03Priestesses who served at the temple
9:05were called melissae, a word that
9:07literally translates to honeybees.
9:10Newborn babies were anointed with honey.
9:12The dead [music] were sometimes
9:13preserved in it. Honey touched every
9:15stage of a Greek life. Aristotle, one of
9:19the greatest thinkers in human history,
9:21spent years carefully observing bee
9:23colonies and documenting [music] their
9:25behavior. His observations were not
9:27always accurate. He believed the queen
9:29bee was actually a male king, for
9:32example. But, his writings represented
9:34one of the earliest attempts at
9:36systematic biological study, and the
9:38fact that he chose bees as his subject
9:41[music] tells you something about how
9:43central they were to Greek intellectual
9:45life. Athletes competing in the ancient
9:48Olympic Games ate honey before their
9:50events as an energy source, a practice
9:52that modern sports nutrition has
9:54essentially validated. Soldiers carried
9:57honeycombs into battle, and Hippocrates,
9:59the father of Western [music] medicine,
10:01prescribed honey for fevers, wounds, and
10:04ulcers. When Hippocrates wrote that
10:06honey cleans sores and ulcers, [music]
10:08softens hard ulcers of the lips, and
10:11heals running sores, he was writing a
10:13medical recommendation that wound care
10:16specialists in modern hospitals would
10:18still largely agree with [music] today.
10:20The Romans inherited the Greek obsession
10:22with honey, and being Romans, they
10:25industrialized it. Wealthy Roman estates
10:27maintained large apiaries with hundreds
10:30of hives. Beekeeping became a respected
10:32branch of agriculture, written [music]
10:34about by scholars and practiced by
10:36landowners across the empire. Virgil,
10:39arguably Rome's greatest poet, devoted
10:42the entire fourth book of his Georgics
10:44to bees. He described their colonies
10:46with a reverence that bordered on
10:48worship, comparing the hive to an ideal
10:50society, disciplined, productive, and
10:53selflessly devoted to the common good.
10:55[music]
10:56Roman soldiers used honey to preserve
10:58fruit during long military campaigns.
11:01Wealthy Romans poured it over roasted
11:03game, mixed it into spiced wine, and
11:06used it as the primary sweetener in
11:07virtually all of their cooking. Refined
11:10[music] sugar from sugarcane would not
11:12arrive in Europe for another thousand
11:14years. Until then, honey was the only
11:17option. And throughout all of this,
11:19across thousands of years and dozens of
11:21civilizations, one strange fact remained
11:24constant. Honey never [music] spoiled.
11:27Not in Egyptian tombs. Not in Greek
11:29amphoras sealed with wax. Not in Roman
11:32cellars. People noticed this. People
11:35relied on it, but nobody could explain
11:37why.
11:38That explanation [music] would take
11:40roughly 2,000 more years and the
11:42invention of modern chemistry. The
11:44science behind honey's bizarre
11:46immortality comes down to four [music]
11:48properties working together and each one
11:50on its own would be impressive.
11:52Combined, they make honey nearly
11:54indestructible. First, moisture content.
11:57Honey contains less than [music] 18%
12:00water. That number is critical because
12:03bacteria and microorganisms need water
12:06to survive and reproduce. They
12:08physically cannot grow in an environment
12:10that [music] dry. When bees make honey,
12:12they start with flower nectar, which is
12:15roughly 80% water. They pass the nectar
12:18from bee to bee inside the hive, each
12:21one adding digestive [music] enzymes and
12:23fanning their wings to evaporate
12:25moisture. By the time the process
12:27finishes and the bees seal the cell with
12:29a wax cap, the water content has dropped
12:32below the threshold where virtually any
12:34microorganism can survive. Trying to
12:36grow bacteria in honey
12:38>> [music]
12:38>> is like trying to grow a garden in the
12:40Sahara. Second, acidity. Honey's pH sits
12:44between roughly 3 and 4.5, which [music]
12:47puts it in the same range as vinegar or
12:49grapefruit juice. That level of acidity
12:52creates a hostile environment for the
12:54vast majority of bacteria and pathogens,
12:57which prefer neutral conditions close to
12:59a pH of 7. Between the extreme dryness
13:02and the acid, [music]
13:04honey is already one of the least
13:05welcoming environments in the natural
13:07world. But the bees added a third line
13:10of defense. During the honey making
13:12process, bees introduce an enzyme called
13:15[music] glucose oxidase from their
13:17salivary glands. This enzyme serves a
13:20very specific purpose. When it breaks
13:23down [music] the glucose in honey, it
13:24produces two chemical byproducts. The
13:27first is gluconic acid, which further
13:30lowers the pH and makes the honey even
13:32more acidic. The second is hydrogen
13:35peroxide.
13:36>> [music]
13:36>> Yes, the same hydrogen peroxide you
13:39might pour on a scraped knee to prevent
13:41infection. Honey is quietly and
13:43continuously producing its own
13:46antiseptic. Not in large enough
13:48quantities [music] to harm a person
13:50eating it, but in exactly the right
13:52concentration to kill bacteria on
13:54contact. This is the reason those
13:56ancient Egyptian wound treatments
13:58actually [music] worked. The honey was
14:00slowly and steadily sterilizing the
14:02wound from the inside. And then there is
14:04the fourth property, which ties the
14:06whole system together. Honey is
14:08hygroscopic. That means it actively
14:11absorbs and pulls [music] moisture from
14:13its surroundings. If a bacterium somehow
14:15lands on the surface of honey, the honey
14:18draws water [music] directly out of the
14:19bacterial cell through a process called
14:22osmotic pressure. The bacterium
14:25essentially dehydrates and dies [music]
14:27on contact. It is a passive, automatic
14:30defense system that requires no
14:32maintenance, no refrigeration, no
14:34preservatives, and no human
14:36intervention. Put all four together, low
14:39water content, high acidity, continuous
14:43hydrogen peroxide production,
14:45and osmotic [music] dehydration of any
14:48invading microorganism, and you have a
14:50substance that is hostile to virtually
14:52every form of microbial life on Earth.
14:55As long as the container stays sealed
14:57and no outside moisture gets in, honey
15:00will [music] remain unchanged for
15:02centuries, for millennia, for longer
15:04than any civilization in recorded
15:06history has lasted. Modern medicine has
15:09circled back to what the Egyptians
15:10[music] and Greeks knew intuitively. In
15:13hospitals across the world, medical
15:15grade honey is now used to treat chronic
15:17wounds, burns, and surgical incisions. A
15:21specific variety called manuka honey
15:23produced by bees in New Zealand that
15:25feed on the Manuka bush has become
15:28particularly valued [music] because it
15:30contains an additional antibacterial
15:32compound called methylglyoxal
15:35that works even when the hydrogen
15:37peroxide is neutralized. [music]
15:39Researchers have found that Manuka honey
15:41can kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria
15:44like MRSA, the superbug that terrorizes
15:47[music] modern hospitals. Think about
15:49that. A substance produced by insects
15:52using a process that has not changed in
15:54millions of years is now being deployed
15:56[music] against bacteria that have
15:58evolved to resist our most advanced
16:00pharmaceuticals. We spent decades
16:02building synthetic antibiotics. Some of
16:05the toughest infections we face respond
16:08to something bees figured out long
16:10before we existed, but despite all of
16:12its chemical armor, honey does have one
16:15vulnerability.
16:16Human carelessness. Add water, leave the
16:19lid off in a humid kitchen, or
16:22repeatedly dip a wet spoon into the jar,
16:25and you introduce [music] enough
16:26moisture for wild yeast to take hold.
16:29That yeast ferments the sugars, and the
16:31honey [music] transforms into something
16:33else entirely, which is actually how
16:35humans stumbled [music] into one of the
16:37oldest alcoholic beverages in history.
16:40Mead, [music] which is essentially
16:41fermented honey mixed with water, may
16:44predate both beer and wine. [music]
16:46Evidence of mead production has been
16:48found in pottery fragments from northern
16:50China dating back roughly 9,000 years,
16:54making it a candidate for the oldest
16:56intentionally produced [music] alcoholic
16:58drink in human history. The ancient
17:00Greeks drank it at festivals and
17:02rituals. Ethiopian culture developed a
17:04honey wine called tej that remains
17:07popular to this day. The Norse Vikings
17:09built an entire mythology around mead,
17:12believing that a magical brew called the
17:14mead of of
17:15which had been crafted by dwarves
17:17[music] from the blood of a murdered
17:18wise god named Kvasir, could grant
17:21wisdom, [music] eloquence, and creative
17:23inspiration to anyone who drank even a
17:26single sip. Viking warriors believed
17:28that the halls [music] of Valhalla
17:30flowed with endless mead served to them
17:32by Valkyries for all eternity. Across
17:35medieval England, Scandinavia, Poland,
17:38[music] and much of Eastern Europe, mead
17:41was the dominant alcoholic beverage for
17:43centuries, long before widespread
17:45[music]
17:45grape cultivation made wine accessible
17:48to anyone living north of the Alps. The
17:50English word honeymoon likely traces
17:53back to the medieval tradition of
17:54newlywed [music] couples drinking mead
17:56for an entire lunar cycle after their
17:58wedding,
17:59>> [music]
17:59>> a practice believed to promote fertility
18:02and good fortune. And it was medieval
18:04Christian monks who kept the art of
18:06beekeeping alive through the long
18:08centuries when much of the classical
18:10world's accumulated knowledge was being
18:13lost. Monasteries across Western Europe
18:16maintained extensive apiaries, though
18:18not primarily for honey.
18:21Their real motivation was beeswax.
18:23[music]
18:24The Catholic Church required pure
18:26beeswax candles for all religious
18:28services, [music]
18:29believing that beeswax produced by
18:31virgin worker bees was the only material
18:33holy enough to illuminate the altar.
18:36This doctrinal requirement created
18:38[music] enormous demand, and monasteries
18:40became the beekeeping centers of the
18:42Western world for nearly [music] a
18:43thousand years. The honey was treated
18:46almost as a secondary benefit. Monks
18:48used it for cooking, for brewing mead to
18:51sell at market, and for [music]
18:52preparing medicines, continuing healing
18:54traditions that stretched back unbroken
18:57to [music] the ancient Egyptians. For
18:58centuries, the basic practice of
19:00beekeeping changed [music] very little.
19:03Beekeepers used woven straw hives called
19:06skeps, and harvesting honey usually
19:08meant killing the colony
19:10>> [music]
19:10>> or destroying most of the honeycomb. It
19:12was wasteful and clumsy, but nobody had
19:15developed a better method. Then, in
19:171851, a minister [music] and amateur
19:20naturalist from Philadelphia named
19:22Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth made a
19:24discovery that transformed everything.
19:27While studying his own hives, Langstroth
19:30noticed something that other beekeepers
19:32had overlooked for thousands of years.
19:35Bees leave a very specific gap between
19:37their combs, roughly 3/8 of an inch. If
19:40the space is narrower than that, the
19:42bees seal it shut with propolis, a
19:44sticky plant resin they collect. If the
19:47space is wider, they build extra comb to
19:50fill it in. But at exactly 3/8 of an
19:52inch, they leave the gap open and use it
19:55as a passageway. Langstroth called this
19:58principle [music] bee space, and he
20:00realized he could exploit it. He
20:02designed a wooden hive with removable
20:04frames, each spaced precisely 3/8 of an
20:07inch apart. [music]
20:08Beekeepers could now pull out individual
20:10frames, inspect the colony for disease,
20:13harvest honey from specific combs, and
20:16slide the frames back into place [music]
20:18without destroying anything. The bees
20:21would simply continue building on the
20:22existing foundation. [music]
20:24This single invention, the Langstroth
20:26movable frame hive, became the
20:29foundation of modern beekeeping
20:30worldwide.
20:32>> [music]
20:32>> Langstroth patented the design in 1852
20:35and published a book called The Hive and
20:37The Honey Bee that became the definitive
20:39[music]
20:40reference for beekeepers across the
20:41English-speaking world. Virtually every
20:44commercial beehive in operation today is
20:46still based on his original concept. His
20:49invention transformed beekeeping from a
20:51destructive [music]
20:52seasonal harvest into a sustainable,
20:54repeatable, scalable agricultural
20:57practice, and it made the mass
20:59production of honey possible for the
21:00very first time in human history. By the
21:03middle of the 20th century, commercial
21:05beekeeping had grown into a major global
21:08industry. The United States alone
21:10maintained millions of managed colonies.
21:13>> [music]
21:13>> Beekeepers loaded their hives onto
21:15flatbed trucks and drove them thousands
21:17of miles across the country, renting
21:19their bees out to farmers who
21:21desperately needed pollination [music]
21:22for almond orchards in California,
21:25blueberry fields in Maine, apple groves
21:27in Washington state, and dozens of other
21:29crops. The honey itself was almost
21:32secondary to this arrangement. The real
21:34money was in pollination services
21:36because without honey bees and the wild
21:39bees that assist them, roughly one out
21:41of every three bites of food we eat
21:43would simply cease to exist. And then,
21:46in the autumn of 2006,
21:49beekeepers across the eastern United
21:51States started reporting something
21:53terrifying. [music] They were opening
21:55their hives for routine inspections and
21:57finding them empty. Not dead, empty. The
22:01adult worker bees had vanished. The
22:03queen was still there, surrounded by a
22:05small cluster [music] of young bees and
22:07plenty of stored honey, but the adult
22:09foragers were gone. They had left the
22:12hive and never returned. Nobody could
22:14find the bodies. Nobody could explain
22:17where they went. [music] Within a single
22:19season, beekeepers lost roughly 30% of
22:22their managed [music] colonies. Some
22:24operations lost over 90%. Scientists
22:27named [music] it colony collapse
22:28disorder, and the search for a cause
22:31consumed years of research and millions
22:33of dollars in funding. What they
22:35eventually found was not a single
22:37smoking gun. It was a web of
22:39interconnected stresses, each one
22:42capable of weakening [music] a colony,
22:44and all of them hitting at once. A
22:46parasitic mite called Varroa destructor,
22:49originally from Asia, had spread to
22:51colonies across the globe. The mite
22:53feeds on the fat bodies of developing
22:55bee larvae and transmits viruses that
22:58the immune system of the entire
23:00hive. At the same time, a class of
23:03agricultural pesticides called
23:05neonicotinoids, [music]
23:07which had become the most widely used
23:09insecticides in the world, was found to
23:11impair bees' navigation and memory at
23:14doses too low to kill them outright. The
23:17bees could forage, but they could not
23:19find their way home. Meanwhile,
23:22monoculture farming was destroying
23:23[music]
23:24the wildflower diversity that bees
23:26depend on for balanced nutrition.
23:29Chronic transportation stress from being
23:31trucked across the country weakened
23:32immune systems further. Climate change
23:35disrupted the timing between flower
23:37blooms and bee emergence from winter
23:39dormancy.
23:41Colony collapse disorder was not one
23:43problem. It was everything colliding at
23:46once. [music] Decades of industrial
23:48agricultural practices slowly eroding
23:50bee health until the system finally
23:52buckled. The crisis has not fully
23:54resolved. Managed honeybee colony
23:57numbers in the United States have
23:59somewhat stabilized, but only because
24:01commercial beekeepers have adopted a
24:03brutal replacement strategy. They
24:05aggressively split their surviving hives
24:08each spring, dividing strong colonies
24:10into two or three smaller ones, and
24:12introducing new queens to rebuild
24:14population numbers before the next
24:16pollination season. It works on paper.
24:19Colony counts stay roughly stable from
24:22year to year.
24:23But the underlying health of the bee
24:25population
24:25>> [music]
24:25>> has not recovered. Beekeepers are
24:28running faster just to stay in the same
24:30place. Winter losses that would have
24:32been considered catastrophic 20 years
24:34ago are now treated as normal operating
24:37costs. Wild bee populations face a
24:40grimmer picture. Solitary bees,
24:43bumblebees, and the hundreds of native
24:45pollinator species that do not have
24:47human beekeepers artificially propping
24:49them up continue to decline [music]
24:51across North America, Europe, and parts
24:53of Asia. A A published by researchers in
24:56the United Kingdom found that 1/3
24:59[music] of wild bee and hoverfly species
25:01were in decline. Several bumblebee
25:03species [music] that were once common
25:05across the American Midwest have
25:07effectively vanished from large parts of
25:09their former range. The ecological
25:12stakes are enormous. Bees and other
25:14pollinators are responsible for the
25:16reproduction of roughly 70% of the crop
25:19species that feed 90% of the global
25:22human population. If pollinator
25:24populations collapse permanently, the
25:26consequences cascade through the entire
25:29food system, far beyond losing jars
25:31[music] of honey on grocery shelves. We
25:34are talking about almonds, apples,
25:36avocados, [music] blueberries, cherries,
25:39cucumbers, and dozens of other crops
25:41that depend on insect pollination to
25:43produce fruit. And those grocery shelves
25:46have their own separate crisis.
25:48Global demand for honey now far exceeds
25:51what bees can naturally produce. And the
25:54gap has been filled by widespread fraud.
25:56Independent laboratory testing has
25:58repeatedly found that a significant
26:01share of honey sold in international
26:03markets is adulterated [music]
26:04with cheap corn syrup, rice syrup, or
26:07beet sugar. Some products sold under
26:10honey labels contain no actual honey at
26:12all. In 2013,
26:14the United States Department of Justice
26:17brought criminal charges against two
26:19major importers for smuggling over $80
26:22million worth of Chinese honey into
26:25[music] the country through shell
26:26companies in other nations to evade
26:29tariffs. The honey had been
26:31ultra-filtered to strip out all pollen
26:33grains, making its geographic origin
26:36completely [music]
26:36untraceable. Some shipments were
26:38contaminated with chloramphenicol,
26:40[music] an antibiotic banned from food
26:42products in the United States. The
26:45investigation became known as Honeygate,
26:47and it exposed just how lucrative the
26:50global fake honey trade had become.
26:53There is a grim irony in all of this. A
26:56substance that has survived perfectly
26:57[music] intact for 3,000 years inside a
27:00sealed Egyptian tomb can be cheaply
27:02counterfeited with a jug of corn syrup
27:04[music]
27:04and a misleading label. But despite
27:07every threat, honey endures. It endures
27:11because it has always endured. Long
27:13before any human understood glucose
27:15[music] oxidase or osmotic pressure or
27:18hydrogen peroxide, people recognized
27:20that this golden [music] liquid was
27:22fundamentally different from every other
27:24food in nature. They watched bread grow
27:27mold and meat
27:28>> [music]
27:28>> turn rancid and milk go sour. And then
27:32they looked at a jar of honey sitting
27:34untouched [music] on a shelf, unchanged
27:36after months and years. And they treated
27:38it as something set apart from the
27:40ordinary [music] world. They did not
27:42have the vocabulary of chemistry. They
27:44did not know about [music] pH levels or
27:46water activity or enzymatic reactions.
27:50They just knew that honey lasted. And
27:52because it lasted, [music] they gave it
27:53to their gods.
27:55The Egyptians sealed it in tombs beside
27:57[music] their kings.
27:59The Greeks anointed their newborns with
28:00it and fed it to the dead. The Romans
28:03[music] built estates around the insects
28:05that produced it. Medieval monks shaped
28:07an entire economy [music] from the wax
28:09those insects left behind. And when a
28:11curious minister in Philadelphia
28:13measured the gap between honeycombs
28:15[music]
28:15and found it was exactly 3/8 of an inch,
28:19he accidentally unlocked an industry
28:21[music] that now helps feed the planet.
28:23Think about that for a second. A jar of
28:25honey sitting on your kitchen counter
28:27connects you backward through time to
28:29Howard Carter brushing dust off an
28:31alabaster jar in a pharaoh's tomb in
28:341922.
28:36Further back to a prehistoric human
28:38clinging to a cliff face in Spain 8,000
28:41years ago, bees swarming around their
28:43head, a basket clutched in one hand.
28:46Further still to a Greek athlete eating
28:48honeycomb before a foot race at the
28:50ancient Olympics. The same substance,
28:53the same chemistry, the same small
28:55insect doing the same quiet
28:57extraordinary work it has been doing for
29:00millions of years before any human
29:02civilization ever existed.
29:05Honey does not just survive across the
29:07centuries. It connects us to them.
29:10Backward through time, across languages,
29:13religions, revolutions to something
29:16older than farming, older than writing,
29:18older than virtually everything we have
29:20built. And the bees that make it
29:22possible are still out there right now,
29:24visiting flowers, fanning their wings
29:26inside dark hives, turning nectar into
29:29something that refuses to die.
29:31>> [music]
29:31>> Whether we protect them well enough to
29:32keep that chain unbroken is a question
29:35we have not yet answered.
29:37>> [music]
29:37>> If this video taught you something you
29:39did not know about honey, subscribe to
29:41the channel and drop a comment telling
29:43us what surprised you most. [music]
29:44And if you want more deep dives like
29:46this one, smash that like button so we
29:48know to keep making them.

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